Paris | notable writer | Ray

Midnight in Paris , Woody Allen’s highest-grossing film to date, is a romantic-fantasy confection replete with a magical carriage that shepherds a downtrodden 21st-century writer (Owen Wilson) to Paris’ Jazz Age. There, he is inspired by a veritable who’s who of creative geniuses, including F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso. With the film now available on Blu-ray and DVD (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, $31 DVD or $36 Blu-ray), we provide a guide to some of the film’s famous faces. 

Josephine Baker The world-famous “Bronze Venus” fanned flames, found stardom and helped heal race relations in her adopted homeland of France.

Luis Buñuel Working at the vanguard of the French surrealist movement in cinema, Buñuel’s films were provocative, sensual, political and sometimes mad.

Salvador Dalí The painter’s spectacular, eccentric life is almost as indelible as the melting clocks and lobster telephones that exploded on his canvases.

Cole Porter One of the 20th century’s most nimble and beloved songsmiths, he crafted indelible hits like “Night and Day” and “I Get a Kick Out of You.”

Man Ray A multimedia innovator and performance artist, Ray, an American, worked in pursuit of liberty and pleasure in Paris, usually in the avant-garde.

Gertrude Stein A collector of geniuses and their output, this notable writer gave guidance to Cézanne, Matisse, Renoir and a litany of French painters.