Midnight in Paris (2011)
Owen Wilson: Gil
Photos
Quotes
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Gil : Would you read it?
Ernest Hemingway : Your novel?
Gil : Yeah, it's about 400 pages long, and I'm just looking for an opinion.
Ernest Hemingway : My opinion is I hate it.
Gil : Well you haven't even read it yet.
Ernest Hemingway : 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.
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Man Ray : A man in love with a woman from a different era. I see a photograph!
Luis Buñuel : I see a film!
Gil : I see an insurmountable problem!
Salvador Dalí : I see a rhinoceros!
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Adriana : I can never decide whether Paris is more beautiful by day or by night.
Gil : 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.
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Gil : Gil Pender.
Ernest Hemingway : Hemingway.
Gil : Hemingway?
Ernest Hemingway : You liked my book?
Gil : Liked? I loved all of your work.
Ernest Hemingway : 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.
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Gil : That's what the present is. It's a little unsatisfying because life is unsatisfying.
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Gil : These people don't have any antibiotics!
Adriana : What are you talking about?
Gil : 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.
Adriana : That's the problem with writers. You are so full of words.
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Gil : Hi Mr. Hemingway.
Ernest Hemingway : 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.
Gil : Were you scared?
Ernest Hemingway : Of what?
Gil : Of getting killed.
Ernest Hemingway : You'll never write well if you fear dying. Do you?
Gil : Yeah, I do. I'd say probably, might be my greatest fear actually.
Ernest Hemingway : It's something all men before you have done, all men will do.
Gil : I know, I know.
Ernest Hemingway : Have you ever made love to a truly great woman?
Gil : Actually, my fiancé is pretty sexy.
Ernest Hemingway : And when you make love to her you feel true and beautiful passion. And you for at least that moment lose your fear of death.
Gil : No, that doesn't happen.
Ernest Hemingway : 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 when the man who is brave and true looks death squarely in the face like some rhino hunters I know, or Belmonte, who's truly brave. It is because they love with sufficient passion to push death out of their minds, until the return that it does to all men. And then you must make really good love again. Think about it.
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Gil : Yes, but you're a surrealist! I'm a normal guy!
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Gil : I'm a huge Mark Twain fan. I think you can make the case that all modern American literature comes from Huckleberry Finn.
Ernest Hemingway : Do you box?
Gil : No. Well... Not really, no.
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Ernest Hemingway : I think a woman is equal to a man in courage. Have you ever shot a charging lion?
Adriana : Never.
Ernest Hemingway : Would you like to know how that feels?
Adriana : I don't think so.
Ernest Hemingway : You ever hunted?
Adriana : No.
Ernest Hemingway : You?
Gil : Only for bargains.
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Adriana : Well, good luck with your book and your wedding
Gil : 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
Adriana : But the important things
Gil : 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
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Gil : 500 francs for a Matisse? Yeah I think that sounds fair! You know, I wonder if actually I can pick up 6 or 7?
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Gil : You can fool me, but you cannot fool Ernest Hemingway!
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Gil : I'm jealous and I'm trusting. It's cognitive dissonance. F. Scott Fitzgerald talked about it.
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Gil : Thomas Stearns Eliot? T.S. Eliot? T.S. Eliot? Prufrock is like my mantra.
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[first lines]
Gil : This is unbelievable! Look at this! There's no city like this in the world. There never was.
Inez : You act like you've never been here before.
Gil : 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!
Inez : Why does every city have to be in the rain? What's wonderful about getting wet?
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Gil : You're very kind, but I wouldn't call my babbling poetic. Although I was on a pretty good roll there.
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Gil : That was Djuna Barnes? No wonder she wanted to lead.
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Gil : I'm having trouble because I'm a Hollywood hack who never gave real literature a shot.
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Ernest Hemingway : You'll never be a great writer if you fear dying, do you?
Gil : Yeah, I do. I would say it's my greatest fear.
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Gil : You know how I think better in the shower, get all those positive ions flowing.
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Gil : They are your friends and I have to admit I'm not quite as taken with them as you are.
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Gil : She's right, I recently read a two-volume biography of Rodin, and Rose was the wife, Camille the mistress.
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Inez : Why don't you tell them about the lead character that you're working on right now?
Carol : Yes! Oh, come on.
Gil : I don't like to discuss my work.
Inez : Well, dear, you don't have to tell them the whole plot, just the character.
Gil : No, No, No.
Inez : Okay. He works in a nostalgia shop.
Carol : What's a-- What's a nostalgia shop?
Paul : Oh, not one of those stores where they sell Shirley Temple dolls and old radios? And I never know who buys that stuff. Who'd want it?
Carol : I don't know.
Inez : Well, people who live in the past, people who think that their lives would be happier if they lived in an earlier time.
Paul : And just which era would you have preferred to live in, Miniver Cheevy?
Inez : Paris in the '20s, in the rain.
Gil : Wouldn't have been bad.
Inez : When the rain wasn't acid rain
Paul : I see. And no global warming, no TV and suicide bombing, and nuclear weapons, drug cartels.
Carol : Usual menu of cliched horror stories.
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Gil : Wow! Didn't take Gauguin long to start steaming in.
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Gil : Listen. Where I come from, people measure out their lives with coke spoons.
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Gil : What is it with this city? I need to write a letter to the Chamber of Commerce.
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Gil : This is unbelievable! Look at this! There's no city like this in the world. There never was.
Inez : You act like you've never been here before.
Gil : 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!
Inez : Why does every city have to be in the rain? What's wonderful about getting wet?
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Ernest Hemingway : [about Zelda] She'll drive you crazy, this woman.
F. Scott Fitzgerald : She's exciting and she has talent.
Ernest Hemingway : This month it's writing, last month it was something else. You're a writer, you need time to write, not all this fooling around. She's wasting you because she's really a competitor. Don't you agree?
Gil : Me?
Ernest Hemingway : Speak up for chrissake. I am asking, do you think my friend is making a tragic mistake?
Gil : I actually don't know the Fitzgeralds that well.
Ernest Hemingway : You're a writer. You make observations. You were with them all night.
F. Scott Fitzgerald : Can we not discuss my personal life in public?
Ernest Hemingway : She's jealous of his gift and it's a fine gift, it's rare. You like his work? You can speak freely.
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Ernest Hemingway : You writing?
Gil : A novel.
Ernest Hemingway : About what?
Gil : It's about a um... a man who works in a nostalgia shop.
Ernest Hemingway : What the hell is a nostalgia shop?
Gil : Y'know, a place where they sell old things, memorabilia. And, does that sound terrible?
Ernest Hemingway : 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.
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Gil : Hi, Mr. Hemingway.
Ernest Hemingway : 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.
Gil : Were you scared?
Ernest Hemingway : Of what?
Gil : Of getting killed.
Ernest Hemingway : You'll never write well if you fear dying. Do you?
Gil : Yeah, I do. I'd say probably, might be my greatest fear, actually.
Ernest Hemingway : It's something all men before you have done, all men will do.
Gil : I know, I know.
Ernest Hemingway : Have you ever made love to a truly great woman?
Gil : Actually, my fiancé is pretty sexy.
Ernest Hemingway : And when you make love to her you feel true and beautiful passion. And you for at least that moment lose your fear of death.
Gil : No, that doesn't happen.
Ernest Hemingway : 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 when the man who is brave and true looks death squarely in the face, like some rhino hunters I know, or Belmonte, who's truly brave. It is because they 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. Think about it.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald : Greetings and salutations. You'll forgive me, I've been mixing grain and grappa. Now this is a writer, Gil, yes?
Gil : Gil Pender.
F. Scott Fitzgerald : Gil Pender.
Ernest Hemingway : Hemingway.
Gil : Hemingway?
Ernest Hemingway : You like my book.
Gil : Liked? I loved, all your work.
Ernest Hemingway : 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.
Zelda Fitzgerald : Did you read my story? What'd you think?
Ernest Hemingway : There was some fine writing in it, but it was unfulfilled.
Zelda Fitzgerald : I might have known you'd hate it.
