Essay Questions

How does Gil's time travel enable him to become more content with his life in the present day?

Gil is an extremely nostalgic person at the start of the film; even the protagonist of his novel is the owner of a nostalgia shop. It is his primary characteristic, and it stems from his general discontent with his own life, and his fear, or reluctance, to do anything about it. He is in the wrong relationship with a woman who does not understand him, or his ambitions to be a novelist. He is in the wrong industry, and feels like he is frittering away his creative talents by writing commercial screenplays that he does not feel proud of, even though they are very successful.

He is captivated with the 1920s, and specifically with the Lost Generation that included Ernest Hemingway, F.Scot and Zelda Fitzgerald, Cole Porter and Gertrude Stein. He wants to be like them, both in a personal sense but also in a creative sense as well. He sees their glamor, their talent and their charismatic personalities and believes that he is a man in the wrong time. However, when he spends more time with his new found friends, he realizes that they, too, experience the same nostalgia that he does. They yearn for the Renaissance because they believe that it was the Golden Age. By witnessing their dissatisfaction with the present and nostalgia for a different age, Gil comes to realize that any time, or present day, can feel jaded and boring if one allows it to. This is an epiphany for him and makes him realize that he can change his present into what he wants it to be and therefore create his own "golden age", rather than wallowing in nostalgia, and wishing that he was back in the 'twenties.

What was the purpose of Allen's use of digital intermediate film?

Allen wanted the film to look beautiful, romantic, warm. He believed that people in traditional restaurants where there were old chandeliers on the walls and red-flocked wallpaper looked warm and intense, look more beautiful than they do when they are in a cold looking environment with the lights up in full. Using a color tinged light on the film was very flattering, and he believed added to the romantic ambience of the finished product.

This was accomplished by using warm color tints on the film's principle photography, filming mainly in the Fall sunshine, and keeping the camera still and in one position even when the characters and the background was moving. Allen wanted the film to be primarily a romantic fairy tale rather than anything else, and felt that a soft, overly-romanticized light was more conducive to achieving this feeling.