In Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, George Clooney plays the eponymous movie star on a journey of self-discovery, confronting his past and present, while accompanied by his devoted manager (Adam Sandler). As Jay recalls momentous decisions he made throughout his life - choices that shaped the trajectory of his closest relationships as he shot to fame – the memories conjure themselves as if taking place on dreamy film sets.  For someone who spent his life in the spotlight, these significant moments are forever linked to show business - rooted in reality while also hovering just above it. 
 

To celebrate the release of Jay Kelly, the Paris Theater is proud to present All My Memories Are Movies: The Cinema That Inspired Jay Kelly. Kicking off November 22, the series showcases films Noah Baumbach has named as key inspirations for the narrative, characters, look and feel of Jay Kelly and its exploration of fame, identity, memory, the relationships that define us, and the vital choices we make that determine the course of our lives. Every selection reflects Baumbach’s own aim to make Jay Kelly an intimately epic story that’s both a visual feast and profoundly humanist…qualities that are all-too-rare in today’s cinematic landscape.

All My Memories Are Movies presents an international roster of 13 classic films that echo through Baumbach’s latest. As Jay travels across Europe to reconnect with his daughter before a film festival tribute in his honor, we recall similar memorable odysseys across cinema history in which characters reckon with their personal failures amidst public triumphs:  Marcello Mastroianni as a film director retreating into fantasy in Federico Fellini’s 8 ½, Joel McCrea as a filmmaker on a search for deeper meaning in Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels, Ingmar Bergman’s story of an aging professor traveling to accept an honor in Wild Strawberries, and Bob Fosse’s autobiographical masterpiece of showbiz self-reflection, All That Jazz.  Whether you’re reckoning with the darker sides of fame in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Best Picture winner All About Eve and Vincente Minnelli’s The Bad and the Beautiful, or delighting in the virtuosic filmmaking of classics like Jacques Tati’s Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday and Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion, you’ll no doubt recognize that the collective pleasures of these iconic films formed the foundation that brought the magnificent Jay Kelly to life.

Jay Kelly opens in select theaters, including at the Paris Theater in a special 35mm presentation, on Friday, November 14, and is on Netflix December 5.