Guides at University of Pittsburgh
Robin Kear
Find resources related to the authors, film, artists, and music of the 1920s in America & Europe
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Midnight in Paris

Call Number: PN1997.2 .M537 2011

Midnight in Paris is Allen's charming reverie about a screenwriter hero named Gil (Owen Wilson) who strolls the lanes of Paris with his head in the clouds and walks right into his own best fantasy. Gil is there with his materialistic fiancée (Rachel McAdams) and her unpleasant parents, taking a break from his financially rewarding but spiritually unfulfilling Hollywood career--and he can't stop thinking that all he wants to do is quit the movies, move to Paris, and write that novel he's been meaning to finish. You know, be like his heroes in the bohemian Paris of the 1920s. Sure enough, a midnight encounter draws him into the jazzy world of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Picasso and Dali, and an intense Ernest Hemingway, who promises to bring Gil's manuscript to Gertrude Stein for review. Gil wakes up every morning back in the real world, but returning to his enchanted Paris proves fairly easy. The movie's on the side of gentle fantasy, and it has some literary/cinematic in-jokes that call back to a kind of goofy humor.

The Great Gatsby

Call Number: PN1997.2 .G738 2013

The Great Gatsby follows viable writer Nick Carraway as he leaves the Midwest and comes to New York City in the spring of 1922. Chasing his own American dream, Nick lands next door to Jay Gatsby, and across the bay from his cousin, Daisy, and her husband, Tom Buchanan. Nick is drawn into the captivating world of the rich and their loves and deceits. As he bears witness, he pens a tale of impossible love, incorruptible dreams, and tragedy, and holds a mirror to our own modern times and struggles.

The Aviator

Call Number: PN1997.2 .A94 2005

Follows the life of Howard Hughes, having already made a fortune improving the design of oil-drilling bits, who comes to Hollywood with an interest in getting into the picture business. It doesn't take long for Hughes to jump from producer to director of his first major film project, a World War I air epic. The film was a massive hit, and the eccentric inventor became a mogul in Hollywood, making Jean Harlow a star and enjoying a romance with Katharine Hepburn. But Hollywood's old-boy network never fully accepted Hughes, and in time his passion for flying began to reclaim his attentions. In time he began designing new planes, setting air speed records, flying around the world, and risking his life testing aircraft. Hughes also found time to romance Ava Gardner and founded his own airline, Trans-World Airlines. As his ideas became bolder and more eccentric, he gained many powerful enemies.