Cross-cultural communication （145）　

145) Golden Paris
In the 1920s, Paris, especially the world of painting, attracted unknown artists from all over the world, who engaged in lively discussions and sometimes even had wild parties late into the night with female models. The group of artists who were active during this period was called the Ecole de Paris, which also became the name for the entire era.

Among them was a Japanese painter named Tsuguharu Foujita. He is one of my favorite artists, and I have visited his exhibitions in Kansai multiple times. In the summer of 2022, I happened to come across a used book fair at a department store in Osaka and discovered a collection of essays by Foujita titled “One Arm: The Side Profile of Paris,” published by Kodansha's Literary Classics series, which recounts his memories of his time in Paris. The previous year, in 2021, I had watched the film “FOUJITA,” starring Odagiri Joe, so I thought I had a general understanding of Fujita's Parisian period. However, the film seemed to focus more on his eccentric behavior, such as his wild parties with his models, perhaps for commercial purposes. However, in his own essays, there were countless episodes that would make someone like me, who admires the Ecole de Paris, drool with envy?such as his youthful friendship with Picasso and the circumstances under which he met the legendary model Kiki.

During the pandemic, with no nighttime outings, I was enjoying a happy moment lost in my imagination of 1920s Paris through Fujita's essays when I remembered a movie that depicted something similar. Woody Allen has made several films set in Paris, and the one I watched just last year, “Midnight in Paris,” was exactly about the Ecole de Paris era. And he did it in his signature stylish and surreal way. Gil, a popular Hollywood screenwriter struggling with a new project, ends up going on a trip to Paris with his fiancee by chance. One night, after drinking too much at a bar, he waits for a taxi to take him back to his hotel. An old-fashioned car pulls up, someone calls out to him, and he gets in. When he arrives, he finds himself in 1920s Paris. From then on, he experiences this time travel several times in the late nights of Paris, always starting from the same place. Through the introduction of an American woman living in Paris at the time, he meets and chats with Picasso, Dali, and the novelist Hemingway. I wish they had included Fujita in that world...

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