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| Inside Milwaukee’s Oriental Theater. Photo courtesy of Shadowlink1014. |
One of the advantages of living near the Oriental Theater is seeing a Woody Allen movie, in this case “Midnight in Paris.” Only four others watched it with me and no one crinkled candy wrappers. I hate it when they do that.
I visited Paris for a month in the late ’80s, so many of Allen’s shots were familiar. My “art” smarts have improved in the past two plus decades, and I had no problems with the many references to artists (visual, writers, filmmakers, etc) from the 1920s, the era that the film’s hero (Owen Wilson), a hack writer in search of himself, wanders into. If you are a writer, it’s true that writers live in the past.
Anyway, following the flick, I strolled south down Farwell to the building where I dwell. The route was a bit depressing, with ever more shops closing, and I note here that my ticket for the movie was $7.50… “bargain rate,” chirped the lady who took my money. Well, an Allen movie is a bargain no matter how you slice it. Fellini movies, too.
When Allen dies, the world will die with him and no doubt he’ll still be wringing his neurotic hands right up to the end. But will his movies play well in heaven?
Speaking of nostalgia, my collection of memories from small town Iowa (Saddle Shoes) is ready to ship back to where the tall corn grows. It will be there in time for the July Fourth weekend gathering known as “Heritage Days.” My little hometown (less than 1,000 souls these days), is filled with empty boarded buildings, the same ones where I spent happy days roaming free when the town was prosperous. But that was 60 years ago. Allen got it right.
If you’ve watched his “Radio Days,” those were my days, never mind that we were Irish, not Jewish. I sat for hours in the Rialto Theater south of our town square, ogling ’40s flicks, lost in imagining what life would be like if I could only flee to Omaha, for that was where real men in black fedoras sipped magic with ladies in red lipstick, ladies who perhaps danced at the Warm Cradle Club. As the film was projected from a booth far above, it snaked down a beam of smoky blue, unfolding the wildest of my dreams. Plus there was popcorn and Rita and Garfield and revolvers hidden in slouchy berets.
Art is what we do to fill empty days. It may be a neurotic but let’s hear it for neurotics.
Woody knew. Woody knows. Woody is silly, political and brilliant. He’d be the first to agree methinks.
