Director:
Thom Andersen
Starring:
Encke King
Release: 30 Jul. 04
IMDb
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Los Angeles Plays Itself
BY: DAVID PERRY
I don’t particularly care for Los Angeles and its surrounding
suburbs. L.A. is, with Rome, the epitome of “a nice place to visit, but I
wouldn’t want to live here.” Northern California’s far more amenable to me,
but the land of movies does nothing for this man of movies.
My East Coast state of mind was in full function as I watched Los Angeles
Play Itself, a documentary examination of the way the city has been
portrayed in films. Although I’d rather sit through 3-hours of New York
Plays Itself (though my call for a sequel to Looking for Richard fell on
deaf ears, I equally implore some unctuous and talented filmmaker to run
with this opening), I’m plainly dumbstruck by what director Thom Andersen, a
professor at the California Institute of the Arts, presents in his extended
essay. I might not be as willing to fault Chinatown, L.A. Confidential, or
Who Framed Roger Rabbit for the revisionism they do with their City as
Subject (as Andersen titles his third section, which deals with these
films), but while watching Los Angeles Plays Itself I began to understand
the reason so many Angelinos can stand living in a land of needless
red-tape, a statewide bureaucracy, health hazards, annoying tourists,
parades of poseurs, an inept transit system, and wretched weather. Sure,
most can be said about New York, but at least we have an expansive subway
system and great weather nine months out of the year.
Before I turn this into another article on city superiority (cf. the New
York Post’s Cindy Adams vs. the Boston Globe), I must admit that Andersen
himself admits to L.A.’s own shortcomings, quoting Roman Polanski: “There’s
no more beautiful city in the world, provided it’s seen by night and at a
distance.” Andersen agrees that “Los Angeles may be the most photographed
city in the world, but its also the least photogenic.” And, for that matter,
his willingness to question his state’s social problems are fully
articulated at the conclusion of the film as he considers the works of
Charles Burnett and Haile Gerima.
That’s likely why Los Angeles Plays Itself is the perfect explanation of the
cinema of this city. While the citizens of New York, Boston, Nashville,
Houston, Seattle, and Chicago will decry anything that doesn’t embrace even
the grittiest side of their turf, Los Angeles, a land of backdrop stand-ins
for many of these cities, almost seems ambivalent to its portrayal. Andersen
may have had enough of all the mistreatment of the Ines House, Union
Station, and Bunker Hill, but he’s the first one to recognize that Los
Angeles has done nothing to refute these portrayals (with one exception:
French director Jacques Demy). After all, the closest thing to a Woody Allen
or Martin Scorsese in Los Angeles is the constantly star-struck Henry Jaglom.
Andersen, even in 3 hours, cannot create a complete analysis, which means
that the film’s conclusion is bound to feel unfulfilling. Trading the works
of L.A. wünderkinds Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Ron
Shelton, themselves deserving of 3-hours of debriefing each, for the social
activism of the conclusion never feel completely relevant. I understand that
Andersen may feel the need to politick (in this movie season, who isn’t --
let’s not forget the visual jab at Bush in Harold & Kumar Go to White
Castle), but, with a film that doesn’t stray from the left cycle it
ultimately embraces, this feels unnecessary. Coming off of an intense
three-hour look at the city and its actors -- human, manmade, and natural --
a film that castigates Short Cuts but never touches Magnolia is proof that
even a third-rate city deserves a Decalogue-length cinematic investigation.
Nonetheless, nothing beats comparing Jack Webb to the “transcendental
simplicity” of Robert Bresson and Yasujiro Ozu -- and making the audience
agree.
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