Adriana: You’re engaged? You two must have a lot in common.
Gil: We have the big things in common…or, at least, we have the little things in common…that is, we both like Indian food…well, we both like pita (sic) bread.
— "Midnight in Paris,” directed by Woody Allen (2011)
From time to time a patient will be talking of the difficulties of dating. This guy is so sexy, but he has no job prospects. The other guy has graduate degrees and and great income, but there’s no chemistry. “yes,” I sympathize, “it’s hard to find someone who’s both reputable and hot.”
Seeing “Midnight in Paris,” I realize I’ve left out a variable: affinity.
Gil, played by Owen Wilson, is a dreamy, easy-going Hollywood screenwriter who would love to move to Paris, where he will take leisurely walks in the rain and write a novel. On the surface the film focuses on his love for the Paris of the 20s. The hero of his novel-in-progress runs a nostalgia store, selling items from the past, and on one of his midnight walks Gil wanders into the actual Paris of the 20s, where he meets such expatriates as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Cole Porter, and Gertrude Stein in the prime of their lives.
Rachel McAdams plays Inez, his fiancée. She’s educated, she’s from his home town,
she’s wealthy; in
fact, they are in Paris tagging along with her father, who is closing a big-bucks merger with a French firm. So she’s respectable.
On the other hand, her dad hates the French, her mom is an interior decorator, who’d love to interest them in an oak, Louis X1V, retirement home chair. “Only 14,000 euros,” says mom. I was thinking we’d wait until we actually bought a place, plus we’re kind of on a budget. “Well, cheap is cheap.” Inez herself disparages Gil’s novel, mocks walking in the rain, and flirts shamelessly with an old college friend.
Inez is an odd name for a girl from an all-American, Republican family. Woody Allen mentions the existentialists so often in earlier films that I’ll wager he is alluding to the Inez in Jean-Paul Sartre’s “No Exit.” A man and two women awaken after death to find themselves sharing a pleasant living room. “If
this is hell, “ they wonder,” where are the hot coals, racks and pincers?” It seems the punishment for each is to be stuck in a room forever — no sleep and no distractions — with 2 callous, self-absorbed, cruel companions. Gil is stuck on the vacation from hell.
After midnight, Gil meets Adriana, played by Marion Cotillard — now the mistress of Picasso, formerly the mistress of Modigiani, with a fling with Braque in between. She is intense, magnetic, the muse of painters — though one of the movies many hilarious scenes has Gertrude Stein critiquing to the grumpy Picasso whether he has captured Adriana’s beauty in his to-us-unrecognizable, fractured portrait of her (here are several actual Picasso paintings of his mistress Marie Therese Walter). Gil is taken with Adrianna, infatuated. She’s certainly sexy. But what do Adriana and Gil have in common? Adriana has no interest in living in 2010 with Gil. In fact she’s not even content with the ‘20s; she longs for the 1890s, the Paris of the Belle Epoque.
Gabrielle, played by Lea Seydoux, sells memorabilia from a flea-market sort of stall; and she’s not even the owner, so she’s not as reputable as Inez. She, too, is pretty, but she’s not charismatic like Adrianna. She’s quiet and easy-going, a bit like Gil. I notice the similarity of their names and clothing, and I’m reminded of Tom Tykwer and Krysztof Kieslowski’s “Heaven.” Cate Blanchett plays Philippa, a schoolteacher turned anarchist protester, and Giovanni Ribisi plays Philippe, the carabiniere who believes in her cause and throws his fate in with hers. As the film progresses, they begin to dress alike, even to look a bit alike (sounds creepy but it’s actually, gentle, poignant, and magical)
Gabriella isn’t tops in reputability or in sexiness, but she and Gil have an affinity. The meet when he hears her playing an old Cole Porter 78 at her stall. As the movie ends (spoiler alert!, they walk through the lights of Paris together in the rain.
Affinity, definition:
1) a sympathy marked by community of interest, a kinship.
2) an attraction to or liking for something.
It’s definition 1) that interests me here. Yes, I have an affinity for chocolate; but more importantly, I have an affinity with my best friends. We’re on the same page. And the opposite of affinity: She’s from a different planet.
This sort of affinity has something to do with liking, but it’s a mutual liking. A stalker likes the object of his affection, but they don’t have an affinity.
Affinity has something to do with fellowship, with having a common goal or project, as in “we’re both Giants fans.” But allies need not have affinity. In Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the men, hobbits, dwarves, and elves (plus a wizard and some tree ancestors) fight together in fellowship, but they don’t at all have common taste: stolid dwarves forge tools in dark caves. Elves dance light and ethereal.
Affinity certainly reflects common interests. Joey and I like the same books, same movies and tv shows (Justified!), the same vacations (warm beach, please!). Steve and I like Stanford women’s basketball, like to talk investing. Jake and I like music. Lu and I like existentialism. Betsie and I like plants.
Affinity can derive from the same taste or style or sense of humor. Art and I love to reminisce, to allude to songs and events we both remember from long ago. Laura and I like the same couch, the same tree.
And affinity usually involves similar values. Gil and Gabrielle are not materialistic. Joey and I like being available to our children; we were not strict parents, and we hang out with parents who seem to treat their kids in the same way. In Neal Stephenson’s 1999 novel, Cryptonomicon, young high-tech entrepreneurs, Avi and Randy, ask elderly Japanese construction magnate, Goto Dengo, for help in excavating WWII gold hidden deep underground in the Philippines. Goto Dengo helped bury it and was one of only 3 workers (another was the Chinese slave laborer Wing) to survive out of hundreds. He has kept the location, Golgotha, secret for 50 years because the love of gold cost so many lives. Avi and Randy do not have interests or style or humor in common with Goto Dengo. But Goto Dengo inflicted and survived many horrors in the war. Avi presents
A photo…my great-uncle and his family, Warsaw, 1937…I know you probably had no choice…but that’s what you did. I never knew him or any of my other relatives who died in the Shoah. I would gladly dump every ounce of that gold into the ocean just to give them a decent burial…But what I was really planning on doing was using it to make sure that nothing of the kind ever happens again.
Goto Dengo ponders this for a while, looking stonefaced out over the lights of Tokyo. Then he unhooks his cane from the edge of the table, jams it into the floor, and shoves himself to his feel. He turns towards Avi, straightens his posture, and then bows. It’s the deepest bow Randy’s ever seen.
The tension has been broken. Everyone’s relaxed, not to say exhausted.
‘General Wing is very close to finding Golgotha,’ Randy says, after a decent interval has ticked by. 'it’s him or us.'
'It’s us, then,' says Goto Dengo.
In psychotherapy, G says she went out with a new guy who was handsome, smart, has his own business… But? Well, in his closet, everything was lined up in order, and the shoes had dust protectors. Uh, oh, then you’ll never be able to let him see your place. Unfortunately not.
A few weeks ago we went to Andrea and Jeff's wedding in Los Angeles. The ceremony featured one of Andy's comedy improv colleagues reading from Sandol Stoddard Warburg
I like you and I know why.
I like you because you are a good person to like.
I like you because when I tell you something special, you know it's special
And you remember it a long, long time.
You say, Remember when you told me something special
And both of us remember
When I think something is important
you think it's important too
We have good ideas
When I say something funny, you laugh
I think I'm funny and you think I'm funny too…
And I like you because when I am feeling sad
You don't always cheer me up right away
Sometimes it is better to be sad…
I like you because if I am mad at you
Then you are mad at me too
It's awful when the other person isn't
They are so nice and hoo-hoo you could just about punch them in the nose...
If I break mhy arm, and if you break your arm too
Then it's fun to have a broken arm
I tell you about mine, you tell me about yours
We are both sorry
We write our names and draw pictures
We show everybody and they wish they had a broken arm too...
Affinity is not the only variable in choosing a mate. There are also love, concern, steadfastness, accommodation, and many more. But it’s up there with sexiness and reputability.
Comments