... a French artist who came to my art class at the University of South Florida to talk about the advantages of a semester spent studying art in Paris told us that the image of the City of Lights presented in such movies as AAIP and GIGI is a caricature that, even in the 50s, hardly resembled the real city at all.
shareWith all due respect: Is this surprising? Locations in movies and plays often don't remotely resemble the real thing -- especially in a movie like this, which essentially is a musical fantasy. The Moulin Rouge in Baz Luhrmann's "Moulin Rouge" also doesnt look anything like the real thing. And both movies were filmed almost exclusively on sets.
Absolutely!
shareAnd don't fall for April in Paris. :) There was a funny commercial years ago to that song that showed the havoc wreaked by the weather there in April for romantic tourists. I can't remember what it was advertising.
shareI believe it was for some OTC anti-allergy medication.
I forget which one.
The artist is right. You could never dance down the sidewalk in Paris because of the dog crap all over the place.
"I earn about 3 times what you likely do. My wife earns more...trailer trash."-Holiday Hobo
That happens all the time
shareWell, it's really a tribute to Gershwin when it comes right down to it (the setting just happens to be Paris) and the 19th century fantasy of having an artist's walk-up in Paris was a cliche even by the 1950s.
That said, having been to Paris twice, I can say it does capture a good portion of that perennial magic that visitors find so romantic about the city, at least in the older parts that aren't like every other megalopolis in the world.
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