Midnight in Paris Monologues

While on a trip to Paris with his fiancée's family, a nostalgic screenwriter finds himself mysteriously going back to the 1920s every day at midnight.

No, you can't, you couldn't pick one. I mean I can give you a checkmate argument for each side. You know, I sometimes think, how is anyone ever gonna come up with a book, or a painting, or a symphony, or a sculpture that can compete with a great city. You can't. Because you look around and every street, every boulevard, is its own special art form and when you think that in the cold, violent, meaningless universe that Paris exists, these lights, I mean come on, there's nothing happening on Jupiter or Neptune, but from way out in space you can see these lights, the cafés, people drinking and singing. For all we know, Paris is the hottest spot in the universe.

That's what the present is. It's a little unsatisfying because life is unsatisfying.

Adriana, if you stay here though, and this becomes your present then pretty soon you'll start imagining another time was really your… You know, was really the golden time. Yeah, that's what the present is. It's a little unsatisfying because life's a little unsatisfying.

Yes, but you're a surrealist! I'm a normal guy!

Thanks, I think you would like Inez she has a, a very sharp sense of humour and attractive, I wouldn't say that we agree on everything

Yeah, or actually maybe the small things, sometimes there is a little bit of a disconnect with the big things. She wants to live in Malibu and wants me to work in Hollywood… but i will say that we both like Indian food, not all Indian food, but the pita bread, we both like pita bread, I guess its called naan

500 francs for a Matisse? Yeah I think that sounds fair! You know, I wonder if actually I can pick up 6 or 7?

This is unbelievable! Look at this! There's no city like this in the world. There never was.

I don't get here often enough, that's the problem. Can you picture how drop dead gorgeous this city is in the rain? Imagine this town in the '20s. Paris in the '20s, in the rain. The artists and writers!

You're very kind, but I wouldn't call my babbling poetic. Although I was on a pretty good roll there.

They are your friends and I have to admit I'm not quite as taken with them as you are.

You know how I think better in the shower, get all those positive ions flowing.

I'm having trouble because I'm a Hollywood hack who never gave real literature a shot.

She's right, I recently read a two-volume biography of Rodin, and Rose was the wife, Camille the mistress.

If it's bad, I'll hate it because I hate bad writing, and if it's good, I'll be envious and hate all the more. You don't want the opinion of another writer.

I believe that love that is true and real, creates a respite from death. All cowardice comes from not loving or not loving well, which is the same thing. And then the man who is brave and true looks death squarely in the face, like some rhino-hunters I know or Belmonte, who is truly brave... It is because they make love with sufficient passion, to push death out of their minds... until it returns, as it does, to all men... and then you must make really good love again.

No subject is terrible if the story is true, if the prose is clean and honest, and if it affirms courage and grace under pressure.

Yes. It was a good book because it was an honest book, and that's what war does to men. And there's nothing fine and noble about dying in the mud unless you die gracefully. And then it's not only noble but brave.

The assignment was to take the hill. There were four of us, five if you counted Vicente, but he had lost his hand when a grenade went off and couldn't fight as could when I first met him. And he was young and brave, and the hill was soggy from days of rain. And it sloped down toward a road and there were many German soldiers on the road. And the idea was to aim for the first group, and if our aim was true we could delay them.

Picasso only thinks that women are to sleep with, or to paint.

If you're a writer, declare yourself the best writer. But your not, as long as I'm around, unless you want to put the gloves on and settle it.

I think a woman is equal to a man in courage. Have you ever shot a charging lion?