City of culture: Paris

When thinking about ‘cities of culture’, Paris instantly springs to my mind. Like many other romantic fools I have a bit of a love affair with the city and like to get carried away with the ‘idea’ of Paris. For me Paris represents art and creativity, as it has many museums, music festivals, and fashion shows in abundance. (I’d happily give my left arm to go to Paris fashion week just once...) Paris represented all of those things to me before I had even been there due to its overexposure in the media.

I’m going to focus specifically on Paris in films. As a lot of other cities of culture (London, New York etc.) when films are set in Paris, Paris becomes a main character, even appearing in the title in a lot of films for example ‘Midnight in Paris’, ‘Paris, Je T’aime’ and ‘April in Paris’. I feel that a lot of film makers decided to include ‘Paris’ within the title so audiences will instantly know what the film will be about as Paris represents romance and creativity.

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In terms of the skyline, Paris is recognisable and iconic due to certain landmarks, of course The Eiffel tower, but also the Arc de Triomphe and Notre Dame. These landmarks are always shown when films are set in Paris. As stated before, Paris represents romance and due to this a lot of romantic films are set in Paris such as 'Moulin Rouge' and 'Amelie'. These films represent Parisian life as being theatrical and whimsical. However, a lot of action films are also set in Paris, such as The Bourne Identity. 

Due to Paris being such an iconic city gaining a lot of media attention, landmarks and the culture of Parisian life becomes well-known amongst people who have never visited. This can cause problems as tourists gain certain expectations when visiting and may be disappointed by the reality of the city, rather than the image it creates for itself.