It’s the city of light and love – or at least that is how Paris appears to outsiders who make their movies there. From Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris), and Gene Kelly (An American in Paris) to Gary Cooper (Love in the Afternoon), and Elizabeth Taylor (The Last Time I Saw Paris) – or, even more recently, Lily Collins in the Netflix series Emily in Paris – there has been a whole sub-genre of movies and TV dramas about expats living gilded lives within sight of the Eiffel Tower.
Even the city’s rodents have a measure of style. The rats in Pixar’s Ratatouille (2007) are far more discerning and cosmopolitan than the verminous creatures found in movies elsewhere.
In Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset (2004), the novelist played by Ethan Hawke needs only to spend a few hours in Paris, walking by the Seine and having high-minded conversations about life, love, and art, to rekindle his romance with Céline (Julie Delpy), a woman he hasn’t seen in almost a decade.
