Paris Blues

Ram Bowen (Paul Newman) and Eddie Cook (Sidney Poitier) have smoothly settled in Paris, where they work as jazz musicians at a local club most working nights.

Their reputation's solid and they work hard to maintain it, routine practise honing creativity, regular performance hot damn experiment, the vibrant chill nightlife.

Bowen's interested in musical composition and Cook tries to help him write, consistently generating new ideas inordinate spirited bright material.

Their act's established, they're part of the scene, living the life in grooves composing, when two American tourists show up one night in search of improvised l'amour.

They're on a well-earned two week vacation and didn't know what to readily expect, but Ram and Eddie weren't prepared for them either, and their resonant domestic echo.

Different traditions contend as they converse, as they consider relationships long-lasting, sure and steady conjugal comportment, the cookie cut stuck out in the 'burbs.

It's a lot to give up but there's so much to gain but everything's happening so quickly, and Bowen's the leader of his nimble band and his fellow musicians rely on him heavily.

He looks out for them anyways and tries to steer them away from soulless excess, relying on them like a coach or trainer, who works for the same productive team.

Was that a regular thing in the '60s, the '50s, the '40s, whenever?

Professional musicians working the same club every night and wildly drawing them in?

Does it still happen in Paris and New York or somewhere in Montréal that I'm unaware of?, if not I'd argue something's been lost, something beyond commercial value.

Imagine what you'd create if you worked that hard, what you'd routinely exceptionally come up with, if you never stopped to rest on your laurels, if life was a constant improvised rhythm?

I think old school musicians were more concerned with sounding good than with not sounding bad, but that's just a casual observation that isn't supported by vigorous research (does the absence of working class vitality within artistic spheres lead to a general spirit that's more academic than artistic?).

Imagine there were several exceptional bands that regularly played the same clubs in Montréal, and you could see them any night of the week, and they never gave anything less than outstanding?

Imagine they still played their instruments too and sought to etherealize with mad reckless solos, or jam here and there at times, as the drive of their audience compelled them?

Paris Blues captures a rhythmic lifestyle caught up with domestic and political intrigue, and celebrates musician's lives without focusing intently on the negative.

The negative taunts in every domain and it's great to see a film that celebrates the artistic life.

Relationships tempt and tantalize.

Resolute competing responsibilities.  

*Duke Ellington's music's incredible and there's an amazing scene where Louis Armstrong (Wild Man Moore) stops by to jam.

Midnight in Paris

Working within a light-hearted quaint sharply crystallized kitschy tradition, presenting thoughtful witty self-aware observations concerning creativity, Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris frankly endures its own self-destructive mechanizations as it simultaneously satirizes and elevates various philosophical/sociological/historical/. . . ical points.

Plus it has time travel.

Gil (Owen Wilson) wants to make the transition from writing screen plays to novels while daydreaming about moving to Paris. He trusts no one with his work, however, as he isn't yet prepared to subsume negative criticisms. He encounters a self-assured erudite slightly pompous handsome individual (Michael Sheen as Paul) to whose clarifications his fiancée (Rachel McAdams as Inez) takes a shine. Gil's able to interject the occasional colourful contradiction after travelling back in time to the Paris of the 1920s (which he proceeds to do every evening at midnight) and learning various facts about Hemingway (Corey Stoll), F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston), Picasso (Marcial Di Fonzo Bo), and . . . first hand, facts which Inez is quick to dismiss because he occupies a less prestigious position.

In the order of things.

Travelling through time raises some interesting points, most of which have likely been mentioned before. Would the novelty of a 21st century kitschy work make it seem literary in the early 20th? Would the novelty of taking a writer and placing him within a 21st century manifestation of the 1920s seem literary from a 21st century filmic perspective? Would the novelty of a literary comedic 21st century filmic perspective seem incisive from an atemporal disengaged discursive non-committal self-reflexive perspective? Would an atemporal disengaged discursive non-committal self-reflexive perspective seem comedic from the point of view of a dedicated modernist cultivating a particular artistic market, working within broad guidelines, an aspect, in reaction to Victorian counterpoints?

Bears.

Hemingway's lines become increasingly trite as Gil's gain critical momentum. As Gil comes closer to situating himself within a burgeoning movement's jouissance, his confidence increases. As his confidence increases within the imaginary, his stability pleasantly deteriorates in the symbolic.

And he succeeds.

Is Gil the greatest kitschy-filmic-literary-atemporal-discursive-disengaged-perpetually-productive sprout ever?

Perhaps, although, with the passing of time, these answers seem harder and harder to ephemerally tether to a shape shifting transformative meteorology, within which moments coyly whisper, "by the light of the sickle moon."

lol