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1
00:01:39,100 --> 00:01:41,099
This is the city:
2
00:01:41,100 --> 00:01:43,100
Los Angeles, California.
3
00:01:44,100 --> 00:01:46,100
They make movies here.
4
00:01:48,100 --> 00:01:50,100
I live here.
5
00:01:52,100 --> 00:01:58,099
Sometimes I think that gives me the right
to criticize the way movies depict my city.
6
00:01:58,100 --> 00:02:00,099
I know it's not easy.
7
00:02:00,100 --> 00:02:01,099
The city is big.
8
00:02:01,100 --> 00:02:03,100
The image is small.
9
00:02:05,100 --> 00:02:07,099
Movies are vertical.
10
00:02:07,100 --> 00:02:09,100
At least when they're
projected on a screen.
11
00:02:12,100 --> 00:02:14,381
The city is horizontal, except
for what we call downtown.
12
00:02:17,642 --> 00:02:19,962
Maybe that's why the movies
love downtown more than we do.
13
00:02:23,100 --> 00:02:25,100
If it isn't the site of the action,
14
00:02:25,392 --> 00:02:27,912
they try to stick its high-rise
towers in the back of the shot.
15
00:02:33,642 --> 00:02:35,642
But movies have some advantages over us.
16
00:02:37,059 --> 00:02:39,059
They can fly through the air.
17
00:02:39,309 --> 00:02:41,309
We must travel by land.
18
00:02:42,101 --> 00:02:44,101
They exist in space.
19
00:02:45,267 --> 00:02:47,267
We live and die in time.
20
00:02:48,600 --> 00:02:50,600
So why should I be generous?
21
00:02:55,476 --> 00:02:57,476
Of course, I know movies
aren't about places,
22
00:02:57,477 --> 00:02:58,809
...they're about stories.
23
00:03:00,600 --> 00:03:02,599
If we notice the location,
24
00:03:02,600 --> 00:03:04,600
...we are not really watching the movie.
25
00:03:07,600 --> 00:03:09,600
It's what's up front that counts.
26
00:03:11,975 --> 00:03:13,788
Movies bury their traces,
27
00:03:13,789 --> 00:03:15,599
...choosing for us what to watch,
28
00:03:15,600 --> 00:03:17,600
...then moving on to something else.
29
00:03:21,600 --> 00:03:23,599
They do the work of our
voluntary attention,
30
00:03:23,600 --> 00:03:27,142
...and so we must suppress
that faculty as we watch.
31
00:03:28,142 --> 00:03:31,600
Our involuntary attention
must come to the fore.
32
00:03:34,600 --> 00:03:36,599
But what if we watch with
our voluntary attention,
33
00:03:36,600 --> 00:03:38,600
...instead of letting the movies direct us?
34
00:03:42,600 --> 00:03:44,599
If we can appreciate documentaries
for their dramatic qualities,
35
00:03:44,600 --> 00:03:47,599
...perhaps we can appreciate
fiction films...
36
00:03:47,600 --> 00:03:50,142
...for their documentary revelations.
37
00:03:55,600 --> 00:03:57,599
And what if suspense is just
another alienation effect.
38
00:03:57,600 --> 00:04:00,600
Isn't that what Hitchcock taught?
39
00:04:02,600 --> 00:04:06,600
For him, suspense was a means of
enlivening his touristy travelogues.
40
00:04:07,600 --> 00:04:12,600
Then maybe I can find another way to
animate this city symphony in reverse.
41
00:04:14,600 --> 00:04:17,600
Maybe this effort to see how
movies depict Los Angeles...
42
00:04:18,600 --> 00:04:22,142
...may seem more than
wrong-headed or mean-spirited.
43
00:04:32,600 --> 00:04:34,599
Los Angeles, it is said,
44
00:04:34,600 --> 00:04:36,600
...is the most photographed
city in the world.
45
00:04:38,642 --> 00:04:40,641
If you walk around enough,
46
00:04:40,642 --> 00:04:42,599
...you'll start to notice...
47
00:04:42,600 --> 00:04:44,599
...the mysterious temporary signs...
48
00:04:44,600 --> 00:04:46,600
...that direct crew members
to a movie location.
49
00:05:06,600 --> 00:05:08,599
If you walk through the
right neighborhoods,
50
00:05:08,600 --> 00:05:10,599
...you'll see the long
rows of white trucks...
51
00:05:10,600 --> 00:05:12,600
...that mark and fence
off a location shoot.
52
00:05:19,600 --> 00:05:24,600
Los Angeles is where the relation between
reality and representation gets muddled.
53
00:05:25,309 --> 00:05:27,309
[Newspaper headline: 2 Charged in
Murder Like One in Film They Produced]
54
00:05:27,351 --> 00:05:30,600
Their film is about the killing
of a strip club mogul.
55
00:05:33,600 --> 00:05:34,599
Six years earlier,
56
00:05:34,600 --> 00:05:36,599
...the producer and the star
had conspired to murder...
57
00:05:36,600 --> 00:05:39,599
...the real owner of the strip
club where the film is set...
58
00:05:39,600 --> 00:05:41,600
...and take over his empire.
59
00:06:04,600 --> 00:06:06,599
The strip clubs made them rich,
60
00:06:06,600 --> 00:06:08,600
...but their movie flopped.
61
00:06:11,600 --> 00:06:13,599
A real movie shoot...
62
00:06:13,600 --> 00:06:15,599
...can create a better
public spectacle...
63
00:06:15,600 --> 00:06:17,600
...than the fake movie studio tours.
64
00:06:52,600 --> 00:06:54,599
In a city where only
a few buildings...
65
00:06:54,600 --> 00:06:56,600
...are more than a hundred years old,
66
00:06:57,600 --> 00:07:00,600
...where most traces of the city's
history have been effaced,
67
00:07:01,600 --> 00:07:03,599
...a place can become
a historic landmark...
68
00:07:03,600 --> 00:07:05,600
...because it was once a movie location.
69
00:07:08,600 --> 00:07:10,599
As it is for people,
70
00:07:10,600 --> 00:07:12,600
...so it is for places:
71
00:07:13,600 --> 00:07:16,600
Getting into the movies becomes
a substitute for achievement.
72
00:07:18,600 --> 00:07:20,600
Actors have head shots,
73
00:07:21,600 --> 00:07:23,600
...buildings get
architectural photographs.
74
00:07:33,600 --> 00:07:38,600
Plaques and signs mark the
sites of former movie studios.
75
00:07:50,518 --> 00:07:52,518
Streets and parks are
named for movie stars.
76
00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:01,600
Even movie writers.
77
00:08:05,600 --> 00:08:08,141
A small bust near the
Griffith Park Planetarium...
78
00:08:08,142 --> 00:08:09,599
...marks the spot...
79
00:08:09,600 --> 00:08:12,142
...where James Dean once played
a rebel without a cause.
80
00:08:13,600 --> 00:08:16,599
The inscription claims Dean
wasn't really a rebel:
81
00:08:16,600 --> 00:08:19,142
Those were only roles he played.
82
00:08:22,600 --> 00:08:24,599
But wasn't he more
of a rebel in life...
83
00:08:24,600 --> 00:08:26,600
...than in the movies?
84
00:08:27,600 --> 00:08:30,600
Where he always played
a milquetoast Oedipus,
85
00:08:31,600 --> 00:08:34,600
...trying not to murder but to
please an imperfect father...
86
00:08:35,600 --> 00:08:37,600
...who is either too stern...
87
00:08:45,600 --> 00:08:48,184
...or too soft?
88
00:09:07,100 --> 00:09:09,099
A narrow public stairway...
89
00:09:09,100 --> 00:09:10,641
...between Vendome Street...
90
00:09:10,642 --> 00:09:12,642
...and Descanso Drive
in Silver Lake...
91
00:09:13,100 --> 00:09:15,100
...has been named the Music Box Steps,
92
00:09:17,100 --> 00:09:19,641
...after the classic Laurel
and Hardy short...
93
00:09:19,642 --> 00:09:22,100
...filmed there in 1932.
94
00:10:44,100 --> 00:10:46,641
Some buildings that
look functional...
95
00:10:46,642 --> 00:10:48,642
...are permanent movie sets.
96
00:10:49,100 --> 00:10:51,641
A McDonald's in City of Industry...
97
00:10:51,642 --> 00:10:53,642
...is never open to the public.
98
00:10:54,100 --> 00:10:55,641
Here actors are paid...
99
00:10:55,642 --> 00:10:57,099
...so we can see them smile...
100
00:10:57,100 --> 00:10:59,100
...as they ingest their Big Macs.
101
00:11:03,100 --> 00:11:04,099
A roadhouse...
102
00:11:04,100 --> 00:11:07,099
...at the corner of Avenue Q
and 145th Street...
103
00:11:07,100 --> 00:11:08,099
...in Palmdale...
104
00:11:08,100 --> 00:11:10,100
...has never served a regular patron,
105
00:11:11,100 --> 00:11:13,099
...but it appears prominently...
106
00:11:13,100 --> 00:11:15,100
...in Swordfish and Brother.
107
00:11:31,100 --> 00:11:34,100
And other buildings that
have lost their purpose...
108
00:11:34,183 --> 00:11:36,183
...can be preserved
as movie locations,
109
00:11:37,100 --> 00:11:39,100
...like the Ambassador Hotel,
110
00:11:40,100 --> 00:11:42,099
...famous since 1968...
111
00:11:42,100 --> 00:11:44,099
...because Sirhan Sirhan...
112
00:11:44,100 --> 00:11:46,100
...assassinated Robert Kennedy there.
113
00:11:48,100 --> 00:11:50,100
Sometimes it works the other way around:
114
00:11:51,642 --> 00:11:53,641
A building constructed as a movie set...
115
00:11:53,642 --> 00:11:55,642
...takes on an afterlife.
116
00:11:56,642 --> 00:11:58,642
Mr. Blandings's dream house,
117
00:11:59,100 --> 00:12:01,099
...fictionally located in the
woods of Connecticut,
118
00:12:01,100 --> 00:12:03,641
...has been preserved as an
administration building...
119
00:12:03,642 --> 00:12:06,100
...at Malibu Creek State Park.
120
00:12:09,642 --> 00:12:11,099
Los Angeles...
121
00:12:11,100 --> 00:12:13,099
...may be the most photographed
city in the world,
122
00:12:13,100 --> 00:12:15,100
...but it's one of the least photogenic.
123
00:12:16,100 --> 00:12:18,100
It's not Paris or New York.
124
00:12:20,018 --> 00:12:22,018
In New York, everything
is sharp and in-focus,
125
00:12:23,100 --> 00:12:25,100
...as if seen through a wide-angle lens.
126
00:12:27,100 --> 00:12:29,100
In smoggy cities like Los Angeles,
127
00:12:30,100 --> 00:12:32,099
...everything dissolves into the distance,
128
00:12:32,100 --> 00:12:34,099
...and even stuff that's close-up...
129
00:12:34,100 --> 00:12:36,100
...seems far off.
130
00:12:37,100 --> 00:12:40,934
New York seems immediately
accessible to the camera.
131
00:12:41,100 --> 00:12:43,642
Any image from almost
any corner of the city...
132
00:12:44,100 --> 00:12:45,600
...is immediately recognizable
133
00:12:45,601 --> 00:12:47,100
...as a piece of New York.
134
00:12:49,100 --> 00:12:51,099
Los Angeles is hard to get right,
135
00:12:51,100 --> 00:12:53,642
...maybe because traditional
public space...
136
00:12:54,100 --> 00:12:55,641
...has been largely occupied...
137
00:12:55,642 --> 00:12:58,100
...by the quasi-private space
of moving vehicles.
138
00:12:59,767 --> 00:13:01,683
It's elusive,
139
00:13:01,684 --> 00:13:03,684
...just beyond the reach of an image.
140
00:13:04,100 --> 00:13:06,641
It's not a city that spread
outward from a center...
141
00:13:06,642 --> 00:13:09,642
...as motorized transportation
supplanted walking,
142
00:13:11,100 --> 00:13:14,099
...but a series of villages
that grew together,
143
00:13:14,100 --> 00:13:16,099
...linked from the beginning...
144
00:13:16,100 --> 00:13:18,100
...by railways and then motor roads.
145
00:13:19,100 --> 00:13:21,099
The villages became neighborhoods...
146
00:13:21,100 --> 00:13:23,099
...and their boundaries blurred,
147
00:13:23,100 --> 00:13:25,100
...but they remain separate provinces,
148
00:13:25,267 --> 00:13:28,099
...joined together primarily
by mutual hostility...
149
00:13:28,100 --> 00:13:32,100
...and a mutual disdain for the
city's historic center.
150
00:13:33,642 --> 00:13:37,099
Maybe that's why the movies turned
their back on their city of origin,
151
00:13:37,100 --> 00:13:39,099
...almost from the beginning.
152
00:13:39,100 --> 00:13:41,099
They claimed to come from Hollywood,
153
00:13:41,100 --> 00:13:43,100
...not from Los Angeles,
154
00:13:44,100 --> 00:13:48,099
...although the first southern California
studios weren't even in Hollywood,
155
00:13:48,100 --> 00:13:51,100
...but in another suburb with
an even more idyllic name:
156
00:13:51,642 --> 00:13:53,641
Edendale...
157
00:13:53,642 --> 00:13:55,641
...just north of Echo Park Lake,
158
00:13:55,642 --> 00:14:00,642
...where Jake Gittes would spy on
Hollis Mulwray in Chinatown.
159
00:14:02,100 --> 00:14:04,099
Mack Sennett had his studio there,
160
00:14:04,100 --> 00:14:07,100
...and when the lake
was drained in 1913,
161
00:14:08,100 --> 00:14:11,100
...he could improvise
a movie plot around it.
162
00:14:24,100 --> 00:14:26,391
The movies moved west,
163
00:14:26,392 --> 00:14:29,099
...and Edendale doesn't exist anymore.
164
00:14:29,100 --> 00:14:34,100
It somehow got lost between
Echo Park and Silver Lake.
165
00:14:36,100 --> 00:14:39,099
The movies claimed
to come from Hollywood,
166
00:14:39,100 --> 00:14:43,100
...even though there were more
movie studios in Culver City,
167
00:14:43,642 --> 00:14:48,642
...one of the small independent municipalities
tucked into the west side of Los Angeles.
168
00:14:50,100 --> 00:14:52,099
In the golden age of comedy,
169
00:14:52,100 --> 00:14:54,099
...when an urban
setting was required,
170
00:14:54,100 --> 00:14:57,100
...it was usually Culver City.
171
00:14:57,392 --> 00:15:03,100
But Culver City was "The heart of screenland"
only in the eyes of its civic fathers.
172
00:15:04,100 --> 00:15:06,641
The greater renown of
Hollywood so frustrated them...
173
00:15:06,642 --> 00:15:10,642
...that they once proposed appropriating
the name for themselves.
174
00:15:12,100 --> 00:15:15,100
Culver City would have
been renamed Hollywood.
175
00:15:15,642 --> 00:15:17,642
Why not?
176
00:15:18,100 --> 00:15:20,099
After all, Hollywood isn't just a place,
177
00:15:20,100 --> 00:15:23,100
...it's also a metonym for the
motion picture industry.
178
00:15:25,100 --> 00:15:29,099
But if you're like me and you identify
more with the city of Los Angeles...
179
00:15:29,100 --> 00:15:31,099
...than with the movie industry,
180
00:15:31,100 --> 00:15:34,099
...it's hard not to resent
the idea of Hollywood,
181
00:15:34,100 --> 00:15:38,642
...the idea of the movies as standing
apart from and above the city.
182
00:15:40,100 --> 00:15:42,642
People blame all sorts
of things on the movies.
183
00:15:43,642 --> 00:15:46,100
For me, it's their betrayal
of their native city.
184
00:15:46,642 --> 00:15:48,099
Maybe I'm wrong, but...
185
00:15:48,100 --> 00:15:52,642
...I blame them for the custom of
abbreviating the city's name to L.A.
186
00:15:53,642 --> 00:15:55,099
"Gotta find somebody in L.A."
187
00:15:55,100 --> 00:15:56,641
"Maybe he's not even in L.A."
188
00:15:56,642 --> 00:15:58,099
"How far did you say you're going?"
189
00:15:58,100 --> 00:15:59,641
"Los Angeles."
190
00:15:59,642 --> 00:16:01,100
"L.A.?"
191
00:16:01,642 --> 00:16:03,099
"L.A.'s good enough for me, mister."
192
00:16:12,600 --> 00:16:14,600
"L.A. was the gang capital of America."
193
00:16:16,600 --> 00:16:18,600
"Hello, L.A!"
194
00:16:21,600 --> 00:16:23,599
"Hello, Plissken.
195
00:16:23,600 --> 00:16:25,600
Welcome to L.A!"
196
00:16:27,600 --> 00:16:31,599
The acronym functions here as a
slightly derisive diminutive.
197
00:16:31,600 --> 00:16:33,599
Now it's become second nature,
198
00:16:33,600 --> 00:16:35,599
...even to people who live here.
199
00:16:35,600 --> 00:16:40,600
Maybe we adopted it as a way of immunizing
ourselves against the implicit scorn,
200
00:16:41,142 --> 00:16:43,600
...but it still makes me cringe.
201
00:16:44,600 --> 00:16:48,600
Only a city with an inferiority
complex would allow it.
202
00:17:09,600 --> 00:17:11,599
When people say "L.A.",
203
00:17:11,600 --> 00:17:13,725
...they often mean "show business."
204
00:17:13,726 --> 00:17:16,142
"I'm an actress..."
205
00:17:18,434 --> 00:17:21,434
[Did you ever see Massacre in Blood City?"]
206
00:17:21,559 --> 00:17:24,558
That's another presumption of the movies:
207
00:17:24,559 --> 00:17:29,599
That everyone in Los Angeles is part
of their "industry" or wants to be.
208
00:17:29,600 --> 00:17:30,808
Actually,
209
00:17:30,809 --> 00:17:33,599
...only one in forty residents
of Los Angles County...
210
00:17:33,600 --> 00:17:36,141
...works in the entertainment industry.
211
00:17:36,142 --> 00:17:38,600
But the rest of us simply don't exist.
212
00:17:40,600 --> 00:17:42,599
We might wonder if the movies...
213
00:17:42,600 --> 00:17:45,142
...have ever really depicted Los Angeles.
214
00:17:54,142 --> 00:17:57,142
The City as Background.
215
00:17:58,600 --> 00:18:03,142
At first, Los Angeles was just
a destination, not a place.
216
00:18:04,142 --> 00:18:06,350
Movie characters visited,
217
00:18:06,351 --> 00:18:08,600
...they didn't live here.
218
00:18:14,600 --> 00:18:16,599
"Are you sure we're still
in the United States?"
219
00:18:16,600 --> 00:18:18,600
"I think Los Angeles is."
220
00:18:19,600 --> 00:18:21,600
It was a resort, not a city.
221
00:18:28,600 --> 00:18:31,599
When its streets and buildings
appeared in movies,
222
00:18:31,600 --> 00:18:34,599
...they were just anonymous backdrops.
223
00:18:53,600 --> 00:18:57,599
Nobody called Los Angeles the
capital of the Pacific Rim...
224
00:18:57,600 --> 00:19:01,600
...or worried about how it stacked up
with the great cities of the world.
225
00:19:11,600 --> 00:19:14,599
The varied terrain and
eclectic architecture...
226
00:19:14,600 --> 00:19:19,600
...allowed Los Angeles and its
environs to play almost any place.
227
00:19:24,600 --> 00:19:26,141
Lake Arrowhead,
228
00:19:26,142 --> 00:19:29,141
...seventy-eight miles from
downtown Los Angeles,
229
00:19:29,142 --> 00:19:31,600
...could play Switzerland,
230
00:19:40,600 --> 00:19:43,599
...and Calabasas in the
San Fernando Valley...
231
00:19:43,600 --> 00:19:45,599
...could play the valley
of Ling in China...
232
00:19:45,600 --> 00:19:48,600
...after M-G-M excavated
some rice paddies.
233
00:19:55,600 --> 00:19:57,141
More often than not,
234
00:19:57,142 --> 00:19:59,599
...Los Angeles played some other city...
235
00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:02,600
...Sinclair Lewis's
Zenith in Babbitt...
236
00:20:10,600 --> 00:20:13,141
...Chicago in The Public Enemy...
237
00:20:13,142 --> 00:20:16,599
"Say, you can let me off here. I'm going
to meet my friends on the corner."
238
00:20:16,600 --> 00:20:21,600
Jimmy Cagney drops off Jean Harlow in front of
the new Bullock's Wilshire department store.
239
00:20:23,892 --> 00:20:29,599
Our Art Deco "Cathedral of commerce"
had opened in September 1929,
240
00:20:29,600 --> 00:20:32,600
...seventeen months before The
Public Enemy was filmed.
241
00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:36,599
It was a new kind of dry goods emporium,
242
00:20:36,600 --> 00:20:39,600
...located in the suburbs
for the motorcar trade.
243
00:20:40,600 --> 00:20:45,599
Presumably only locals would
recognize this Los Angeles landmark,
244
00:20:45,600 --> 00:20:50,142
...but as they drove aimlessly around what
is now called the Wilshire Center district,
245
00:20:50,600 --> 00:20:53,141
...anyone who knows
anything about Chicago...
246
00:20:53,142 --> 00:20:55,600
...might find the
cityscape strangely rural.
247
00:20:57,142 --> 00:20:59,141
"From Chicago?"
248
00:20:59,142 --> 00:21:01,600
"Not exactly. I came from Texas."
249
00:21:02,600 --> 00:21:04,599
In The Street with No Name,
250
00:21:04,600 --> 00:21:06,600
...Los Angeles played Center City.
251
00:21:12,600 --> 00:21:16,600
Again and again, it has
played a city with no name.
252
00:21:18,142 --> 00:21:22,600
Its landmarks are obscure enough
that they could play many roles.
253
00:21:23,600 --> 00:21:28,599
The most venerable of these landmarks is the
Bradbury Building at Third and Broadway,
254
00:21:28,600 --> 00:21:30,600
...dating from 1893.
255
00:21:32,142 --> 00:21:37,142
It was discovered by architectural
historian Esther McCoy in 1953.
256
00:21:37,600 --> 00:21:40,599
She claimed architect
George Herbert Wyman...
257
00:21:40,600 --> 00:21:46,600
...had been inspired by Edward Bellamy's utopian
vision of a socialist architecture in the year 2000:
258
00:21:47,600 --> 00:21:49,599
A vast hall full of light,
259
00:21:49,600 --> 00:21:54,142
...received not alone from the windows
on all sides but from the dome.
260
00:21:56,600 --> 00:22:02,142
But the movies discovered the Bradbury Building
before the architectural historians did.
261
00:22:02,600 --> 00:22:05,600
The earliest appearance
I know came in 1943.
262
00:22:07,600 --> 00:22:12,142
In China Girl, it played the
Hotel Royale in Mandalay, Burma.
263
00:22:17,600 --> 00:22:21,141
The following year, in The
White Cliffs of Dover,
264
00:22:21,142 --> 00:22:25,600
...it played a London military hospital
overflowing with wounded soldiers.
265
00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:35,142
Its first indelible role was in D.O.A.:
266
00:22:35,600 --> 00:22:39,600
Fatally poisoned by a luminous toxin
slipped into his drink at a jazz club,
267
00:22:40,600 --> 00:22:44,600
...Frank Bigelow has one day before
dying to track down his killer,
268
00:22:46,600 --> 00:22:50,142
...and he finds him at the Phillips
Import-Export Company...
269
00:22:51,142 --> 00:22:53,600
...room 427.
270
00:23:21,600 --> 00:23:27,600
The Bradbury Building was again the site of a
bizarre revenge killing in Indestructible Man.
271
00:23:29,142 --> 00:23:32,141
This time, an executed convict,
272
00:23:32,142 --> 00:23:33,599
...brought back to life...
273
00:23:33,600 --> 00:23:38,142
...and given superhuman strength by a
scientific experiment gone awry,
274
00:23:38,600 --> 00:23:42,600
...hunts the three sleazy hoodlums
who set him up to take the fall.
275
00:24:05,142 --> 00:24:08,142
In Marlowe, the mayhem was less lethal.
276
00:24:09,142 --> 00:24:12,142
Here the Bradbury Building
houses Philip Marlowe's office,
277
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:17,142
...which Raymond Chandler had located in a
shabby building on Hollywood Boulevard.
278
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:21,141
"Mr. Marlowe?"
279
00:24:21,142 --> 00:24:22,600
"Yes."
280
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:31,725
"What can I do for you?"
281
00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:52,600
The Bradbury Building had become just
another cliché in a film of clichés,
282
00:24:53,142 --> 00:24:56,142
...the most misanthropic of
all the Marlowe movies.
283
00:24:59,142 --> 00:25:02,599
Screenwriter Hampton Fancher
and director Ridley Scott...
284
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:07,142
...disagreed about employing the Bradbury
Building as a location for Blade Runner.
285
00:25:09,142 --> 00:25:12,142
Fancher argued it was
too familiar, overdone.
286
00:25:13,142 --> 00:25:14,599
Scott responded,
287
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:17,142
... "Not the way I'll do it."
288
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:23,599
He gave the building a new, more
elaborate facade through mattework,
289
00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:27,600
...and he turned the interior
atrium into a picturesque ruin.
290
00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:34,141
After a long overdue restoration
in the early nineties,
291
00:25:34,142 --> 00:25:36,142
...it went upscale.
292
00:25:38,600 --> 00:25:40,599
In Murder in the First,
293
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:43,142
...a period movie set in 1941,
294
00:25:43,600 --> 00:25:47,142
...it housed the offices of a
prosperous San Francisco lawyer,
295
00:25:52,142 --> 00:25:55,600
...and in Wolf, the office of a
prominent New York publishing firm.
296
00:26:00,142 --> 00:26:04,600
Now it has found a use that seems
consonant with its career in the movies.
297
00:26:11,142 --> 00:26:13,141
Another Blade Runner location,
298
00:26:13,142 --> 00:26:15,141
...Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis house,
299
00:26:15,142 --> 00:26:17,600
...has had an even longer movie career.
300
00:26:19,142 --> 00:26:21,599
The most massive of the
Mayan Revival houses...
301
00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:24,600
Wright designed around Los
Angeles in the twenties,
302
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:29,141
...it first appeared in
the movies in 1933...
303
00:26:29,142 --> 00:26:31,600
...as the home of a female auto tycoon.
304
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:38,599
The interiors are studio sets,
305
00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:41,599
...typical Warner Bros. Art Deco,
306
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:44,600
...as are some of the exteriors.
307
00:26:45,142 --> 00:26:48,142
Wright had left out the swimming pool.
308
00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:54,141
William Castle rediscovered it in 1958,
309
00:26:54,142 --> 00:26:56,600
...just before Wright's death.
310
00:27:03,142 --> 00:27:06,599
Vincent Price has offered
$10,000 to five people...
311
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:10,600
...if they can last the night in
this century-old haunted house.
312
00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:20,142
Once again, the interiors are
unrelated to Wright's architecture.
313
00:27:39,142 --> 00:27:43,600
In 1968 Gus Brown bought the
Ennis house and restored it.
314
00:27:47,142 --> 00:27:50,141
To help pay the maintenance
and preservation costs,
315
00:27:50,142 --> 00:27:53,599
...he began promoting
it as a location site,
316
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:55,599
...not only for movies and TV shows,
317
00:27:55,600 --> 00:27:59,142
...but also for infomercials
and music videos.
318
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:15,600
Blade Runner was his proudest catch,
319
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:20,599
...but my favorite is A Passion to Kill,
320
00:28:20,600 --> 00:28:23,599
...a low-budget Neo-noir film.
321
00:28:23,600 --> 00:28:25,599
It plays a psychiatric clinic...
322
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:29,600
...where a patient can sometimes
seduce her therapist.
323
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:48,600
But director Rick King allows the
architecture to upstage the action.
324
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:53,600
The Ennis house apparently
transcends space and time.
325
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:57,600
It could be fictionally
located in Washington...
326
00:28:58,142 --> 00:29:00,142
...or Osaka.
327
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:04,600
It could play an ancient villa...
328
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:11,600
...a nineteenth century haunted house...
329
00:29:14,142 --> 00:29:16,600
...a contemporary mansion...
330
00:29:19,142 --> 00:29:21,600
...a twenty-first century
apartment building...
331
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:28,599
...or a twenty-sixth
century science lab...
332
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:31,600
...where Klaus Kinski
invents time travel.
333
00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:35,141
"I got my blood into this..."
334
00:29:35,142 --> 00:29:36,599
And now you have it...
335
00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:38,599
Look, right in the palm of my hand.
336
00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:40,599
Time!
337
00:29:40,600 --> 00:29:44,600
"We can go back into the past
and change it as we wish."
338
00:29:49,142 --> 00:29:52,600
The Union Station is a more
recognizable landmark.
339
00:29:53,600 --> 00:29:56,600
As the major gateway to Los Angeles
in the forties and fifties,
340
00:29:57,142 --> 00:29:59,600
...it has been a location
for many movies...
341
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:03,600
...and a favorite site
for movie kidnappings.
342
00:30:06,142 --> 00:30:08,142
"Listen, madam."
343
00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:11,141
"You stole that."
344
00:30:11,142 --> 00:30:13,141
"Know what this is?"
345
00:30:13,142 --> 00:30:15,141
"- It's a game."
"- It's no game. Just walk."
346
00:30:15,142 --> 00:30:18,599
"- Why?" "Cuz if you don't, I'll
blow your fucking heart out."
347
00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:21,599
Through its corridors and
grand lobby have passed...
348
00:30:21,600 --> 00:30:23,600
...gangsters...
349
00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:27,600
...drug dealers...
350
00:30:31,142 --> 00:30:33,600
...political protesters...
351
00:30:43,142 --> 00:30:45,600
Munchkins...
352
00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:53,600
...even an alien in heat disguised
as a railroad conductor.
353
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:58,600
Yet Union Station hasn't
always played itself.
354
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:02,599
During its fallow days
in the early eighties,
355
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:05,600
...before its revival as an
interurban railway hub,
356
00:31:06,142 --> 00:31:08,600
...it was a police station
in Blade Runner.
357
00:31:11,142 --> 00:31:13,599
In the 1950 movie Union Station,
358
00:31:13,600 --> 00:31:17,141
...the only film in which
it has a starring role,
359
00:31:17,142 --> 00:31:19,600
...it is not located in Los Angeles.
360
00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:25,142
Actually it's never located
anywhere precisely.
361
00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:31,600
The station is only a commuter
ride from Westhampton,
362
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:35,600
...which would place it in New York City,
363
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:42,599
...yet one of the villains takes an
elevated train out of the station,
364
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:45,600
...suggesting Chicago.
365
00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:51,599
The police chase him into the stockyards.
366
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:53,600
This must be Chicago,
367
00:31:54,600 --> 00:31:57,600
...but what about those palm trees?
368
00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:42,599
In The Replacement Killers,
369
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:46,141
...Union Station played the Los
Angeles International Airport,
370
00:32:46,142 --> 00:32:48,142
...LAX.
371
00:32:55,600 --> 00:32:58,600
Our airport is certainly replaceable.
372
00:32:59,142 --> 00:33:02,600
The best anyone might say for it is
that it looks like all the others,
373
00:33:03,142 --> 00:33:05,600
...maybe just a little worse.
374
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:09,600
The railway terminal had been
designed as public space;
375
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:14,600
...The airport was designed
for crowd control.
376
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:22,599
It has been an inevitable if uninspiring
location for movies set in Los Angeles,
377
00:33:22,600 --> 00:33:27,600
...but some directors have tried to
sidestep its terminal blandness.
378
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:31,599
Clint Eastwood set The
Rookie in Los Angeles,
379
00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:37,600
...but he filmed the climactic airport terminal
chase at the San Jose International Airport.
380
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:50,141
In "Why Do Fools Fall in Love",
381
00:33:50,142 --> 00:33:53,599
...the "theme" restaurant in the
middle of the airport parking lot,
382
00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:56,600
...originally intended
as the control tower,
383
00:33:57,600 --> 00:34:00,600
...portrayed a passenger terminal.
384
00:34:14,142 --> 00:34:17,141
Of course movies lie about Los Angeles,
385
00:34:17,142 --> 00:34:21,600
...but sometimes they make us wish the real
city corresponded more closely to their vision.
386
00:34:25,142 --> 00:34:26,808
In Miracle Mile,
387
00:34:26,809 --> 00:34:30,141
...Johnie's Coffee Shop at
Wilshire and Fairfax...
388
00:34:30,142 --> 00:34:32,599
...has a fantastic revolving sign,
389
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:34,600
...and it's open all night.
390
00:34:35,600 --> 00:34:37,599
At the time the film was made,
391
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:39,599
...Johnnie's had no revolving sign,
392
00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:41,600
...and it closed before dinnertime.
393
00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:45,600
Now it's closed indefinitely.
394
00:34:48,600 --> 00:34:50,600
Other lies are simply benign.
395
00:34:51,142 --> 00:34:54,142
Government agencies sometimes
get fictional names.
396
00:34:55,600 --> 00:35:00,142
"Dr. Stevens, meet Special Agent Pomeroy
of the National Bureau of Investigation."
397
00:35:01,142 --> 00:35:02,433
"N.B.I.?"
398
00:35:02,434 --> 00:35:05,141
"You don't look like an N.B.I.
man to me, Mr. Pomeroy."
399
00:35:05,142 --> 00:35:07,142
"Well, you don't look
like a doctor, doctor."
400
00:35:07,143 --> 00:35:09,600
People have fake addresses.
401
00:35:12,600 --> 00:35:17,600
"Stark, Jim Stark. Here it is,
1753 Angelo. Well, well."
402
00:35:19,142 --> 00:35:21,142
Or fake phone numbers...
403
00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:24,142
"Lexington 0-five-five-four-nine."
404
00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:25,599
"What's the number?"
405
00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:27,599
"Five-five-five-seven-six-o-five."
406
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:31,141
"Five-five-five-four-four-eight-seven."
407
00:35:31,142 --> 00:35:34,600
"Five-five-five-sixty-nine-sixty-nine."
408
00:35:45,142 --> 00:35:47,141
"Write down my number..."
409
00:35:47,142 --> 00:35:51,142
"...five-five-five-six-three-two-one.
Got it?"
410
00:35:52,142 --> 00:35:53,599
"Wait a minute,"
411
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:57,599
"...five-five-five's not a real number.
They only use that in the movies."
412
00:35:57,600 --> 00:36:00,600
"No shit, honey. What do you
think this is? Real life?"
413
00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:05,600
Other lies are annoying.
414
00:36:06,142 --> 00:36:08,600
To someone who knows Los
Angeles only from movies,
415
00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:14,600
...it might appear that everyone who has a
job lives in the hills or at the beach.
416
00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:21,600
The dismal flatland between...
417
00:36:22,142 --> 00:36:25,600
...is the province exclusively
of the lumpen proletariat.
418
00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:30,600
And most of them live
next to an oil refinery.
419
00:36:51,809 --> 00:36:55,600
And in death they will rest
next to an oil derrick.
420
00:37:05,142 --> 00:37:08,600
A hillside house may be appropriate
for a hack composer...
421
00:37:20,600 --> 00:37:22,599
...or a drug dealer on the way up.
422
00:37:22,600 --> 00:37:24,599
"Where'd you get this furniture?"
423
00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:26,599
"Nice Italian lady picked this out."
424
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:28,599
"Oh, so nice. Gianni Versace, right?
Mike Tyson wears Versace."
425
00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:33,599
"David, come on. Take your feet off the couch. You
don't do that at your mother's house, do you?"
426
00:37:33,600 --> 00:37:36,599
"Nouveau anal, I think this is called.
But all right."
427
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:38,600
"And here... here... here...
coaster... coaster."
428
00:37:39,142 --> 00:37:42,141
Or a music promoter on the way down.
429
00:37:42,142 --> 00:37:43,600
"Terry Valentine."
430
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:46,600
"Very nice to meet you."
431
00:37:54,142 --> 00:37:55,142
"You know...
432
00:37:56,142 --> 00:37:59,142
...you could see the sea out
there if you could see it."
433
00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:05,142
But in reality, a bookstore clerk couldn't
afford to rent a house above Sunset Plaza,
434
00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:07,599
...even if it is, as she claims...
435
00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:09,600
"...small and kind of run-down."
436
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:14,141
A fixer with jetliner views,
in the local realtor jargon,
437
00:38:14,142 --> 00:38:19,142
...would still have rented for two or
three thousand dollars per month in 1995,
438
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:22,600
...no matter how much in need of TLC.
439
00:38:24,142 --> 00:38:27,142
Her bank robber boyfriend
might live in Malibu.
440
00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:30,141
And back in the sixties,
441
00:38:30,142 --> 00:38:33,141
...bohemian young people did
live by the sand in Venice,
442
00:38:33,142 --> 00:38:36,142
...although I don't remember
the Infinite Pad.
443
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:44,600
We may regard Cobra's Venice loft
as a relic of the golden eighties...
444
00:38:45,142 --> 00:38:48,142
...when product placement
superseded script-writing...
445
00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:53,600
...and movie cops abandoned the
suburbs to become urban pioneers.
446
00:39:10,142 --> 00:39:12,599
But what about a struggling
true-crime writer...
447
00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:15,600
...and an unemployed
photographer so cash-strapped...
448
00:39:16,017 --> 00:39:20,600
...they must recruit paying passengers for
their move from Pittsburgh to California?
449
00:39:24,142 --> 00:39:26,184
Yet when they arrive in Los Angeles,
450
00:39:26,600 --> 00:39:31,142
...they immediately take up residence
in a spacious Malibu beach cottage.
451
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:35,600
And I don't like geographic license.
452
00:39:37,226 --> 00:39:40,017
It's hard to make a theoretical
argument against it.
453
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:42,599
After all, in a fiction film,
454
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:44,600
...a real space becomes fictional.
455
00:39:45,600 --> 00:39:49,142
Why shouldn't a car chase
jump from the Venice canals...
456
00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:52,600
...to the Los Angeles harbor
thirty miles away?
457
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:19,599
Why shouldn't the exit from
a skating rink in Westwood...
458
00:40:19,600 --> 00:40:23,599
...open directly onto Fletcher Bowron
Square in downtown Los Angeles,
459
00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:25,600
...fifteen miles east?
460
00:40:28,142 --> 00:40:31,600
But one fiction is not
always as good as another,
461
00:40:39,600 --> 00:40:41,141
...and like dramatic license,
462
00:40:41,142 --> 00:40:44,600
...geographic license is usually
an alibi for laziness.
463
00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:48,600
Silly geography makes for silly movies.
464
00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:52,600
"I warned you I'd kill her."
465
00:41:01,142 --> 00:41:03,599
And the best Los Angeles
car chase movie...
466
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:05,141
...is stubbornly,
467
00:41:05,142 --> 00:41:07,142
...even perversely literalist.
468
00:41:08,142 --> 00:41:09,141
"Attention, all units..."
469
00:41:09,142 --> 00:41:12,599
...Roadblock being set up at
Torrance Mazda agency...
470
00:41:12,600 --> 00:41:14,599
One-Nine-O street
and Hawthorne Boulevard.
471
00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:16,142
"Use caution."
472
00:41:35,600 --> 00:41:39,142
Director Toby Halicki realized
Dziga Vertov's dream:
473
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:43,142
An anti-humanist cinema of
bodies and machines in motion.
474
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:50,599
His materialist masterpiece
was the first manifesto...
475
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:53,600
...for a cinema of
conspicuous destruction.
476
00:41:59,100 --> 00:42:03,599
It was also the first Southern Californian
movie Centered in the South Bay,
477
00:42:03,600 --> 00:42:07,599
...the unglamorous southern coastal
region of the Los Angeles basin...
478
00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:10,142
stretching from Long Beach to El Segundo
479
00:42:11,142 --> 00:42:14,600
...that would later become the
domain of William Friedkin...
480
00:42:17,142 --> 00:42:19,600
Quentin Tarantino...
481
00:42:20,142 --> 00:42:21,599
...and Michael Mann,
482
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:25,142
...who would accidentally rename the most
familiar icon of South Bay movies,
483
00:42:26,600 --> 00:42:28,600
...the Vincent Thomas Bridge.
484
00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:33,600
"Saint Vincent Thomas Bridge,
that's escape route number one."
485
00:42:34,600 --> 00:42:38,600
Vincent Thomas was San Pedro's representative
in the state assembly for many years,
486
00:42:39,600 --> 00:42:41,600
...but he hasn't been canonized yet,
487
00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:44,600
...not even in Pedro.
488
00:42:47,600 --> 00:42:49,141
Accidents happen,
489
00:42:49,142 --> 00:42:51,142
...but some lies are malignant.
490
00:42:52,600 --> 00:42:55,142
They cheapen or trivialize the real city.
491
00:42:57,600 --> 00:43:01,600
One of the glories of Los Angeles is its
modernist residential architecture,
492
00:43:03,142 --> 00:43:07,599
...but Hollywood movies have almost
systematically denigrated this heritage...
493
00:43:07,600 --> 00:43:09,600
...by casting many of these houses...
494
00:43:09,850 --> 00:43:11,850
...as the residences of movie villains.
495
00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:17,600
It begins with The Damned
Don't Cry in 1950.
496
00:43:18,600 --> 00:43:20,600
Frank Sinatra's Palm Springs retreat,
497
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:23,599
...designed by Stewart Williams,
498
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:26,600
...plays the home of a local gangster boss.
499
00:43:30,142 --> 00:43:32,267
Then in 1955,
500
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:35,599
...a band of psycho kidnappers
led by John Cassavetes...
501
00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:39,599
...holes up in a prototypically
mid-century modern house...
502
00:43:39,600 --> 00:43:41,600
...in the Hollywood Hills.
503
00:43:57,600 --> 00:44:01,142
And there has usually been something
sinister about the Ennis house.
504
00:44:02,600 --> 00:44:06,599
Its most frequent role is the
mansion of some gangster chieftain,
505
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:09,600
...often a representative
of the yellow peril.
506
00:44:16,142 --> 00:44:20,599
The most celebrated episode in Hollywood's
war against modern architecture...
507
00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:22,600
...is L.A. Confidential.
508
00:44:24,600 --> 00:44:26,600
Richard Neutra's Lovell house,
509
00:44:26,934 --> 00:44:31,599
...the first great manifestation of the
International Style in southern California,
510
00:44:31,600 --> 00:44:33,600
...plays the home of Pierce Patchett,
511
00:44:34,142 --> 00:44:35,599
...pornographer,
512
00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:36,599
...pimp,
513
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:38,599
...prince of the shadow city...
514
00:44:38,600 --> 00:44:41,142
...where whatever you desire is for sale.
515
00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:46,600
Actually director Curtis Hanson
greatly admires the Lovell house.
516
00:44:47,017 --> 00:44:50,142
He even gives it a special
credit at the end of the film,
517
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:54,142
...according it the honorific title
favored by its original owner:
518
00:44:54,600 --> 00:44:56,599
The Lovell Health House.
519
00:44:56,600 --> 00:44:58,599
Is it just a convention then?
520
00:44:58,600 --> 00:45:00,599
The architectural trophy house...
521
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:04,599
...is the modern equivalent of
the black hat or the mustache.
522
00:45:04,600 --> 00:45:06,600
It's nothing to take seriously.
523
00:45:07,600 --> 00:45:11,600
Well, the architecture critic of the
Los Angeles Times took it seriously.
524
00:45:13,850 --> 00:45:16,599
He cited L.A. Confidential
as some kind of proof...
525
00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:21,142
...that the utopian aspirations of
modernist architecture were bogus.
526
00:45:24,600 --> 00:45:25,599
He wrote,
527
00:45:25,600 --> 00:45:30,599
..."The house's slick, meticulous forms seem
the perfect frame for that kind of power..."
528
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:34,600
"Neutra's glass walls open up to
expose the dark side of our lives..."
529
00:45:35,600 --> 00:45:39,600
"...they suggest the erotic, the broken,
the psychologically impure."
530
00:45:42,142 --> 00:45:44,141
So now we know.
531
00:45:44,142 --> 00:45:45,599
As the movies have shown,
532
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:49,600
...these pure modern machines for
better living were dens of vice.
533
00:45:51,142 --> 00:45:52,141
In fact,
534
00:45:52,142 --> 00:45:56,599
...this fiction is contradicted not only by
the original spirit of the Lovell house,
535
00:45:56,600 --> 00:45:58,600
...but by its entire history.
536
00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:03,141
It was designed as a kind of
manifesto for natural living,
537
00:46:03,142 --> 00:46:07,142
...and it became a center for radical
left-wing political meetings in the thirties.
538
00:46:12,142 --> 00:46:15,600
There is one modernist architect
Hollywood lets off lightly:
539
00:46:16,142 --> 00:46:17,599
Pierre Koenig.
540
00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:21,599
Perhaps it's because he had a knack
for turning steel-and-glass cubes...
541
00:46:21,600 --> 00:46:24,599
...into Hollywood Regency
style mini-mansions.
542
00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:27,599
His Stahl house is an icon
of modern architecture...
543
00:46:27,600 --> 00:46:30,600
...and lately a movie star.
544
00:46:33,142 --> 00:46:34,599
In The Marrying Man,
545
00:46:34,600 --> 00:46:39,141
...it plays the Hollywood pied-Ã -terre
of a multimillionaire playboy,
546
00:46:39,142 --> 00:46:43,142
...although the film is set twelve
years before it was built.
547
00:46:44,142 --> 00:46:45,600
In The First Power,
548
00:46:45,809 --> 00:46:48,142
...it plays the home
of a police psychic,
549
00:47:09,100 --> 00:47:12,099
...and in Why Do Fools Fall in Love?
550
00:47:12,100 --> 00:47:15,099
It is the west coast base of Zola Taylor,
551
00:47:15,100 --> 00:47:17,100
...the female vocalist in the Platters.
552
00:47:20,642 --> 00:47:24,100
We feel bad when
Frankie Lymon trashes it.
553
00:47:29,642 --> 00:47:31,099
On the other hand,
554
00:47:31,100 --> 00:47:35,100
...the architect Hollywood most
loves to hate is John Lautner.
555
00:47:36,642 --> 00:47:37,933
In Twilight,
556
00:47:37,934 --> 00:47:41,099
...a Lautner house overlooking
the San Fernando Valley...
557
00:47:41,100 --> 00:47:44,100
...is a crooked cop's reward
for his corruption.
558
00:47:48,642 --> 00:47:51,100
"Nice place you got here...
559
00:47:51,642 --> 00:47:53,851
...It sure beats Los Feliz".
560
00:47:55,100 --> 00:47:57,100
"You're up above the smog."
561
00:47:57,642 --> 00:48:00,099
"Quite a pad you got here, man."
562
00:48:00,100 --> 00:48:03,099
A more elaborate Lautner house
in the hills of Beverly...
563
00:48:03,100 --> 00:48:06,099
...plays the Malibu beach house
of porn king Jackie Treehorn...
564
00:48:06,100 --> 00:48:08,099
...in The Big Lebowski.
565
00:48:08,100 --> 00:48:10,642
"How's the smut business, Jackie?"
566
00:48:11,100 --> 00:48:14,642
"I wouldn't know, dude.
I deal in publishing."
567
00:48:15,100 --> 00:48:18,099
Lautner's most famous
house is the Chemosphere,
568
00:48:18,100 --> 00:48:21,099
...a hexagon of wood,
steel, and glass,
569
00:48:21,100 --> 00:48:26,100
...raised above its hillside lot
on a single concrete column.
570
00:48:27,642 --> 00:48:29,641
It appears in Body Double...
571
00:48:29,642 --> 00:48:32,642
...as the bachelor pad of a
lunatic driller killer.
572
00:48:35,100 --> 00:48:37,641
Lautner's interiors may
be sometimes vulgar,
573
00:48:37,642 --> 00:48:40,099
...or excessively ostentatious,
574
00:48:40,100 --> 00:48:42,099
...but he can't be blamed for this one,
575
00:48:42,100 --> 00:48:47,100
...a bit of excessive art direction
designed to parody eighties excesses.
576
00:48:53,100 --> 00:48:57,100
The ultimate insult to Lautner's
work came in Lethal Weapon 2.
577
00:48:58,100 --> 00:49:00,099
The Garcia house on Mulholland...
578
00:49:00,100 --> 00:49:05,100
...is the home office of a drug ring
organized by the South African consulate.
579
00:49:05,642 --> 00:49:07,684
Enraged by their diplomatic immunity,
580
00:49:08,100 --> 00:49:11,642
...Mel Gibson pulls down their
house with his pickup truck.
581
00:49:13,642 --> 00:49:16,642
Not only is Lautner
slick and superficial,
582
00:49:17,100 --> 00:49:19,100
...he's incompetent.
583
00:49:20,100 --> 00:49:24,100
Lethal Weapon 2 is also the work
of a modern architecture fan.
584
00:49:24,642 --> 00:49:29,641
Producer Joel Silver is famous for his tasteful
restoration of a Frank Lloyd Wright house in...
585
00:49:29,642 --> 00:49:33,642
...Hollywood and a Wright-designed
plantation in South Carolina.
586
00:49:35,100 --> 00:49:38,099
Even though Lautner was Wright's disciple,
587
00:49:38,100 --> 00:49:42,642
...Hollywood's conventional ideology once
again trumped personal conviction.
588
00:49:58,642 --> 00:50:02,100
At least Silver has also trashed
post-modernist architecture.
589
00:50:05,100 --> 00:50:07,641
The thirty-four-story Fox
Plaza in Century City...
590
00:50:07,642 --> 00:50:10,100
...co-starred with Bruce
Willis in Die Hard.
591
00:50:15,642 --> 00:50:17,641
When a gang of high-stakes robbers...
592
00:50:17,642 --> 00:50:22,099
...posing as terrorists take over the
building and capture thirty plus hostages,
593
00:50:22,100 --> 00:50:25,099
...the FBI would sacrifice a
good number of the hostages...
594
00:50:25,100 --> 00:50:27,100
...in order to save the building.
595
00:50:27,642 --> 00:50:29,641
"What you figure the breakage?"
596
00:50:29,642 --> 00:50:32,099
"I figure we take out the terrorists...
597
00:50:32,100 --> 00:50:35,100
...lose twenty, twenty-five per
cent of the hostages. Tops."
598
00:50:35,642 --> 00:50:37,100
"I can live with that."
599
00:50:39,642 --> 00:50:42,100
But the rogue cop inside has other ideas.
600
00:50:46,100 --> 00:50:48,641
Among all the authority
figures on the scene,
601
00:50:48,642 --> 00:50:50,641
...he alone places people above property.
602
00:50:50,642 --> 00:50:53,100
"Get down, get the fuck down!"
603
00:50:53,642 --> 00:50:55,642
"Nail that sucker."
604
00:51:15,100 --> 00:51:18,099
The Fox Plaza played the Nakatomi Plaza,
605
00:51:18,100 --> 00:51:21,100
...the Los Angeles branch office
of a Japanese multinational.
606
00:51:22,642 --> 00:51:24,099
In the late eighties,
607
00:51:24,100 --> 00:51:27,642
...Japanese corporations did own
many of the local office towers.
608
00:51:30,642 --> 00:51:33,100
In the movies, they owned them all.
609
00:51:46,100 --> 00:51:50,100
"Jesus, if an elevator's gonna talk,
it should speak in American."
610
00:51:52,100 --> 00:51:56,642
There are a few Los Angeles landmarks
that almost always play themselves:
611
00:51:57,642 --> 00:51:59,100
City Hall...
612
00:51:59,642 --> 00:52:01,642
...Grauman's Chinese Theatre...
613
00:52:03,100 --> 00:52:05,100
...Griffith Planetarium...
614
00:52:06,100 --> 00:52:08,100
...the four-level freeway interchange...
615
00:52:09,642 --> 00:52:12,100
...the concrete channel of
the Los Angeles River...
616
00:52:18,100 --> 00:52:21,100
...the Eastern Columbia Building
at Eighth and Broadway...
617
00:52:26,642 --> 00:52:29,100
...the Bonaventure Hotel at
Fifth and Figueroa...
618
00:52:31,642 --> 00:52:34,100
...the Beverly Hills Hotel
at Sunset and Rodeo,
619
00:52:35,642 --> 00:52:38,100
...the Paradise Motel at
Sunset and Beaudry...
620
00:52:40,642 --> 00:52:43,100
Clayton Plumbers at
Westwood and LaGrange...
621
00:52:49,100 --> 00:52:52,100
Circus Liquor at
Burbank and Vineland...
622
00:52:55,642 --> 00:52:58,100
...Pink's Hot Dogs at
La Brea and Melrose...
623
00:53:02,642 --> 00:53:05,100
...the Memorial Coliseum
in Exposition Park.
624
00:53:15,100 --> 00:53:17,099
With hard wooden seats for all,
625
00:53:17,100 --> 00:53:20,642
...the Coliseum is the most
democratic American stadium...
626
00:53:21,100 --> 00:53:23,642
...and the last of its kind to survive.
627
00:53:24,642 --> 00:53:27,100
As a place where thousands
of people congregate,
628
00:53:34,100 --> 00:53:37,099
...like the enigmatic sniper
in Two-Minute Warning...
629
00:53:37,100 --> 00:53:39,642
...with a perfect aim
for aging movie stars,
630
00:53:57,642 --> 00:54:01,641
...or the "Invisible invaders"
in Edward L. Cahn's 1959 film...
631
00:54:01,642 --> 00:54:05,641
...who utilize a zombie to commandeer
the public-address system...
632
00:54:05,642 --> 00:54:08,642
...and deliver one of their
laconic ultimatums.
633
00:54:11,642 --> 00:54:13,100
"People of earth..."
634
00:54:14,100 --> 00:54:16,100
...this is your last warning.
635
00:54:16,642 --> 00:54:22,641
Unless the nations of your
planet surrender immediately,
636
00:54:22,642 --> 00:54:25,100
"...all human lives will be destroyed."
637
00:54:37,100 --> 00:54:40,100
And, of course,
there's the Hollywood sign.
638
00:54:43,100 --> 00:54:47,642
Since it marks quite literally the ascendancy
of Hollywood over the rest of Los Angeles,
639
00:54:48,642 --> 00:54:50,641
...I should despise it,
640
00:54:50,642 --> 00:54:53,099
...as I despise the Hollywood Walk of Fame,
641
00:54:53,100 --> 00:54:57,099
...where the stars cost the honorees
or their sponsors $15,000,
642
00:54:57,100 --> 00:55:00,100
...where the Hollywood
Blacklist still lives.
643
00:55:01,100 --> 00:55:04,100
There are stars for the enforcers...
644
00:55:09,100 --> 00:55:11,100
...and the informers,
645
00:55:13,100 --> 00:55:16,100
...but none for those they informed on.
646
00:55:17,100 --> 00:55:20,100
It should be called the
Hollywood Walk of Shame.
647
00:55:22,016 --> 00:55:25,516
But actually, I find the
Hollywood sign ressuring.
648
00:55:26,642 --> 00:55:31,100
Maybe I find it poignant that a decayed
advertisement for a real estate development...
649
00:55:31,642 --> 00:55:33,642
...could become a civic landmark.
650
00:55:35,100 --> 00:55:37,099
Or maybe it's just that
we have to love it...
651
00:55:37,100 --> 00:55:40,100
...because it's such a fat
target for outsiders.
652
00:55:40,642 --> 00:55:43,099
Like that expatriate
Englishman David Thomson,
653
00:55:43,100 --> 00:55:46,099
...who loves everything about America...
654
00:55:46,100 --> 00:55:48,100
...except what's worth loving.
655
00:55:49,100 --> 00:55:52,059
He loves Hollywood, but
not the Hollywood sign.
656
00:55:53,100 --> 00:55:54,641
He once wrote:
657
00:55:54,642 --> 00:55:58,099
"That HOLLYWOOD sign is so
endlessly funny, and dreadful...
658
00:55:58,100 --> 00:56:00,100
...and L.A. is proud of it."
659
00:56:05,100 --> 00:56:09,100
These are the landmarks that are
destroyed in disaster movies.
660
00:56:54,100 --> 00:56:57,100
Whenever the legitimacy of
authority comes into question,
661
00:56:58,100 --> 00:57:00,100
...Hollywood responds with disaster movies.
662
00:57:01,100 --> 00:57:03,641
And whenever there's a disaster movie,
663
00:57:03,642 --> 00:57:05,100
...there's George Kennedy.
664
00:57:05,642 --> 00:57:06,641
"Rosa, let's go."
665
00:57:06,642 --> 00:57:08,100
"Better not,."
666
00:57:18,642 --> 00:57:21,642
"Come on, Rosa. Come on,
settle down will ya?"
667
00:57:22,100 --> 00:57:25,100
"Earthquakes bring out the worst
in some guys, that's all."
668
00:57:28,642 --> 00:57:32,100
Disaster movies remind us how foolish
and helpless we really are...
669
00:57:33,100 --> 00:57:36,099
...and thus demonstrate our
need for professionals...
670
00:57:36,100 --> 00:57:38,100
...and experts to save
us from ourselves.
671
00:57:40,100 --> 00:57:43,100
They define the sources
of legitimate authority.
672
00:57:55,100 --> 00:57:57,099
We must depend on specialists,
673
00:57:57,100 --> 00:57:59,100
...but which ones can we trust?
674
00:58:00,100 --> 00:58:02,100
"I got through..."
675
00:58:03,100 --> 00:58:05,308
"...Can you get me a jack
hammer and a bolt cutter?"
676
00:58:05,309 --> 00:58:08,099
"Use a jack hammer and then
the roof will fall in."
677
00:58:08,100 --> 00:58:10,099
"Look, I think there are some
people alive in there..."
678
00:58:10,100 --> 00:58:11,641
"...and I'm gonna try and get them out."
679
00:58:11,642 --> 00:58:14,099
"Well, nobody else is and
you can't do it all alone."
680
00:58:14,100 --> 00:58:16,099
"I won't be alone..."
681
00:58:16,100 --> 00:58:18,100
"...he's coming with me."
682
00:58:26,100 --> 00:58:28,099
A priest can be useful.
683
00:58:28,100 --> 00:58:31,100
"We're gonna crash, we're gonna be
killed, I know we're all gonna be..."
684
00:58:33,642 --> 00:58:35,099
But not a politician.
685
00:58:35,100 --> 00:58:37,099
"Like the mighty fist of God..."
686
00:58:37,100 --> 00:58:40,099
"...Armageddon will descend upon
the city of Los Angeles..."
687
00:58:40,100 --> 00:58:44,099
"...the city of sin, the city of
Gomorroh, the city of Sodom."
688
00:58:44,100 --> 00:58:48,642
"...And waters will arise and
separate this sinful, sinful city..."
689
00:58:49,100 --> 00:58:51,100
"...from our country."
690
00:58:57,100 --> 00:59:02,099
Mike Davis has claimed that Hollywood takes a
special pleasure in destroying Los Angeles,
691
00:59:02,100 --> 00:59:05,100
...a guilty pleasure shared
by most of its audience.
692
00:59:06,642 --> 00:59:11,099
The entire world seems to be rooting for
Los Angeles to slide into the Pacific...
693
00:59:11,100 --> 00:59:13,642
...or be swallowed by
the San Andreas fault.
694
00:59:21,642 --> 00:59:22,641
In Independence Day,
695
00:59:22,642 --> 00:59:25,100
...who could identify with
the caricatured mob...
696
00:59:25,642 --> 00:59:29,100
...dancing in idiot ecstasy... to
greet the extraterrestrials?
697
00:59:30,100 --> 00:59:32,641
There is a comic undertone
of 'good riddance'...
698
00:59:32,642 --> 00:59:37,100
...when kooks like these are vaporized by
the earth's latest ill-mannered guests.
699
01:00:07,100 --> 01:00:10,099
But to me the casual sacrifice
of Paris in Armageddon...
700
01:00:10,100 --> 01:00:12,100
...seems even crasser.
701
01:00:13,142 --> 01:00:17,142
Are the French being singled out for punishment
because they admire Jerry Lewis too much?
702
01:00:18,142 --> 01:00:21,600
Or because they have resisted Hollywood's
cultural imperialism too fervently?
703
01:00:33,600 --> 01:00:37,600
In a sense, Hollywood's frequent destruction
of Los Angeles is just as crass,
704
01:00:39,142 --> 01:00:43,600
...but it's more often a case of
economic expediency than of ideology.
705
01:00:44,600 --> 01:00:47,600
Hollywood destroys Los
Angeles because it's there.
706
01:00:50,059 --> 01:00:53,141
Our film-makers don't really believe
the Los Angeles City Hall is...
707
01:00:53,142 --> 01:00:56,600
...a more resonant civic symbol
than the Empire State Building.
708
01:00:57,142 --> 01:00:59,142
But they are well
aware that it's closer.
709
01:01:15,100 --> 01:01:17,642
"This used to be a hell
of a town, officer."
710
01:01:21,100 --> 01:01:22,100
"Yeah."
711
01:01:27,642 --> 01:01:29,099
In disaster movies,
712
01:01:29,100 --> 01:01:32,100
...at least Los Angeles is
finally there as a character,
713
01:01:32,150 --> 01:01:34,650
...if not yet as a subject.
714
01:01:45,142 --> 01:01:47,142
James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler...
715
01:01:47,600 --> 01:01:50,142
...had made Los Angeles a
character in their novels,
716
01:01:50,600 --> 01:01:52,599
...and it became a
character for the movies...
717
01:01:52,600 --> 01:01:55,434
...when Chandler and Billy
Wilder adapted Cain's novel,
718
01:01:55,600 --> 01:01:57,600
...Double Indemnity.
719
01:02:01,100 --> 01:02:05,100
The sense of place was so precise that
Richard Schickel would later claim,
720
01:02:05,642 --> 01:02:09,642
..."You could charge L.A. as a co-conspirator
in the crimes this movie relates."
721
01:02:14,100 --> 01:02:16,099
Departing from Cain's text,
722
01:02:16,100 --> 01:02:19,099
...Chandler and Wilder created
a protagonist-narrator...
723
01:02:19,100 --> 01:02:23,100
...who has ideas or at least opinions
about the city around him,
724
01:02:24,100 --> 01:02:28,642
...and his voice-over commentary is addressed to an
esteemed colleague whose opinion he cares about...
725
01:02:29,100 --> 01:02:31,642
...and whose intelligence
he tries to emulate.
726
01:02:35,642 --> 01:02:37,100
"Office memorandum..."
727
01:02:38,642 --> 01:02:41,100
...Walter Neff to Barton
Keyes, claims manager...
728
01:02:42,642 --> 01:02:44,642
...Los Angeles. July 16, 1938.
729
01:02:46,642 --> 01:02:48,100
Dear Keyes.
730
01:02:49,642 --> 01:02:52,100
I suppose you'll call this a
confession when you hear it.
731
01:02:53,100 --> 01:02:55,100
Well, I don't like
the word "confession".
732
01:02:55,642 --> 01:02:59,641
I just want to set you straight about something you
couldn't see because it was smack up against your nose.
733
01:02:59,642 --> 01:03:01,641
It all began last May.
734
01:03:01,642 --> 01:03:03,099
Around the end of May it was.
735
01:03:03,100 --> 01:03:06,099
I remembered this auto renewal
near Los Feliz Boulevard.
736
01:03:06,100 --> 01:03:08,099
So I drove over there.
737
01:03:08,100 --> 01:03:12,100
It was one of those California Spanish houses
everyone was nuts about ten or fifteen years ago.
738
01:03:13,642 --> 01:03:16,100
This one must of cost
somebody about 30,000 bucks,
739
01:03:17,100 --> 01:03:19,642
..."that is, if he ever
finished paying for it."
740
01:03:20,642 --> 01:03:22,641
"I'm Walter Neff, Pacific All-Risk."
741
01:03:22,642 --> 01:03:24,099
Like Chandler and Wilder,
742
01:03:24,100 --> 01:03:26,100
...Walter Neff is a smart aleck and a snob.
743
01:03:27,100 --> 01:03:29,099
"Is there anything I can do?"
744
01:03:29,100 --> 01:03:30,641
"The insurance ran out on the fifteenth."
745
01:03:30,642 --> 01:03:33,922
I'd hate to think of your having a smashed
fender or something while you're not...
746
01:03:34,642 --> 01:03:36,642
"...fully covered."
747
01:03:37,100 --> 01:03:39,100
"Perhaps I know what you mean, Mr. Neff..."
748
01:03:39,642 --> 01:03:41,099
"...I was just taking a sun bath."
749
01:03:41,100 --> 01:03:43,099
"No pigeons around, I hope."
750
01:03:43,100 --> 01:03:44,641
And a bit of an asshole,
751
01:03:44,642 --> 01:03:46,642
...although less of one
than the man he murders.
752
01:03:47,642 --> 01:03:50,099
"Next thing you'll tell me I
need earthquake insurance,"
753
01:03:50,100 --> 01:03:52,099
"...and lightning insurance,
and hail insurance..."
754
01:03:52,100 --> 01:03:56,641
"If we bought all the insurance they could think up,
we'd stay broke paying for it, wouldn't we, honey?"
755
01:03:56,642 --> 01:04:00,099
"What keeps us broke is your going out
and buying five hats at a crack."
756
01:04:00,100 --> 01:04:02,642
"Who needs a hat in California?"
757
01:04:04,642 --> 01:04:07,100
And less of a monster than
his partner in crime.
758
01:04:15,642 --> 01:04:16,962
"Ok. This has got to be fast..."
759
01:04:17,100 --> 01:04:20,099
...Here, take his hat... Pick up
his crutches back on the tracks.
760
01:04:20,100 --> 01:04:24,099
The murder that inspired Cain's novel
had occurred fifteen years earlier...
761
01:04:24,100 --> 01:04:26,100
...in Queen's Village, New York,
762
01:04:27,642 --> 01:04:33,642
...but the crime seemed to fit the rootlessness and moral
corruption of the southern California middle class.
763
01:04:36,100 --> 01:04:40,099
Double Indemnity and the Cain
adaptations that followed it...
764
01:04:40,100 --> 01:04:45,100
...convinced everyone that Los Angeles is
the world capital of adultery and murder.
765
01:04:45,517 --> 01:04:47,642
"Okay, baby, that's it."
766
01:04:48,100 --> 01:04:50,642
"What's the matter, aren't
you going to kiss me?"
767
01:04:55,100 --> 01:04:57,642
"It's straight down the line, isn't it?"
768
01:05:02,100 --> 01:05:04,100
"I love you, Walter."
769
01:05:04,642 --> 01:05:07,100
"I love you, baby."
770
01:05:10,642 --> 01:05:13,100
Nowhere else is evil so banal.
771
01:05:17,100 --> 01:05:21,099
Double Indemnity evokes Los Angeles
without much location shooting,
772
01:05:21,100 --> 01:05:23,100
...but each location is memorable:
773
01:05:24,642 --> 01:05:26,642
The Glendale train station at night,
774
01:05:30,100 --> 01:05:33,100
...a street corner identified
as Vermont and Franklin...
775
01:05:34,642 --> 01:05:37,100
...although actually it's
Hollywood and Western,
776
01:05:38,642 --> 01:05:41,642
...the exterior of
Jerry's Market on Melrose,
777
01:05:50,642 --> 01:05:56,099
...and the Spanish Colonial Revival house that
plays the residence of Phyllis Dietrichson,
778
01:05:56,100 --> 01:05:59,100
...her husband, and her step-daughter.
779
01:05:59,225 --> 01:06:03,100
Neff's voice-over places this
house in the hills of Los Feliz,
780
01:06:03,642 --> 01:06:06,100
...and that location seems right,
781
01:06:07,642 --> 01:06:10,641
...although the actual house
is a few miles to the west,
782
01:06:10,642 --> 01:06:13,100
...just above the north
end of Vine Street,
783
01:06:13,642 --> 01:06:16,100
...close to Hollywoodland
where Cain had placed it.
784
01:06:18,100 --> 01:06:23,100
They must have searched for a house that matched
this description as closely as possible:
785
01:06:23,642 --> 01:06:25,642
It was built cock-eyed.
786
01:06:26,642 --> 01:06:29,100
The garage was under the house,
787
01:06:31,642 --> 01:06:33,642
...the first floor was over that,
788
01:06:35,100 --> 01:06:40,100
...and the rest of it was spilled up the
hill anyway they could get it in.
789
01:06:44,100 --> 01:06:48,100
Although all the interiors
were filmed on studio sets,
790
01:06:49,100 --> 01:06:51,100
...Wilder stuck close to reality here,
791
01:06:52,100 --> 01:06:56,100
...taking his inspiration from the
dramatic entry hall staircase.
792
01:06:58,100 --> 01:07:02,100
He simply moved the living room from the left
side of the entry hall to the right side.
793
01:07:05,100 --> 01:07:08,099
For Wilder, a consistent modernist,
794
01:07:08,100 --> 01:07:12,099
...the phony historicism of the
architecture and interior decor...
795
01:07:12,100 --> 01:07:16,100
...reflects the dishonesty of
the lives contained within.
796
01:07:19,100 --> 01:07:21,641
But tastes have changed.
797
01:07:21,642 --> 01:07:26,099
Now we all love those red-tile roofs
and that wrought iron grillwork...
798
01:07:26,100 --> 01:07:28,100
...and would do anything
to preserve them.
799
01:07:31,100 --> 01:07:35,100
So just as modernist architecture
connotes epicene villainy,
800
01:07:35,642 --> 01:07:40,100
...the Spanish Colonial Revival
suggests petty bourgeois good taste.
801
01:07:46,100 --> 01:07:50,100
It's the ideal home for a good-bad
call girl ripe for reform...
802
01:07:59,642 --> 01:08:02,100
...or a vigilante hero out for revenge.
803
01:08:06,100 --> 01:08:10,099
Genteel respectability is the
message in Mildred Pierce,
804
01:08:10,100 --> 01:08:13,099
...Hollywood's second version
of a James M. Cain novel,
805
01:08:13,100 --> 01:08:16,100
...in which the suburbs of Los
Angeles have a bit part.
806
01:08:19,100 --> 01:08:22,099
"We lived on Corvallis Street,
where all the houses looked alike."
807
01:08:22,100 --> 01:08:24,100
Ours was number eleven-forty-three.
808
01:08:25,642 --> 01:08:27,100
It's an odd observation...
809
01:08:27,642 --> 01:08:30,100
...since the houses we see
don't all look alike,
810
01:08:30,642 --> 01:08:33,100
...but a typical criticism of Los Angeles.
811
01:08:34,100 --> 01:08:36,099
If you don't like one thing,
812
01:08:36,100 --> 01:08:38,642
...complain about its opposite as well.
813
01:08:39,642 --> 01:08:41,641
The architecture is too eclectic,
814
01:08:41,642 --> 01:08:43,642
...but it's also too uniform.
815
01:08:50,100 --> 01:08:53,100
Once again, the drama ends in murder.
816
01:09:09,100 --> 01:09:12,099
And so it will in The
Postman Always Rings Twice,
817
01:09:12,100 --> 01:09:15,100
...the last novel in Cain's
southern California trilogy.
818
01:09:17,100 --> 01:09:19,099
Hollywood filmed it twice,
819
01:09:19,100 --> 01:09:22,100
...in 1946 and again in 1981.
820
01:09:30,100 --> 01:09:32,601
Cain's novels were written in the thirties,
821
01:09:32,602 --> 01:09:35,099
...and they reflect the fears
of a lower middle class...
822
01:09:35,100 --> 01:09:37,642
...hit especially hard by the Depression.
823
01:09:38,642 --> 01:09:41,100
Explicitly or implicitly,
824
01:09:41,642 --> 01:09:45,100
...the mid-forties movie
adaptations are period films.
825
01:09:47,642 --> 01:09:50,642
The contemporary postwar
world looked brighter.
826
01:09:51,642 --> 01:09:54,641
"Daddy says, southern California is
the coming part of the country..."
827
01:09:54,642 --> 01:09:58,099
...Dad dy says, six out of every ten
veterans will settle here after the war...
828
01:09:58,100 --> 01:09:59,099
"...Daddy says..."
829
01:09:59,100 --> 01:10:02,100
"Never mind about your daddy. Don't
you have any ideas of your own?"
830
01:10:03,100 --> 01:10:06,100
"Well, for a returning Marine,
I've got some super ideas."
831
01:10:10,642 --> 01:10:14,100
A new suburbia was created for
the vets back from the war.
832
01:10:15,642 --> 01:10:19,642
They could look forward to a good job
in the booming aircraft industry,
833
01:10:21,642 --> 01:10:23,642
...a detached house for every family,
834
01:10:27,100 --> 01:10:29,642
...a trash incinerator in every backyard,
835
01:10:31,100 --> 01:10:33,642
...and plenty of bathrooms
without toilets...
836
01:10:34,100 --> 01:10:36,100
...at least for movie characters.
837
01:10:45,100 --> 01:10:48,100
In movies, there were many
harbingers of a baby boom,
838
01:10:48,642 --> 01:10:52,642
...yet these excessively cute kids
would become, in just a few years,
839
01:10:53,100 --> 01:10:57,100
...the excessively troubled teenagers
of Rebel Without a Cause,
840
01:10:57,642 --> 01:10:59,100
...the first teen noir.
841
01:11:00,100 --> 01:11:02,099
"That's a fine way to behave."
842
01:11:02,100 --> 01:11:04,099
"Well, you know who he takes after."
843
01:11:04,100 --> 01:11:06,100
"You're tearing me apart!"
844
01:11:08,100 --> 01:11:12,641
Director Nicholas Ray photographed
real locations around Los Angeles...
845
01:11:12,642 --> 01:11:15,642
...to look like sets in a studio musical.
846
01:11:18,100 --> 01:11:20,641
Musicals establish alternate worlds,
847
01:11:20,642 --> 01:11:23,642
...and that is precisely
Ray's achievement.
848
01:11:26,642 --> 01:11:32,100
The teenagers live in a world that is parallel
to the adult world of normality and stability,
849
01:11:32,642 --> 01:11:34,641
...in a world they have
created for themselves...
850
01:11:34,642 --> 01:11:37,100
...and that is almost
a parody of film noir.
851
01:11:41,642 --> 01:11:44,642
Their world is more dangerous
than that of their parents...
852
01:11:45,642 --> 01:11:47,642
...and more attractive.
853
01:11:48,100 --> 01:11:50,100
"Hit your lights!"
854
01:11:53,100 --> 01:11:55,100
It is also privileged in the film.
855
01:11:56,642 --> 01:11:59,100
We see the adult world through their eyes.
856
01:11:59,642 --> 01:12:02,100
But we have no other perspective on theirs.
857
01:12:05,142 --> 01:12:08,141
The teenagers are able to
create their own separate world...
858
01:12:08,142 --> 01:12:11,142
...only because of their easy
access to automobiles.
859
01:12:14,642 --> 01:12:17,099
They were the first teenagers with cars,
860
01:12:17,100 --> 01:12:19,100
...at least in the movies,
861
01:12:20,642 --> 01:12:24,099
...and maybe that's why Rebel Without
a Cause seems so prophetic...
862
01:12:24,100 --> 01:12:26,642
...and so evocative of Los Angeles.
863
01:12:34,642 --> 01:12:38,642
More conventional noir films only
fitfully revealed the look of the city.
864
01:12:48,100 --> 01:12:51,100
Those streets dark with
something more than night...
865
01:12:51,642 --> 01:12:55,100
...were still more often than not
located on studio back lots.
866
01:12:57,100 --> 01:13:02,100
Film noir generally shunned the
mean streets for the meaner sewers.
867
01:13:28,642 --> 01:13:31,100
The real streets appear in Kiss Me Deadly,
868
01:13:31,642 --> 01:13:33,641
...although this urban road movie...
869
01:13:33,642 --> 01:13:36,642
...didn't announce itself as a
portrait of Los Angeles.
870
01:13:41,642 --> 01:13:43,641
It's a private eye movie,
871
01:13:43,642 --> 01:13:46,099
...a revisionist version
of Mickey Spillane...
872
01:13:46,100 --> 01:13:49,641
...that tries to reverse his
hyperfascist version of McCarthyism...
873
01:13:49,642 --> 01:13:52,642
...by giving Mike Hammer enough
rope to hang himself.
874
01:13:57,642 --> 01:13:59,642
"My dear sir."
875
01:14:02,642 --> 01:14:04,641
"Now tell me about the key."
876
01:14:04,642 --> 01:14:06,642
"Just a minute, sir."
877
01:14:10,100 --> 01:14:14,100
It's close to definitive as a portrait
of the city in the mid-fifties.
878
01:14:16,100 --> 01:14:18,642
Kiss Me Deadly is a literalist film.
879
01:14:19,642 --> 01:14:22,099
Mike Hammer has a real address:
880
01:14:22,100 --> 01:14:24,642
10401 Wilshire Boulevard.
881
01:14:26,100 --> 01:14:30,100
And when he pulls away from his
apartment building in his new Corvette,
882
01:14:30,642 --> 01:14:33,642
...what we see is what was really there.
883
01:14:37,642 --> 01:14:41,100
"My mustache, my father's mustache..."
884
01:14:41,642 --> 01:14:42,850
"...Let's go to the freeway..."
885
01:14:42,851 --> 01:14:45,100
"I want to see how this little bird flies."
886
01:14:46,100 --> 01:14:48,099
Mike Hammer's journeys,
887
01:14:48,100 --> 01:14:49,850
...all shot on location,
888
01:14:49,851 --> 01:14:51,851
...reveal a city divided.
889
01:14:53,642 --> 01:14:54,641
The rich...
890
01:14:54,642 --> 01:14:56,100
...and the poor.
891
01:15:00,642 --> 01:15:01,641
The old...
892
01:15:01,642 --> 01:15:03,100
...and the new.
893
01:15:03,642 --> 01:15:06,100
What was new then is still with us.
894
01:15:15,100 --> 01:15:19,099
"This is Crestview
five-four-one-two-four..."
895
01:15:19,100 --> 01:15:23,099
Mr. Hammer, whom you are calling,
is not available at present...
896
01:15:23,100 --> 01:15:25,099
If you wish to leave
a record of your call,
897
01:15:25,100 --> 01:15:28,100
"...please state your message
at the sound of the tone."
898
01:15:29,642 --> 01:15:32,308
"Hello, Mike, just checking
to see if you got home...
899
01:15:32,309 --> 01:15:34,308
Please call me when you..."
900
01:15:34,309 --> 01:15:35,309
"Velda."
901
01:15:38,100 --> 01:15:40,100
What was old has been destroyed.
902
01:15:41,642 --> 01:15:43,641
Images of things that
aren't there any more...
903
01:15:43,642 --> 01:15:46,100
...mean a lot to those of us
who live in Los Angeles,
904
01:15:47,100 --> 01:15:49,684
...and practically
nothing to everyone else,
905
01:15:50,642 --> 01:15:55,642
...except perhaps when they represent things that
have disappeared from urban centers everywhere,
906
01:15:56,642 --> 01:15:58,642
...like drive-in restaurants...
907
01:16:01,100 --> 01:16:03,100
...or drive-in movies.
908
01:16:51,100 --> 01:16:55,100
Of course, there are certain types of
buildings that aren't designed to last.
909
01:16:59,100 --> 01:17:01,641
They must be rebuilt
every five or ten years...
910
01:17:01,642 --> 01:17:04,642
...so they can adapt to changing
patterns of consumption.
911
01:17:17,642 --> 01:17:20,099
So the image of an obsolete gas station...
912
01:17:20,100 --> 01:17:21,309
...or grocery store...
913
01:17:21,642 --> 01:17:26,642
...can evoke the same kind of nostalgia we
feel for any commodity whose day has passed.
914
01:17:28,100 --> 01:17:31,099
Old movies allow us to
rediscover these icons,
915
01:17:31,100 --> 01:17:34,642
...even to construct a documenary
history of their evolution.
916
01:17:35,642 --> 01:17:37,099
"Tell this character we want to go..."
917
01:17:37,100 --> 01:17:38,641
"Can I help you, sir?"
918
01:17:38,642 --> 01:17:40,641
"Oh, yeah. Give me five
gallons of regular."
919
01:17:40,642 --> 01:17:41,641
"Regular."
920
01:17:41,642 --> 01:17:43,641
"I thought you said we
were going to dancing..."
921
01:17:43,642 --> 01:17:46,100
"Come here, homes. Come here,
I want to talk to you."
922
01:17:47,100 --> 01:17:49,099
"Could you check under
the hood, too, please?"
923
01:17:49,100 --> 01:17:50,100
"Sure."
924
01:18:06,100 --> 01:18:09,100
"Hello, there. Fill'er up?"
925
01:18:09,642 --> 01:18:12,100
"Two dollars, no knock!"
926
01:18:13,642 --> 01:18:15,100
"Yes, sir."
927
01:21:06,942 --> 01:21:11,400
"There goes Williams. He slides.
He's in there, safe."
928
01:21:11,942 --> 01:21:14,941
But who cares about our old
minor league baseball parks,
929
01:21:14,942 --> 01:21:17,400
...Wrigley Field, home of the Angels,
930
01:21:18,400 --> 01:21:21,399
...and Gilmore Field, home
of the Hollywood Stars,
931
01:21:21,400 --> 01:21:25,400
...or the Twinks, as our local
sportswriters liked to call them?
932
01:21:27,942 --> 01:21:32,400
"Cushions a dime. Ten cents only. Be comfortable
for a dime. Get your cushions here."
933
01:21:35,942 --> 01:21:40,400
Who remembers Steve Bilko and
Bobby Bragan and Carlos Bernier?
934
01:22:07,400 --> 01:22:11,942
The crowd scenes in The Atomic
City feature real baseball fans,
935
01:22:12,400 --> 01:22:13,941
...not professional extras,
936
01:22:13,942 --> 01:22:15,608
...who were then still cast...
937
01:22:15,609 --> 01:22:19,399
...according to the requirements of a
production code that prohibited...
938
01:22:19,400 --> 01:22:23,400
...any scenes showing the social
intermingling of white and colored people.
939
01:22:27,400 --> 01:22:32,400
They suggest that Los Angeles may have
been more comfortably integrated in 1952...
940
01:22:32,942 --> 01:22:34,942
...than it is today.
941
01:22:37,400 --> 01:22:39,942
And who mourns the
Pan Pacific Auditorium,
942
01:22:40,400 --> 01:22:43,399
...our Streamline Moderne palace,
943
01:22:43,400 --> 01:22:45,400
...once the city's most famous landmark,
944
01:22:46,400 --> 01:22:49,400
...where the college basketball
teams played their games,
945
01:22:49,942 --> 01:22:53,400
...where Robert Frank photographed
the Motorama in 1956.
946
01:22:55,400 --> 01:22:57,942
It played a dog racing
track in Johnny Eager...
947
01:23:00,742 --> 01:23:03,742
...and an arena for ice
skating shows in Suspense.
948
01:23:05,742 --> 01:23:09,199
In 1980, after the Pan
Pacific had been abandoned,
949
01:23:09,200 --> 01:23:12,199
...Lawrence Gordon produced
an ill-fated fantasy...
950
01:23:12,200 --> 01:23:15,742
...of what the preservationists
call adaptive reuse.
951
01:23:17,742 --> 01:23:21,742
A muse inspires a young artist to
convince an aging clarinetist...
952
01:23:22,200 --> 01:23:26,200
...that it is the ideal locale for
the nightclub he wants to open.
953
01:23:28,200 --> 01:23:30,741
"You really think this
could work out for Danny?"
954
01:23:30,742 --> 01:23:34,199
"I think this place could be
anything you want it to be."
955
01:23:34,200 --> 01:23:36,742
"Yeah, but what the hell to call it?"
956
01:23:40,742 --> 01:23:44,742
"In Xanadu did Kublah Khan a
stately pleasure dome decree."
957
01:23:45,200 --> 01:23:47,826
Alas, their dream turns out to be...
958
01:23:50,200 --> 01:23:52,200
...a roller disco.
959
01:23:53,742 --> 01:23:55,199
The film failed,
960
01:23:55,200 --> 01:23:59,200
...and what was left of the Pan Pacific
burned down nine years later.
961
01:24:00,200 --> 01:24:02,199
It deserved better,
962
01:24:02,200 --> 01:24:04,742
...both in the movies and in reality.
963
01:24:07,200 --> 01:24:11,200
"A place where nobody dared to go..."
964
01:24:13,200 --> 01:24:16,199
...A love that we came to know...
965
01:24:16,200 --> 01:24:19,200
"...They call it Xanadu."
966
01:24:23,200 --> 01:24:25,199
So did the Richfield Building,
967
01:24:25,200 --> 01:24:27,199
...which had to make way for taller,
968
01:24:27,200 --> 01:24:29,200
...uglier skyscrapers.
969
01:24:30,200 --> 01:24:32,199
There are many photographs,
970
01:24:32,200 --> 01:24:34,200
...but only a few movie shots.
971
01:24:35,200 --> 01:24:37,200
Thanks to Antonioni.
972
01:24:40,742 --> 01:24:43,199
What about Ship's Westwood,
973
01:24:43,200 --> 01:24:45,200
...a coffee shop that was open all night?
974
01:24:47,200 --> 01:24:49,199
It was an institution,
975
01:24:49,200 --> 01:24:54,200
...but it didn't stand a chance when someone realized
you could put a skyscraper in the same space.
976
01:25:05,742 --> 01:25:07,741
"Thanks, Amy."
977
01:25:07,742 --> 01:25:10,200
At least the Far East Café is still there.
978
01:25:11,742 --> 01:25:14,742
It closed down after the 1994 earthquake,
979
01:25:15,200 --> 01:25:17,742
...but it is supposed to reopen soon.
980
01:25:20,200 --> 01:25:22,199
And so is the Angel's Flight.
981
01:25:22,200 --> 01:25:24,199
Our beloved funicular,
982
01:25:24,200 --> 01:25:26,200
... "the shortest railway in the world"...
983
01:25:27,200 --> 01:25:29,200
...built in 1901,
984
01:25:29,742 --> 01:25:33,742
...ripped up in 1969 by the
Community Redevelopment Agency,
985
01:25:34,742 --> 01:25:36,742
...reconstructed in 1996,
986
01:25:37,200 --> 01:25:39,200
...a block south of its original location,
987
01:25:41,200 --> 01:25:44,200
...closed after a crash in February 2001,
988
01:25:44,742 --> 01:25:46,742
...just a few days after I filmed it.
989
01:25:48,200 --> 01:25:49,741
But it's still there...
990
01:25:49,742 --> 01:25:51,200
...sort of.
991
01:25:52,200 --> 01:25:55,200
The reconstructed Angel's
Flight was a tourist ride,
992
01:25:55,742 --> 01:25:57,200
...a simulation,
993
01:25:57,742 --> 01:25:59,742
...because it had lost
its original purpose.
994
01:26:02,200 --> 01:26:03,200
Bunker Hill,
995
01:26:03,742 --> 01:26:06,742
...the residential neighborhood at
the top of the Angel's Flight,
996
01:26:07,200 --> 01:26:09,200
...had vanished.
997
01:26:16,200 --> 01:26:18,200
The movies loved Bunker Hill.
998
01:26:19,742 --> 01:26:21,742
The lords of the city hated it.
999
01:26:22,742 --> 01:26:27,742
Rents were low, so it put the wrong
kind of people too close to downtown.
1000
01:26:30,200 --> 01:26:34,200
Bunker Hill became a target for
slum clearance or urban renewal.
1001
01:26:39,200 --> 01:26:41,742
They had to destroy
it in order to save it.
1002
01:26:45,742 --> 01:26:47,741
And destroy it they did,
1003
01:26:47,742 --> 01:26:50,200
...although it took more than ten years.
1004
01:26:52,742 --> 01:26:56,200
Bunker Hill was the most photographed
district in Los Angeles,
1005
01:26:57,200 --> 01:27:02,200
...so the movies unwittingly documented
its destruction and depopulation.
1006
01:27:03,200 --> 01:27:05,199
In the late forties,
1007
01:27:05,200 --> 01:27:08,200
...it could represent a solid
working-class neighborhood,
1008
01:27:15,742 --> 01:27:19,742
...a place where a guy could take his
girl home to meet his mother.
1009
01:27:22,200 --> 01:27:23,741
"Ah, buena sera, mamma mia."
1010
01:27:23,742 --> 01:27:25,200
"Buena sera."
1011
01:27:31,200 --> 01:27:33,784
It was film noir territory,
1012
01:27:34,200 --> 01:27:37,200
...but it was a refuge from the
meaner streets of the city.
1013
01:27:40,200 --> 01:27:41,741
By the mid-fifties,
1014
01:27:41,742 --> 01:27:44,199
...it had become a neighborhood
of rooming houses
1015
01:27:44,200 --> 01:27:47,200
...where a man who knows too much
might hole up or hide out.
1016
01:27:52,200 --> 01:27:56,199
Hollywood had come to accept Raymond
Chandler's vision of Bunker Hill.
1017
01:27:56,200 --> 01:28:00,200
As old town, wop town,
crook town, arty town...
1018
01:28:00,409 --> 01:28:02,199
...where you could find anything...
1019
01:28:02,200 --> 01:28:06,199
...from crooks on the lam to
ladies of anybody's evening...
1020
01:28:06,200 --> 01:28:09,199
...to County Relief clients
brawling with haggard landladies...
1021
01:28:09,200 --> 01:28:12,200
...in grand old houses with
scrolled porches...
1022
01:28:12,742 --> 01:28:15,199
"A guy could get a heart
attack walking up here."
1023
01:28:15,200 --> 01:28:17,200
"Who invited you?"
1024
01:28:17,742 --> 01:28:20,200
The best Bunker Hill
movie is The Exiles,
1025
01:28:21,200 --> 01:28:24,200
...an independent low-budget
film by Kent MacKenzie,
1026
01:28:25,200 --> 01:28:28,200
...about Indians from Arizona
exiled in Los Angeles,
1027
01:28:29,742 --> 01:28:31,200
...shot in 1958,
1028
01:28:31,742 --> 01:28:33,200
...completed in 1961.
1029
01:28:38,200 --> 01:28:41,742
It reveals the city as a place
where reality is opaque,
1030
01:28:42,200 --> 01:28:44,199
...where different social orders...
1031
01:28:44,200 --> 01:28:46,199
...coexist in the same space...
1032
01:28:46,200 --> 01:28:48,200
...without touching each other.
1033
01:29:12,200 --> 01:29:14,199
Better than any other movie,
1034
01:29:14,200 --> 01:29:17,200
...it proves that there
once was a city here,
1035
01:29:17,409 --> 01:29:21,200
...before they tore it down
and built a simulacrum.
1036
01:29:27,534 --> 01:29:30,742
The end of Bunker Hill is
visible in The Omega Man.
1037
01:29:31,200 --> 01:29:32,742
By 1971...
1038
01:29:33,200 --> 01:29:36,742
...it made a good location for
a post-apocalyptic fantasy.
1039
01:29:37,200 --> 01:29:41,199
Charlton Heston plays an urban
survivalist in a cityscape...
1040
01:29:41,200 --> 01:29:43,200
...depopulated by biological warfare.
1041
01:29:47,200 --> 01:29:49,742
He has learned to become
totally self-reliant.
1042
01:29:52,200 --> 01:29:54,741
If he wants to see a movie,
1043
01:29:54,742 --> 01:29:56,742
...he has to project it himself.
1044
01:29:59,200 --> 01:30:00,742
"This is really beautiful, man..."
1045
01:30:01,200 --> 01:30:03,742
"...If we can't all live
together and be happy?..."
1046
01:30:04,200 --> 01:30:06,199
"...If you have to be afraid
to walk out in the street,"
1047
01:30:06,200 --> 01:30:09,742
"...if you have to be afraid to
smile at somebody, right?"
1048
01:30:10,200 --> 01:30:13,200
"What kind of a way is that
to go through this life?"
1049
01:30:14,200 --> 01:30:16,741
All his movie shows are matinees,
1050
01:30:16,742 --> 01:30:21,200
...because at night he must fight off
a gang of Luddite hippie vampires,
1051
01:30:22,200 --> 01:30:24,200
...his only companions in the city.
1052
01:30:36,200 --> 01:30:37,741
Thirteen years later,
1053
01:30:37,742 --> 01:30:40,199
...the same plot and
the same location...
1054
01:30:40,200 --> 01:30:42,742
...reappear in Night of the Comet.
1055
01:30:43,742 --> 01:30:45,741
In the wake of a disaster...
1056
01:30:45,742 --> 01:30:47,741
...apparently brought on by comet dust,
1057
01:30:47,742 --> 01:30:50,199
...a small band of human survivors...
1058
01:30:50,200 --> 01:30:52,200
...again battle zombie-like mutants,
1059
01:31:01,992 --> 01:31:03,991
...but the center of the action,
1060
01:31:03,992 --> 01:31:05,449
Bunker Hill,
1061
01:31:05,450 --> 01:31:07,450
...has been totally transformed.
1062
01:31:12,450 --> 01:31:15,449
The new Bunker Hill looks
like a simulated city,
1063
01:31:15,450 --> 01:31:17,450
...and it played one in Virtuosity.
1064
01:31:32,992 --> 01:31:37,449
But the directors who did the most to
make Los Angeles a character in movies...
1065
01:31:37,450 --> 01:31:38,449
...and then a subject...
1066
01:31:38,450 --> 01:31:41,450
...were outsiders, like
Wilder, or tourists.
1067
01:31:42,992 --> 01:31:46,450
They weren't interested in what
made Los Angeles like a city;
1068
01:31:47,450 --> 01:31:51,450
They were interested in what made Los
Angeles unlike the cities they knew.
1069
01:32:17,450 --> 01:32:19,450
Just as there are highbrows and lowbrows,
1070
01:32:20,450 --> 01:32:22,450
...there are high tourists
and low tourists.
1071
01:32:23,450 --> 01:32:27,450
Just as there are highbrow
directors and lowbrow directors,
1072
01:32:27,992 --> 01:32:31,450
...there are high tourist directors
and low tourist directors.
1073
01:32:32,992 --> 01:32:34,449
Low tourist directors...
1074
01:32:34,450 --> 01:32:36,991
...generally disdain Los Angeles.
1075
01:32:36,992 --> 01:32:40,992
They prefer San Francisco and the
coastline of northern California.
1076
01:32:41,992 --> 01:32:43,992
More picturesque.
1077
01:32:49,992 --> 01:32:52,449
The greatest low tourist
director is, of course,
1078
01:32:52,450 --> 01:32:54,450
...Alfred Hitchcock,
1079
01:32:55,450 --> 01:32:59,992
...and he set four memorable films
around the San Francisco Bay Area.
1080
01:33:10,992 --> 01:33:13,450
But only one of his
thirty American films...
1081
01:33:13,992 --> 01:33:16,450
...is set even partially in Los Angeles.
1082
01:33:16,992 --> 01:33:19,449
The first ten minutes of Saboteur...
1083
01:33:19,450 --> 01:33:22,449
...are located in or
around Los Angeles,
1084
01:33:22,450 --> 01:33:24,449
...but it could be anywhere in America...
1085
01:33:24,450 --> 01:33:26,450
...where there is an aircraft factory.
1086
01:33:26,992 --> 01:33:29,449
The scenes were shot in the studio,
1087
01:33:29,450 --> 01:33:32,450
...and there is nothing distinctive
to the region in the sets.
1088
01:33:36,992 --> 01:33:40,991
Hitchcock even had Marion
Crane bypass Los Angeles...
1089
01:33:40,992 --> 01:33:45,450
...on her fateful journey from Phoenix to
the Bates Motel in northern California.
1090
01:33:48,450 --> 01:33:52,449
But he never had an unkind word
for his adopted home town,
1091
01:33:52,450 --> 01:33:54,450
...at least in his movies.
1092
01:33:59,992 --> 01:34:01,449
Another low tourist director,
1093
01:34:01,450 --> 01:34:02,991
...Woody Allen,
1094
01:34:02,992 --> 01:34:06,991
...plainly expressed his disdain for
Los Angeles in his most popular movie.
1095
01:34:06,992 --> 01:34:08,991
"No, I cannot... You
keep bringing it up..."
1096
01:34:08,992 --> 01:34:10,449
"...but I don't wanna live in a city..."
1097
01:34:10,450 --> 01:34:14,450
"...where the only cultural advantage is that
you can make a right turn on a red light."
1098
01:34:15,450 --> 01:34:19,450
As the cinematic chronicler of New
York's middle-brow middle class,
1099
01:34:19,992 --> 01:34:22,991
...the people who believe what they
read in the New York Times,
1100
01:34:22,992 --> 01:34:25,992
Allen rarely strays from
his native milieu.
1101
01:34:27,992 --> 01:34:30,449
But his best friend does
move to Los Angeles,
1102
01:34:30,450 --> 01:34:31,992
...and Woody follows...
1103
01:34:32,450 --> 01:34:34,450
...although only for a visit.
1104
01:34:34,992 --> 01:34:37,992
"You know, I can't believe that
this is really Beverly Hills."
1105
01:34:38,450 --> 01:34:40,449
"The architecture is really
consistent isn't it..."
1106
01:34:40,450 --> 01:34:43,450
"...French next to Spanish, next
to Tudor, next to Japanese."
1107
01:34:43,992 --> 01:34:45,992
"God, it's so clean out here."
1108
01:34:46,450 --> 01:34:48,449
"It's because they don't
throw their garbage away..."
1109
01:34:48,450 --> 01:34:50,450
"...they make it into television shows."
1110
01:34:53,992 --> 01:34:57,450
His tale of two cities becomes
a tale of two marquees.
1111
01:35:02,992 --> 01:35:06,450
In fact, The Sorrow and the
Pity did play in Los Angeles...
1112
01:35:06,992 --> 01:35:08,450
...I saw it here...
1113
01:35:08,992 --> 01:35:10,449
...and, for all I know,
1114
01:35:10,450 --> 01:35:14,450
...The House of Exorcism and Messiah
of Evil played in New York.
1115
01:35:17,992 --> 01:35:20,450
But if New York has Woody
Allen to live down,
1116
01:35:20,992 --> 01:35:22,450
...we can't feel superior.
1117
01:35:22,992 --> 01:35:24,450
We have Henry Jaglom,
1118
01:35:24,992 --> 01:35:26,450
...who is even balder,
1119
01:35:26,992 --> 01:35:28,449
...even more narcissistic,
1120
01:35:28,450 --> 01:35:29,950
...even more solipsistic.
1121
01:35:29,951 --> 01:35:32,449
"I've learned that risks
are the best thing..."
1122
01:35:32,450 --> 01:35:35,449
"...Everything that happens good and exciting,
that happens in film and in life..."
1123
01:35:35,450 --> 01:35:37,449
"...comes as a result of risk..."
1124
01:35:37,450 --> 01:35:39,450
"Risk is my middle name."
1125
01:35:43,700 --> 01:35:45,700
While New Yorkers are generally hostile,
1126
01:35:46,450 --> 01:35:48,991
...the British are often fascinated.
1127
01:35:48,992 --> 01:35:50,449
In The Loved One,
1128
01:35:50,450 --> 01:35:52,992
...Tony Richardson acknowledges
his ambivalence.
1129
01:35:50,450 --> 01:35:53,450
Tony Richardson acknowledges
his ambivalence.
1130
01:35:54,450 --> 01:35:56,450
The local architecture is kitsch,
1131
01:35:56,992 --> 01:35:58,992
...but it is transcendent kitsch.
1132
01:36:10,992 --> 01:36:13,449
A movie studio is a cruel court...
1133
01:36:13,450 --> 01:36:17,450
...where everyone is subject to the
most wayward whim of its mogul,
1134
01:36:17,992 --> 01:36:22,450
...but the back lot is an enchanted
village of accidental surrealism.
1135
01:36:22,992 --> 01:36:25,449
"The climate here suits me admirably..."
1136
01:36:25,450 --> 01:36:27,449
"...and the people here are
so kind and generous."
1137
01:36:27,450 --> 01:36:29,449
"They talk entirely for
their own pleasure,"
1138
01:36:29,450 --> 01:36:31,450
"...and they never expect you to listen."
1139
01:36:32,992 --> 01:36:34,991
People who hate Los Angeles...
1140
01:36:34,992 --> 01:36:36,992
...love Point Blank.
1141
01:37:01,450 --> 01:37:03,449
British director John Boorman...
1142
01:37:03,450 --> 01:37:06,450
...managed to make the city look
both bland and insidious,
1143
01:37:07,992 --> 01:37:10,992
...like the gangster organization
Lee Marvin smashes,
1144
01:37:11,992 --> 01:37:14,992
...which goes by the name
Multiplex Products Company.
1145
01:37:30,992 --> 01:37:31,991
For me...
1146
01:37:31,992 --> 01:37:33,449
...the highlight of the film...
1147
01:37:33,450 --> 01:37:37,450
...is the astonishing tableau of grotesque
interior decoration schemes.
1148
01:37:38,992 --> 01:37:42,450
It's enough to make you believe the
seventies began in the mid-sixties.
1149
01:38:11,450 --> 01:38:14,450
Is an LSD movie low
tourist or high tourist?
1150
01:38:15,450 --> 01:38:17,991
Roger Corman, the director of The Trip,
1151
01:38:17,992 --> 01:38:19,992
...is no tourist in Los Angeles,
1152
01:38:20,450 --> 01:38:24,450
...but he probably needed a guidebookto
open the doors of perception.
1153
01:38:24,992 --> 01:38:28,449
Luckily he had Jack Nicholson
to write the script,
1154
01:38:28,450 --> 01:38:31,450
...Peter Fonda and Bruce Dern
as traveling companions,
1155
01:38:32,450 --> 01:38:35,450
...and Dennis Jakob to create
the montage sequences.
1156
01:39:05,450 --> 01:39:08,450
Experimental high tourist
film-makers like Corman,
1157
01:39:08,992 --> 01:39:09,991
...Maya Deren,
1158
01:39:09,992 --> 01:39:11,449
...Andy Warhol,
1159
01:39:11,450 --> 01:39:12,991
...and Fred Halsted...
1160
01:39:12,992 --> 01:39:16,450
...discovered a pastoral arcadia
near the heart of Los Angeles.
1161
01:39:25,450 --> 01:39:28,449
...Deren and her collaborator
Alexander Hammid...
1162
01:39:28,450 --> 01:39:30,449
...could find a private Eden...
1163
01:39:30,450 --> 01:39:34,450
...just by gazing out the window of their
Spanish Colonial Revival duplex...
1164
01:39:34,992 --> 01:39:36,450
...above the Sunset Strip.
1165
01:39:43,450 --> 01:39:44,992
For Warhol,
1166
01:39:45,450 --> 01:39:49,992
...Hollywood formulas represented an innocence
that could be regained only "sort of"
1167
01:39:53,450 --> 01:39:56,449
...but Sam Rodia's towers in Watts...
1168
01:39:56,450 --> 01:39:58,450
...were a bit of paradise not yet lost.
1169
01:40:17,450 --> 01:40:19,449
In the early sixties,
1170
01:40:19,450 --> 01:40:22,450
...the Watts Towers were the first
world's most accessible,
1171
01:40:22,992 --> 01:40:25,450
...most user-friendly civic monument.
1172
01:40:49,450 --> 01:40:52,449
Fred Halsted's gay porn masterpiece...
1173
01:40:52,450 --> 01:40:54,450
...recapitulates the loss of Eden,
1174
01:40:55,450 --> 01:40:57,450
...moving from the idyllic
rural canyons...
1175
01:40:57,992 --> 01:41:00,450
...to the already mean
streets of Hollywood.
1176
01:41:14,951 --> 01:41:16,951
As the landscape becomes more urban,
1177
01:41:16,992 --> 01:41:19,450
...the sex gets rougher.
1178
01:41:29,659 --> 01:41:33,450
Continental European directors
are usually high tourists,
1179
01:41:34,450 --> 01:41:36,992
...so they appreciate Los Angeles,
1180
01:41:37,450 --> 01:41:39,449
...even the tacky stuff we hate,
1181
01:41:39,450 --> 01:41:41,450
...like the Sunset Strip.
1182
01:41:44,450 --> 01:41:47,076
In The Outside Man by Jacques Deray,
1183
01:41:47,450 --> 01:41:50,449
...a Parisian hit man
stranded in Los Angeles
1184
01:41:50,450 --> 01:41:52,450
...discovers a city of parking lots,
1185
01:41:54,450 --> 01:41:55,450
...motels,
1186
01:41:56,450 --> 01:41:57,992
...bus stations,
1187
01:42:01,450 --> 01:42:02,992
...coffee shops,
1188
01:42:08,992 --> 01:42:10,450
...strip bars,
1189
01:42:14,450 --> 01:42:16,450
...and real estate opportunities.
1190
01:42:19,450 --> 01:42:21,450
It's all quite ugly, I suppose,
1191
01:42:21,992 --> 01:42:26,450
...but it adds up to a precise
portrait of the city in 1973,
1192
01:42:26,992 --> 01:42:28,450
...just as I remember it.
1193
01:42:35,450 --> 01:42:38,449
Like most Europeans in
southern California,
1194
01:42:38,450 --> 01:42:42,450
...Antonioni was more interested
in the desert than in the city.
1195
01:42:43,450 --> 01:42:46,449
If you should ever find yourself
in Death Valley in August,
1196
01:42:46,450 --> 01:42:49,450
...you will hear more German
spoken than English.
1197
01:42:50,450 --> 01:42:52,992
But before heading
for Zabriskie Point,
1198
01:42:53,450 --> 01:42:57,450
...Antonioni took his protagonist on a
high tourist spin around Los Angeles,
1199
01:42:57,992 --> 01:43:02,992
...starting with the now-famous murals at the
Farmer John's meat packing plant in Vernon,
1200
01:43:03,992 --> 01:43:06,449
...later featured in
Brian De Palma's Carrie...
1201
01:43:06,450 --> 01:43:08,450
...and Jon Jost's Angel City.
1202
01:44:12,992 --> 01:44:17,449
His tour of industrial Los Angeles
ended abruptly and improbably...
1203
01:44:17,450 --> 01:44:19,450
...at Sunset and Rodeo.
1204
01:44:41,450 --> 01:44:45,450
Jacques Demy loved Los Angeles
as only a tourist can.
1205
01:44:45,992 --> 01:44:47,449
Or maybe I should say,
1206
01:44:47,450 --> 01:44:49,450
...as only a French tourist can.
1207
01:44:50,992 --> 01:44:53,449
I resented Model Shop
when it came out...
1208
01:44:53,450 --> 01:44:55,991
...because it was a westside movie.
1209
01:44:55,992 --> 01:44:57,449
Its vision of the city...
1210
01:44:57,450 --> 01:44:59,450
...didn't extend east of Vine Street.
1211
01:45:00,450 --> 01:45:01,991
But now I can appreciate...
1212
01:45:01,992 --> 01:45:05,450
...an early poignant attempt to
defend Los Angeles as a city.
1213
01:45:06,450 --> 01:45:08,449
It's totally incoherent,
1214
01:45:08,450 --> 01:45:11,450
...but if you live here,
you have to be moved.
1215
01:45:12,992 --> 01:45:14,449
"I was driving down Sunset..."
1216
01:45:14,450 --> 01:45:17,449
"...and I turned on one of those roads
that lead up into the hills..."
1217
01:45:17,450 --> 01:45:19,449
"...and I stopped at this place
that overlooks the whole city."
1218
01:45:19,450 --> 01:45:21,449
"...It was fantastic..."
1219
01:45:21,450 --> 01:45:23,450
"I suddenly felt exhilarated."
1220
01:45:23,992 --> 01:45:26,449
"I was really moved by the
geometry of the place,"
1221
01:45:26,450 --> 01:45:28,992
"...its conception, its baroque harmony."
1222
01:45:29,992 --> 01:45:31,450
"It's a fabulous city."
1223
01:45:32,450 --> 01:45:36,449
"To think some people claim it's an ugly
city when it's really pure poetry,"
1224
01:45:36,450 --> 01:45:38,450
"...it just kills me."
1225
01:45:38,575 --> 01:45:40,575
"I wanted to build something right then,"
1226
01:45:40,659 --> 01:45:41,992
"...create something."
1227
01:45:42,450 --> 01:45:43,449
"Do you know what I mean?"
1228
01:45:43,450 --> 01:45:45,450
"Yeah, I do. I understand."
1229
01:45:50,450 --> 01:45:54,450
The opinion expressed by Raquel
Welch in Flareup is more typical.
1230
01:45:56,450 --> 01:45:58,450
"It's better from up here than down close."
1231
01:46:03,992 --> 01:46:06,449
Roman Polanski later
stole her line...
1232
01:46:06,450 --> 01:46:08,449
...and improved upon it:
1233
01:46:08,450 --> 01:46:11,450
"There's no more beautiful
city in the world..."
1234
01:46:12,992 --> 01:46:15,992
"...provided it's seen by night
and from a distance."
1235
01:46:28,497 --> 01:46:29,996
It was the outsider Polanski...
1236
01:46:29,997 --> 01:46:32,996
...who made Los Angeles
a subject for movies,
1237
01:46:32,997 --> 01:46:35,996
...working in collaboration
with a native screenwriter...
1238
01:46:35,997 --> 01:46:37,997
...Robert Towne.
1239
01:46:39,997 --> 01:46:42,996
The city could finally become a
subject in the early seventies...
1240
01:46:42,997 --> 01:46:45,497
...because it had finally
become self-conscious.
1241
01:46:46,497 --> 01:46:49,997
It could no longer be mistaken
for a sunny Southern town.
1242
01:46:50,497 --> 01:46:51,997
It had big-city problems:
1243
01:46:52,497 --> 01:46:53,997
Big-city racism...
1244
01:46:54,497 --> 01:46:55,997
...and big-city race riots.
1245
01:46:57,497 --> 01:46:59,997
The 1965 Watts uprising...
1246
01:47:00,497 --> 01:47:03,497
...had revealed a racial
faultline in Los Angeles.
1247
01:47:04,497 --> 01:47:06,996
The open secrets of
police brutality...
1248
01:47:06,997 --> 01:47:08,996
...and housing discrimination...
1249
01:47:08,997 --> 01:47:10,997
...could no longer be swept aside.
1250
01:47:12,497 --> 01:47:14,996
The rioting could be
evoked in movies...
1251
01:47:14,997 --> 01:47:17,997
...only after it had safely
passed into history,
1252
01:47:18,497 --> 01:47:21,997
...and even then it required a
golden oldies soundtrack.
1253
01:48:17,497 --> 01:48:21,497
Yet the shadow of Watts loomed
over movies about Los Angeles.
1254
01:48:22,497 --> 01:48:24,497
Isn't the notion of Chinatown...
1255
01:48:24,498 --> 01:48:27,497
...as the forsaken hellhole
of civic negligence...
1256
01:48:27,789 --> 01:48:29,789
...a displaced vision of Watts?
1257
01:48:33,497 --> 01:48:35,412
The endless boom was ending,
1258
01:48:35,413 --> 01:48:39,497
...and the new depression hit southern
California particularly hard.
1259
01:48:40,497 --> 01:48:45,997
As David Gebhard and Robert Winter wrote in
their guide to architecture in Los Angeles:
1260
01:48:46,497 --> 01:48:49,497
"No one seemed sure of
the future any longer."
1261
01:48:49,997 --> 01:48:50,996
"Smog,"
1262
01:48:50,997 --> 01:48:52,996
"...the congestion of people..."
1263
01:48:52,997 --> 01:48:54,997
"...and their extension,
the automobile,"
1264
01:48:55,997 --> 01:48:57,997
"...the continual
destruction of farm land,"
1265
01:48:58,997 --> 01:49:01,329
"...potential and real
water shortages..."
1266
01:49:01,497 --> 01:49:03,496
"...created doubts of
such magnitude..."
1267
01:49:03,497 --> 01:49:06,997
"...that even the usual boosterism
of Southern California..."
1268
01:49:07,497 --> 01:49:11,497
"...found it increasingly difficult
to reassert the old beliefs."
1269
01:49:14,497 --> 01:49:15,997
The questions began.
1270
01:49:16,497 --> 01:49:17,997
How did we go wrong?
1271
01:49:18,497 --> 01:49:19,997
When did we go wrong?
1272
01:49:20,997 --> 01:49:23,997
Although Los Angeles is
a city with no history,
1273
01:49:24,497 --> 01:49:28,497
...nostalgia has always been the dominant
note in the city's image of itself.
1274
01:49:29,497 --> 01:49:31,206
At any time in its history,
1275
01:49:31,497 --> 01:49:33,997
...Los Angeles was always
a better place...
1276
01:49:34,497 --> 01:49:35,496
..."A long time ago"...
1277
01:49:35,497 --> 01:49:37,497
...than in the present.
1278
01:49:38,247 --> 01:49:39,746
What was new in the seventies...
1279
01:49:39,747 --> 01:49:42,247
...was a nostalgia for
what might have been,
1280
01:49:42,747 --> 01:49:46,747
...a sense that everything might have been
different except for one defining event.
1281
01:49:48,247 --> 01:49:50,747
We began to look for an originary sin.
1282
01:49:51,747 --> 01:49:53,746
Robert Towne took an urban myth...
1283
01:49:53,747 --> 01:49:58,247
...about the founding of Los Angeles on
water stolen from the Owens River Valley...
1284
01:49:58,747 --> 01:50:00,247
...and made it resonate.
1285
01:50:03,747 --> 01:50:05,747
Chinatown isn't a docudrama,
1286
01:50:06,247 --> 01:50:07,747
...it's a fiction.
1287
01:50:08,247 --> 01:50:09,746
The water project it depicts...
1288
01:50:09,747 --> 01:50:12,247
...isn't the construction of
the Los Angeles Aqueduct...
1289
01:50:12,747 --> 01:50:16,247
...engineered by William Mulholland
before the First World War.
1290
01:50:17,747 --> 01:50:19,747
Chinatown is set in 1938,
1291
01:50:20,247 --> 01:50:21,747
...not 1905.
1292
01:50:23,247 --> 01:50:25,246
The Mulholland-like figure,
1293
01:50:25,247 --> 01:50:26,746
...Hollis Mulwray,
1294
01:50:26,747 --> 01:50:29,247
...isn't the chief
architect of the project,
1295
01:50:30,247 --> 01:50:32,456
...but rather its strongest opponent,
1296
01:50:32,747 --> 01:50:35,247
...who must be
discredited and murdered.
1297
01:50:36,247 --> 01:50:38,747
Mulwray is against the
Alto Vallejo Dam...
1298
01:50:39,247 --> 01:50:40,746
...because it's unsafe,
1299
01:50:40,747 --> 01:50:43,747
...not because it's stealing
water from somebody else.
1300
01:50:44,247 --> 01:50:46,246
"In case you've forgotten, gentlemen..."
1301
01:50:46,247 --> 01:50:50,247
"...over five hundred lives were lost
when the Van der Lip Dam gave way..."
1302
01:50:50,747 --> 01:50:54,247
"And now you propose yet another
dirt-banked terminus dam..."
1303
01:50:54,747 --> 01:50:56,746
"...with slopes of two
and one half to one,"
1304
01:50:56,747 --> 01:50:58,246
"...one hundred twelve feet high,"
1305
01:50:58,247 --> 01:51:00,247
"...and a twelve-thousand
acre water surface."
1306
01:51:01,247 --> 01:51:03,246
"Well, it won't hold."
1307
01:51:03,247 --> 01:51:06,247
"I won't build it. It's that simple."
1308
01:51:06,747 --> 01:51:10,747
But there are echoes of Mulholland's
aqueduct project in Chinatown.
1309
01:51:11,247 --> 01:51:13,246
"That dam's a con job."
1310
01:51:13,247 --> 01:51:14,246
"What dam?"
1311
01:51:14,247 --> 01:51:16,246
"The one your husband opposed..."
1312
01:51:16,247 --> 01:51:17,746
"...they're conning L.A.
into building it..."
1313
01:51:17,747 --> 01:51:20,746
"...but the water's not gonna go
to L.A. It's coming right here."
1314
01:51:20,747 --> 01:51:22,246
"To the Valley?"
1315
01:51:22,247 --> 01:51:24,247
"Everything you can see.
Everything around us..."
1316
01:51:25,247 --> 01:51:28,246
"They're blowing these farmers out of their
land and then picking it up for peanuts.""
1317
01:51:28,247 --> 01:51:33,246
"You have any idea at all what this land'll
be worth with a steady water supply?"
1318
01:51:33,247 --> 01:51:36,247
"About thirty million more
than they paid for it."
1319
01:51:38,747 --> 01:51:41,746
Mulholland's project
enriched its promoters...
1320
01:51:41,747 --> 01:51:44,747
...through insider land deals
in the San Fernando Valley,
1321
01:51:45,539 --> 01:51:47,747
...just like the dam
project in Chinatown.
1322
01:51:52,247 --> 01:51:55,747
The disgruntled San Fernando
Valley farmers of Chinatown,
1323
01:51:56,021 --> 01:51:58,521
...forced to sell off their
land at bargain prices...
1324
01:51:59,247 --> 01:52:01,746
...because of an artificial drought,
1325
01:52:01,747 --> 01:52:04,247
...seem like stand-ins for
the Owens Valley settlers...
1326
01:52:05,247 --> 01:52:07,246
...whose homesteads
turned to dust...
1327
01:52:07,247 --> 01:52:09,747
...when Los Angeles took the
water that irrigated them.
1328
01:52:12,247 --> 01:52:14,247
The Van Der Lip Dam disaster,
1329
01:52:14,747 --> 01:52:19,247
...which Hollis Mulwray cites to explain
his opposition to the proposed dam,
1330
01:52:20,247 --> 01:52:25,247
...is an obvious reference to the collapse
of the St. Francis Dam in 1928.
1331
01:52:26,247 --> 01:52:29,247
Mulholland built this dam after
completing the aqueduct,
1332
01:52:30,247 --> 01:52:34,247
...and its failure was the greatest man-made
disaster in the history of California.
1333
01:52:38,247 --> 01:52:41,705
These echoes have led many
viewers to regard Chinatown...
1334
01:52:42,247 --> 01:52:43,746
...not only as docudrama,
1335
01:52:43,747 --> 01:52:45,246
...but as truth,
1336
01:52:45,247 --> 01:52:48,247
...the real secret history of how
Los Angeles got its water,
1337
01:52:48,747 --> 01:52:51,246
...and it has become a ruling metaphor...
1338
01:52:51,247 --> 01:52:54,247
...for non-fictional critiques
of Los Angeles development.
1339
01:52:57,247 --> 01:52:58,746
"Chinatown Revisited"...
1340
01:52:58,747 --> 01:53:00,246
...is the phrase
Mike Davis coined...
1341
01:53:00,247 --> 01:53:05,247
...for the downtown skyscraper
boom of 1973 to 1986,
1342
01:53:05,747 --> 01:53:10,247
...and he cast future mayor Richard
Riordan as its prime fixer.
1343
01:53:12,247 --> 01:53:14,246
A publicly financed civic project...
1344
01:53:14,247 --> 01:53:16,746
...had again generated
windfall profits...
1345
01:53:16,747 --> 01:53:19,289
...for a wealthy ring of insiders.
1346
01:53:23,821 --> 01:53:25,421
Chinatown set a pattern.
1347
01:53:26,247 --> 01:53:29,247
Films about Los Angeles
would be period films,
1348
01:53:29,747 --> 01:53:31,747
...set in the past or in the future.
1349
01:53:32,247 --> 01:53:34,246
They would replace a public history...
1350
01:53:34,247 --> 01:53:36,247
...with a secret history.
1351
01:53:36,747 --> 01:53:39,246
Jake Gittes tries to expose a con job,
1352
01:53:39,247 --> 01:53:41,246
...but he fails.
1353
01:53:41,247 --> 01:53:42,746
"This is Noah Cross, if you don't know..."
1354
01:53:42,747 --> 01:53:44,246
"Evelyn's father, if you don't know..."
1355
01:53:44,247 --> 01:53:45,954
"He's the bird you're after, Lou..."
1356
01:53:45,955 --> 01:53:47,746
"I can explain everything, but
just give me five minutes."
1357
01:53:47,747 --> 01:53:48,746
"That's all I need."
1358
01:53:48,747 --> 01:53:50,747
"He's rich. Do you understand?"
1359
01:53:51,247 --> 01:53:53,246
"- Shut up!
- ...can get away with anything."
1360
01:53:53,247 --> 01:53:56,247
"I am rich. I am Noah Cross..."
1361
01:53:56,747 --> 01:53:59,746
- "Evelyn Mulray is my daughter.
- He's crazy, Lou."
1362
01:53:59,747 --> 01:54:01,331
"He killed Mulray because
of the water thing."
1363
01:54:01,332 --> 01:54:03,954
"I'm telling you. Just listen
to me for five minutes."
1364
01:54:03,955 --> 01:54:05,746
Noah Cross is too powerful.
1365
01:54:05,747 --> 01:54:09,247
He can murder his incorruptible
ex-partner and get away with it.
1366
01:54:10,747 --> 01:54:13,246
He can rape the land, figuratively,
1367
01:54:13,247 --> 01:54:15,247
...and rape his own daughter, literally,
1368
01:54:15,747 --> 01:54:18,747
...and keep the child produced
by this incestuous union.
1369
01:54:20,747 --> 01:54:22,747
The truth will never come out.
1370
01:54:23,747 --> 01:54:25,747
I could quote David Thomson again:
1371
01:54:26,247 --> 01:54:29,246
"I know the additive of
corruption in L.A.'s water..."
1372
01:54:29,247 --> 01:54:31,246
"I've seen Chinatown,"
1373
01:54:31,247 --> 01:54:33,747
"...and I know there's no
sense in protesting."
1374
01:54:35,747 --> 01:54:38,247
"Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown."
1375
01:54:40,747 --> 01:54:44,247
Chinatown teaches that good
intentions are futile.
1376
01:54:44,747 --> 01:54:46,247
It's better not to act,
1377
01:54:47,247 --> 01:54:49,247
...even better not to know.
1378
01:54:49,747 --> 01:54:53,246
Somehow this dark vision
hasn't offended anybody.
1379
01:54:53,247 --> 01:54:55,247
"All right, clear the area."
1380
01:54:55,747 --> 01:54:57,247
"On the sidewalk."
1381
01:54:58,747 --> 01:55:01,247
"On the sidewalk."
1382
01:55:02,747 --> 01:55:04,247
"Get off the street."
1383
01:55:05,747 --> 01:55:08,247
This is history written by the victors,
1384
01:55:08,747 --> 01:55:11,747
...but as usual it is written
in crocodile tears.
1385
01:55:16,747 --> 01:55:17,747
In fact,
1386
01:55:18,247 --> 01:55:20,247
...the truth was always out there.
1387
01:55:21,497 --> 01:55:23,997
The public history is the real history.
1388
01:55:25,497 --> 01:55:27,996
The insider land deals
were exposed...
1389
01:55:27,997 --> 01:55:29,997
...by the Hearst press in 1905,
1390
01:55:30,497 --> 01:55:32,496
...two weeks before
the public voted...
1391
01:55:32,497 --> 01:55:35,497
...on a bond issue to
purchase water rights.
1392
01:55:36,497 --> 01:55:38,997
The bond issue still
passed fourteen to one,
1393
01:55:39,497 --> 01:55:42,997
...and no artificial drought was
required to fool the voters.
1394
01:55:45,997 --> 01:55:47,997
The Los Angeles Aqueduct wasn't a con,
1395
01:55:49,497 --> 01:55:50,996
...and it was less destructive...
1396
01:55:50,997 --> 01:55:53,496
...than the water projects New
York and San Francisco...
1397
01:55:53,497 --> 01:55:55,413
...were building around the same time.
1398
01:55:57,497 --> 01:56:01,997
Los Angeles might have been more generous to the
genocidal Indian fighters of the Owens Valley,
1399
01:56:02,997 --> 01:56:04,997
...but if there had been no aqueduct,
1400
01:56:05,497 --> 01:56:08,497
...today our city would be
just another Santa Barbara,
1401
01:56:08,997 --> 01:56:10,496
...a complacent tourist town...
1402
01:56:10,497 --> 01:56:14,497
...where the rich feel no obligation to
acknowledge the existence of the poor.
1403
01:56:18,247 --> 01:56:19,954
For locals like me,
1404
01:56:19,955 --> 01:56:22,246
...what gives Chinatown
its special resonance...
1405
01:56:22,247 --> 01:56:24,247
...is its subsidiary theme:
1406
01:56:24,747 --> 01:56:27,747
The struggle to get around
Los Angeles without a car.
1407
01:56:31,247 --> 01:56:34,247
Jake Gittes loses his wheels
halfway though the film.
1408
01:56:36,747 --> 01:56:40,246
Suspicious San Fernando Valley
farmer shoot out the radiator...
1409
01:56:40,247 --> 01:56:42,247
...and a front tire.
1410
01:56:45,747 --> 01:56:47,954
For the second half of the movie,
1411
01:56:47,955 --> 01:56:49,746
...he's dependent on others,
1412
01:56:49,747 --> 01:56:52,247
...and his sense of mastery disappears.
1413
01:56:53,747 --> 01:56:55,455
"Curly where's your car?"
1414
01:56:55,456 --> 01:56:56,747
"- In the garage.
- Where's that?"
1415
01:56:56,748 --> 01:56:57,705
"Off the alley."
1416
01:56:57,706 --> 01:56:59,663
"Can you give me a ride somewhere?"
1417
01:56:59,747 --> 01:57:00,746
"Sure, soon as we eat."
1418
01:57:00,747 --> 01:57:02,663
"Right now, Curly. It can't wait."
1419
01:57:03,747 --> 01:57:05,246
"I'll tell my wife."
1420
01:57:05,247 --> 01:57:06,747
"Tell her later, Curl, huh?"
1421
01:57:07,247 --> 01:57:09,246
He's always one or two steps behind,
1422
01:57:09,247 --> 01:57:11,247
...and he never catches up.
1423
01:57:12,247 --> 01:57:15,746
The loss of a car is a form
of symbolic castration,
1424
01:57:15,747 --> 01:57:18,247
...in the movies and in life.
1425
01:57:20,747 --> 01:57:22,747
The best films about Los Angeles are,
1426
01:57:23,247 --> 01:57:24,247
...at least partly,
1427
01:57:24,747 --> 01:57:26,247
...about modes of transportation.
1428
01:57:28,747 --> 01:57:31,247
Getting from place to
place isn't a given.
1429
01:57:36,747 --> 01:57:38,456
Cars break down,
1430
01:57:39,747 --> 01:57:41,247
...they get flat tires,
1431
01:57:42,747 --> 01:57:44,247
...they get towed.
1432
01:57:46,747 --> 01:57:48,747
"Hey, what's going on here?"
1433
01:57:49,247 --> 01:57:51,246
Or you don't have a car.
1434
01:57:51,247 --> 01:57:53,247
You have to catch a bus...
1435
01:57:53,747 --> 01:57:55,247
...or you have to walk.
1436
01:58:04,247 --> 01:58:06,246
In Sunset Blvd.,
1437
01:58:06,247 --> 01:58:10,246
...the action is set off by a visit
two repo men pay on Joe Gillis.
1438
01:58:10,247 --> 01:58:11,746
"Joseph C. Gillis?"
1439
01:58:11,747 --> 01:58:12,746
"That's right."
1440
01:58:12,747 --> 01:58:14,331
"We've come for the car."
1441
01:58:19,247 --> 01:58:23,747
Soon they are chasing Gillis's '46
Plymouth convertible along Sunset,
1442
01:58:25,247 --> 01:58:29,747
...and a blowout strands him in the driveway
of silent screen star Norma Desmond.
1443
01:58:47,247 --> 01:58:49,372
Without a car, he will die.
1444
01:59:05,747 --> 01:59:07,246
In Falling Down,
1445
01:59:07,247 --> 01:59:08,246
...a hellish traffic jam...
1446
01:59:08,247 --> 01:59:11,746
...induces William Fisher
to abandon his car...
1447
01:59:11,747 --> 01:59:15,247
...and set off on a long
march across Los Angeles.
1448
01:59:16,747 --> 01:59:18,747
He will become an urban
terrorist for a day,
1449
01:59:19,247 --> 01:59:22,247
...railing against the
degradation of public space.
1450
01:59:24,138 --> 01:59:27,138
"You couldn't let a man
sit here for five minutes..."
1451
01:59:27,362 --> 01:59:29,362
"...take a rest on your
precious piece of shit hill?"
1452
01:59:31,497 --> 01:59:34,197
"Ok.
You want my briefcase?"
1453
01:59:34,720 --> 01:59:36,720
"I'll get it for you alright?
You can have my briefcase."
1454
01:59:36,748 --> 01:59:38,748
"Here. You want my briefcase?
Here's my briefcase!"
1455
01:59:46,459 --> 01:59:49,759
"Hey! Where you goin' huh? Where
you goin'? You forgot the briefcase!"
1456
01:59:49,760 --> 01:59:50,971
"You forgot the briefcase!"
1457
01:59:50,997 --> 01:59:54,997
But his condescension is so thick you
have to sympathize with his victims.
1458
01:59:56,247 --> 01:59:58,746
"Drink, eighty-fie cents.
You pay or go!"
1459
01:59:58,747 --> 02:00:00,746
"What's a 'fie'? I don't
understand a 'fie.'..."
1460
02:00:00,747 --> 02:00:02,746
There's a 'v' in the word. It's 'fi-ve.'
1461
02:00:02,747 --> 02:00:04,246
"They don't have 'v's' in China?"
1462
02:00:04,247 --> 02:00:06,746
"I'm not Chinese. I'm Korean."
1463
02:00:06,747 --> 02:00:08,746
"Whatever. You come to my
country; you take my money,
1464
02:00:08,747 --> 02:00:11,347
"...you don't even have the grace to
learn how to speak my language?"
1465
02:00:12,747 --> 02:00:16,247
Transportation is the central
theme in Who Framed Roger Rabbit,
1466
02:00:17,247 --> 02:00:20,747
...which offers itself as a
cartoon version of Chinatown.
1467
02:00:23,747 --> 02:00:27,247
It updates the downfall
of Los Angeles to 1947,
1468
02:00:27,747 --> 02:00:31,747
...with the death of the trolleys
and the birth of the freeways.
1469
02:00:37,247 --> 02:00:39,246
"Hey, mister, ain't you got a car?"
1470
02:00:39,247 --> 02:00:43,247
"Who needs a car in L.A.? We've got the best
public transportation system in the world."
1471
02:00:45,747 --> 02:00:47,746
In 1947,
1472
02:00:47,747 --> 02:00:50,746
...many would have disagreed with
Eddie Valiant's endorsement...
1473
02:00:50,747 --> 02:00:53,746
...of Pacific Electric's
Big Red Cars...
1474
02:00:53,747 --> 02:00:56,747
...and the yellow cars of
the Los Angeles Railway.
1475
02:00:57,247 --> 02:00:59,247
Complaints about overcrowding,
1476
02:00:59,747 --> 02:01:00,746
...slowness,
1477
02:01:00,747 --> 02:01:02,246
...discriminatory pricing,
1478
02:01:02,247 --> 02:01:03,746
...and poor service...
1479
02:01:03,747 --> 02:01:05,747
...had been endemic for
more than thirty years.
1480
02:01:07,247 --> 02:01:08,447
But after the war,
1481
02:01:08,521 --> 02:01:10,521
...there was indeed another
kind of trouble.
1482
02:01:11,247 --> 02:01:16,247
"Several months ago I had the good providence
to stumble upon a plan of the City Council..."
1483
02:01:16,747 --> 02:01:19,747
"...a construction plan
of epic proportions."
1484
02:01:20,247 --> 02:01:22,956
"They are calling it a freeway."
1485
02:01:23,247 --> 02:01:24,914
"A freeway?..."
1486
02:01:25,247 --> 02:01:26,747
"...What the hell's a freeway?"
1487
02:01:27,247 --> 02:01:31,246
"Eight lanes of shimmering cement
running from here to Pasadena..."
1488
02:01:31,247 --> 02:01:33,247
"...smooth, safe, fast..."
1489
02:01:33,747 --> 02:01:36,247
"Traffic jams will be a
thing of the past."
1490
02:01:37,247 --> 02:01:41,247
"I see a place where people
get on and off the freeway..."
1491
02:01:41,747 --> 02:01:43,746
"...on and off, off and on,"
1492
02:01:43,747 --> 02:01:45,747
"...all day, all night."
1493
02:01:46,747 --> 02:01:51,747
"Soon, where Toontown once stood,
there will be a string of gas stations,"
1494
02:01:52,247 --> 02:01:56,746
"...inexpensive motels, restaurants
that serve rapidly prepared food,"
1495
02:01:56,747 --> 02:01:58,747
"...tire saloons,"
1496
02:01:59,747 --> 02:02:01,747
"...automobile dealerships,"
1497
02:02:02,330 --> 02:02:03,746
"...and wonderful,"
1498
02:02:03,747 --> 02:02:08,747
"...wonderful billboards reaching
as far as the eye can see."
1499
02:02:10,747 --> 02:02:14,247
"My God, it'll be beautiful."
1500
02:02:14,747 --> 02:02:18,246
"C'mon, nobody's going to
drive this lousy freeway..."
1501
02:02:18,247 --> 02:02:20,746
"...when they can take the
Red Car for a nickel."
1502
02:02:20,747 --> 02:02:22,746
"Oh, they'll drive.
They'll have to."
1503
02:02:22,747 --> 02:02:23,746
"You see..."
1504
02:02:23,747 --> 02:02:27,747
"...I bought the Red Cars
so I could dismantle it."
1505
02:02:28,747 --> 02:02:31,746
The fictional machinations
of the diabolical Judge Doom...
1506
02:02:31,747 --> 02:02:35,746
...were modeled on the real intrigues
of National City Lines,
1507
02:02:35,747 --> 02:02:38,746
...the public transit company
controlled by General Motors...
1508
02:02:38,747 --> 02:02:40,747
...and other automotive interests.
1509
02:02:41,747 --> 02:02:42,746
During the forties,
1510
02:02:42,747 --> 02:02:45,747
...it bought up interurban
railways throughout the U.S.,
1511
02:02:46,247 --> 02:02:48,246
...and replaced streetcars with buses,
1512
02:02:48,247 --> 02:02:51,747
...allegedly to sabotage
public transportation.
1513
02:02:55,747 --> 02:02:58,247
Another conspiracy to destroy Eden,
1514
02:02:58,747 --> 02:03:00,246
...but in this movie...
1515
02:03:00,247 --> 02:03:02,747
...there is a counter-historical
happy ending.
1516
02:03:03,747 --> 02:03:05,747
There is no need for
words of consolation.
1517
02:03:06,247 --> 02:03:08,747
Nobody has to tell
its detective hero.
1518
02:03:09,247 --> 02:03:11,747
"Forget it, Eddie, it's Toontown."
1519
02:03:16,247 --> 02:03:19,747
Valiant kills Judge Doom
after a protracted duel,
1520
02:03:21,747 --> 02:03:24,247
...and we may assume
the Red Cars are saved,
1521
02:03:24,455 --> 02:03:25,956
...along with Toontown,
1522
02:03:26,247 --> 02:03:27,247
...but once again,
1523
02:03:27,747 --> 02:03:29,746
...the people are excluded,
1524
02:03:29,747 --> 02:03:34,747
...although the toon characters get
to rejoice in the happy ending.
1525
02:03:37,747 --> 02:03:41,246
Actually trolleys had been on
the way out since the twenties...
1526
02:03:41,247 --> 02:03:44,247
...when proposals for public
ownership were defeated.
1527
02:03:46,747 --> 02:03:50,246
Eddie Valiant himself gets
around town by automobile...
1528
02:03:50,247 --> 02:03:53,747
...after a single Red Car ride at
the beginning of the movie.
1529
02:03:57,247 --> 02:03:59,746
The real postwar struggle
over mass transit...
1530
02:03:59,747 --> 02:04:02,247
...reached a climax in 1949...
1531
02:04:02,747 --> 02:04:05,746
...when a proposal for a
new light rail network...
1532
02:04:05,747 --> 02:04:08,247
...was narrowly defeated
in the City Council.
1533
02:04:11,747 --> 02:04:13,747
An alternative to cars and buses...
1534
02:04:14,247 --> 02:04:17,247
...was defeated not by General
Motors and its allies,
1535
02:04:17,747 --> 02:04:21,247
...but by the promoters of
decentralized suburban development.
1536
02:04:40,747 --> 02:04:42,747
Downtown was doomed.
1537
02:04:57,720 --> 02:05:00,120
In the 80's it went vertical...
1538
02:05:01,747 --> 02:05:06,247
...and there was an attempt to promote
loft living on its eastern margins,
1539
02:05:06,747 --> 02:05:08,747
...an effort advertised in a few films,
1540
02:05:12,144 --> 02:05:14,644
But even artists found the
new urbanism daunting.
1541
02:05:25,997 --> 02:05:27,038
For movie-makers,
1542
02:05:27,497 --> 02:05:31,497
...a real downtown existed only
in the past or in the future.
1543
02:05:37,997 --> 02:05:42,497
The wartime downtown evoked by
Edward James Olmos in American Me...
1544
02:05:42,997 --> 02:05:45,497
...was a dangerous place
for Mexican-Americans.
1545
02:05:47,497 --> 02:05:50,496
Olmos didn't need the
alibis of artistic license...
1546
02:05:50,497 --> 02:05:55,496
...to isolate where and when it all
went wrong for Los Angeles:
1547
02:05:55,497 --> 02:05:57,496
June 1943,
1548
02:05:57,497 --> 02:05:59,497
...the Zoot Suit Riots.
1549
02:06:06,997 --> 02:06:10,497
Stirred up by racist
propaganda in the local press,
1550
02:06:10,997 --> 02:06:13,497
...gangs of sailors went
on a week-long rampage,
1551
02:06:13,997 --> 02:06:16,497
...beating and stripping
self-styled pachucos...
1552
02:06:16,997 --> 02:06:22,997
...because their baggy suits had become a
provocative symbol of a defiant ethnic identity.
1553
02:06:31,997 --> 02:06:35,497
Olmos depicts these assaults
as a humiliating defeat...
1554
02:06:35,997 --> 02:06:39,497
...that disgraced and disarmed the
greatest generation of Chicanos...
1555
02:06:40,497 --> 02:06:44,496
...and produced a sick culture of
amoral masochistic toughness...
1556
02:06:44,497 --> 02:06:46,497
...as a reaction formation.
1557
02:06:55,997 --> 02:06:57,497
"Which one, ese?"
1558
02:06:59,997 --> 02:07:00,997
"Don't matter."
1559
02:07:03,997 --> 02:07:05,497
"Fuck it, homes."
1560
02:07:06,497 --> 02:07:08,497
"La Primera lives!"
1561
02:07:27,997 --> 02:07:29,705
The downtown of the future...
1562
02:07:29,706 --> 02:07:32,205
...appeared with a
vengeance in Blade Runner,
1563
02:07:32,497 --> 02:07:34,706
...a movie set in 2019.
1564
02:07:35,997 --> 02:07:38,497
By then suburbia has
moved off world.
1565
02:07:38,997 --> 02:07:41,996
The dark satanic mills of
the industrial sublime...
1566
02:07:41,997 --> 02:07:43,997
...are belching overtime,
1567
02:07:44,497 --> 02:07:47,497
...and the smog has
turned to acid rain.
1568
02:07:51,997 --> 02:07:55,997
Blade Runner has been called
"The Official Nightmare" of Los Angeles,
1569
02:07:56,497 --> 02:07:59,896
...yet this dystopian vision is,
in many ways,
1570
02:07:59,997 --> 02:08:02,497
...a city planner's dream come true.
1571
02:08:04,997 --> 02:08:07,497
Finally, a vibrant street life.
1572
02:08:08,497 --> 02:08:11,497
A downtown crowded with
night-time strollers.
1573
02:08:16,497 --> 02:08:18,997
Neon beyond our wildest dreams.
1574
02:08:21,997 --> 02:08:25,497
Only a Unabomber could find
this totally repellent.
1575
02:08:26,497 --> 02:08:29,497
The streets are littered with
electronic parking meters,
1576
02:08:29,997 --> 02:08:31,997
...but there are no cars
parked next to them.
1577
02:08:36,997 --> 02:08:39,497
The VTO has replaced the SUV,
1578
02:08:44,997 --> 02:08:47,497
...but there are no traffic
jams in the sky.
1579
02:08:49,997 --> 02:08:53,497
The hero Deckard drives his car
home from his job downtown,
1580
02:08:54,497 --> 02:09:00,496
...yet when he pulls into the grounds of the
hundred-story apartment building where he lives,
1581
02:09:00,497 --> 02:09:02,737
...he finds a parking place right
next to the front door.
1582
02:09:02,997 --> 02:09:06,497
Apparently he is the
only tenant with a car.
1583
02:09:07,497 --> 02:09:09,497
Blade Runner is easy to criticize.
1584
02:09:10,497 --> 02:09:11,496
Pauline Kael noted...
1585
02:09:11,497 --> 02:09:16,496
...that it lacks even the slightest curiosity
about how the world got to this state...
1586
02:09:16,497 --> 02:09:18,497
...in just forty years.
1587
02:09:18,997 --> 02:09:23,497
Harrison Ford diagnosed its narrative
deficiencies in his complaint,
1588
02:09:23,997 --> 02:09:26,497
..."I played a detective
who did no detecting."
1589
02:09:28,497 --> 02:09:31,496
No one seems to agree about
what the film means,
1590
02:09:31,497 --> 02:09:33,497
...not even the film-makers themselves.
1591
02:09:34,997 --> 02:09:37,497
Director Ridley Scott
and his collaborators...
1592
02:09:37,997 --> 02:09:40,997
...couldn't even agree on whether
the protagonist is a human...
1593
02:09:41,497 --> 02:09:42,912
...or a replicant.
1594
02:09:42,913 --> 02:09:44,997
"It's too bad she won't live...
1595
02:09:45,497 --> 02:09:47,997
...But then again, who does?"
1596
02:09:50,997 --> 02:09:53,622
Yet Blade Runner continues to fascinate.
1597
02:09:55,997 --> 02:09:57,997
Perhaps it expresses a nostalgia...
1598
02:09:58,497 --> 02:10:01,497
...for a dystopian vision of the
future that has become outdated.
1599
02:10:02,997 --> 02:10:04,997
This vision offered some consolation...
1600
02:10:05,497 --> 02:10:07,497
...because it was at least sublime.
1601
02:10:09,997 --> 02:10:11,996
Now the future looks brighter,
1602
02:10:11,997 --> 02:10:13,497
...hotter, and blander.
1603
02:10:14,997 --> 02:10:16,997
Buffalo will become Miami,
1604
02:10:17,497 --> 02:10:19,496
...and Los Angeles
will become Death Valley,
1605
02:10:19,497 --> 02:10:22,497
...at least until the rising
ocean tides wash it away.
1606
02:10:23,497 --> 02:10:25,496
Computers will get faster,
1607
02:10:25,497 --> 02:10:27,497
...and we will get slower.
1608
02:10:27,706 --> 02:10:29,705
There will be plenty of progress,
1609
02:10:29,706 --> 02:10:32,997
...but few of us will be any
better off or happier for it.
1610
02:10:34,497 --> 02:10:37,039
Robots won't be sexy and dangerous.
1611
02:10:37,497 --> 02:10:39,497
They'll be dull and efficient,
1612
02:10:39,997 --> 02:10:41,997
...and they'll take our jobs.
1613
02:10:46,497 --> 02:10:50,497
As Blade Runner is the Los
Angeles movie of the eighties,
1614
02:10:51,497 --> 02:10:53,496
...another period film,
1615
02:10:53,497 --> 02:10:55,496
L.A. Confidential,
1616
02:10:55,497 --> 02:10:58,497
...is the Los Angeles
movie of the nineties.
1617
02:10:59,497 --> 02:11:01,496
The period is the early fifties,
1618
02:11:01,497 --> 02:11:02,996
...and it got it right,
1619
02:11:02,997 --> 02:11:06,497
...by not trying to make
everything look up-to-date.
1620
02:11:07,497 --> 02:11:09,497
In reality, we live in the past.
1621
02:11:09,997 --> 02:11:12,997
That is the world that
surrounds us is not new.
1622
02:11:14,497 --> 02:11:15,996
The things in it,
1623
02:11:15,997 --> 02:11:16,996
...our houses,
1624
02:11:16,997 --> 02:11:18,496
...the places we work,
1625
02:11:18,497 --> 02:11:20,496
...even our clothes and our cars...
1626
02:11:20,497 --> 02:11:22,497
...aren't created anew everyday.
1627
02:11:23,997 --> 02:11:25,996
So any particular period...
1628
02:11:25,997 --> 02:11:28,497
...is an amalgam of many earlier times,
1629
02:11:28,997 --> 02:11:32,997
...and L.A. Confidential acknowledges
the pastness of its present.
1630
02:11:36,497 --> 02:11:37,996
Like Chinatown,
1631
02:11:37,997 --> 02:11:40,497
...L.A. Confidential
evokes real events,
1632
02:11:40,997 --> 02:11:42,497
...real scandals.
1633
02:11:42,997 --> 02:11:45,497
The scandal-mongering
magazine Hush-Hush...
1634
02:11:45,871 --> 02:11:49,071
...is based on the pioneering
tabloid Confidential...
1635
02:11:49,497 --> 02:11:51,997
...and the TV series
Badge of Honor...
1636
02:11:52,497 --> 02:11:53,997
...is based on Dragnet.
1637
02:11:54,497 --> 02:11:56,497
"Excuse me, ma'am. Just the facts."
1638
02:11:56,997 --> 02:11:59,997
Dragnet made its debut
on radio in 1949...
1639
02:12:00,497 --> 02:12:02,997
...and moved to television in 1952.
1640
02:12:04,497 --> 02:12:06,496
Some real historical figures...
1641
02:12:06,497 --> 02:12:09,497
...appear in the cast of characters
without fictional names.
1642
02:12:09,997 --> 02:12:11,497
"Johnny Stompanato."
1643
02:12:12,997 --> 02:12:15,496
"A hooker cut to look like
Lana Turner is still a hooker."
1644
02:12:15,497 --> 02:12:16,496
"Hey!"
1645
02:12:16,497 --> 02:12:17,996
"She just looks like Lana Turner."
1646
02:12:17,997 --> 02:12:19,496
"She is Lana Turner."
1647
02:12:19,497 --> 02:12:20,496
"What?"
1648
02:12:20,497 --> 02:12:22,497
"She is Lana Turner."
1649
02:12:26,497 --> 02:12:27,996
A real scandal:
1650
02:12:27,997 --> 02:12:31,497
In the early morning hours
of Christmas day 1951,
1651
02:12:31,997 --> 02:12:36,497
...drunken cops had beaten seven
prisoners arrested after a bar fight,
1652
02:12:37,497 --> 02:12:38,997
"This is for ours, Poncho."
1653
02:12:50,997 --> 02:12:52,996
...and the Daily News came to call it:
1654
02:12:52,997 --> 02:12:54,497
"Bloody Christmas."
1655
02:12:57,497 --> 02:12:59,997
Other scandals were fictional.
1656
02:13:06,997 --> 02:13:11,997
"It may surprise some that a man in public
office would admit to making a mistake..."
1657
02:13:12,497 --> 02:13:14,497
...but after due consideration...
1658
02:13:15,997 --> 02:13:18,497
"...I'm changing my position on
the matter before the council."
1659
02:13:20,997 --> 02:13:24,496
Blackmail wasn't necessary
to build the freeways.
1660
02:13:24,497 --> 02:13:27,497
"From downtown to the
beach in twenty minutes."
1661
02:13:35,497 --> 02:13:39,496
And there was no conspiracy within
the Los Angeles Police Department...
1662
02:13:39,497 --> 02:13:41,496
...to take over the local rackets...
1663
02:13:41,497 --> 02:13:43,997
...from Mickey Cohen's gang
in the early fifties.
1664
02:13:44,497 --> 02:13:46,204
"What does Exley think of all this?"
1665
02:13:46,205 --> 02:13:47,496
"You know, I haven't told him yet..."
1666
02:13:47,497 --> 02:13:49,497
"...I just came straight
from the Records Bureau."
1667
02:13:59,497 --> 02:14:03,997
L.A. Confidential suggests another
secret history of the city.
1668
02:14:06,497 --> 02:14:09,997
The police conspiracy is smashed
and its mastermind is killed,
1669
02:14:16,997 --> 02:14:19,997
...but the good guys achieve a
strictly private victory.
1670
02:14:20,997 --> 02:14:23,997
"Beginning with the incarceration
of Mickey Cohen..."
1671
02:14:24,997 --> 02:14:27,997
"...Captain Smith has been assuming
control of organized crime..."
1672
02:14:27,998 --> 02:14:30,497
"...in the city of Los Angeles."
1673
02:14:30,997 --> 02:14:33,996
"This includes the assassinations
of an unknown number..."
1674
02:14:33,997 --> 02:14:35,997
"...of Mickey Cohen lieutenants..."
1675
02:14:35,998 --> 02:14:37,998
"...the systematic blackmail
of city officials..."
1676
02:14:41,997 --> 02:14:43,997
"Captain Smith admitted as much to me..."
1677
02:14:45,497 --> 02:14:48,997
"...before I shot him
at the Victory Motel."
1678
02:14:49,497 --> 02:14:50,996
There is a coverup,
1679
02:14:50,997 --> 02:14:53,497
...and the public never
gets the real story.
1680
02:14:55,497 --> 02:14:57,997
"If we can get the kid to play ball..."
1681
02:14:58,997 --> 02:15:00,997
"...who's to say what happened?"
1682
02:15:01,497 --> 02:15:03,997
"Maybe Dudley Smith died a hero."
1683
02:15:04,997 --> 02:15:08,497
Cynicism has become the
dominant myth of our times,
1684
02:15:08,997 --> 02:15:10,997
...and L.A. Confidential preaches it.
1685
02:15:14,497 --> 02:15:17,497
"It is with great pleasure
that I present this award..."
1686
02:15:17,997 --> 02:15:19,997
"...to Detective-Lieutenant
Edmund Exley..."
1687
02:15:20,497 --> 02:15:22,497
"...two time Medal of Valor recipient."
1688
02:15:22,997 --> 02:15:25,997
Cynicism tells us we are
ignorant and powerless,
1689
02:15:26,497 --> 02:15:28,497
...and L.A. Confidential proves it.
1690
02:15:30,997 --> 02:15:33,496
Actually the real scandal of the day...
1691
02:15:33,497 --> 02:15:35,496
...was on the front pages
of the newspapers...
1692
02:15:35,497 --> 02:15:38,496
...almost every day
from December 1951...
1693
02:15:38,497 --> 02:15:40,497
...to May 1953.
1694
02:15:41,497 --> 02:15:44,997
It took a public battle to
destroy public housing,
1695
02:15:45,497 --> 02:15:48,997
...a tragedy from which Los
Angeles has yet to recover.
1696
02:15:50,997 --> 02:15:54,997
The defeat of public housing doesn't
demonstrate that the people are powerless.
1697
02:15:55,997 --> 02:15:57,496
Just the opposite.
1698
02:15:57,497 --> 02:16:01,997
After its opponents began to denounce
public housing as "creeping socialism",
1699
02:16:02,497 --> 02:16:04,497
...the people voted it down.
1700
02:16:06,497 --> 02:16:08,789
The LAPD and its chief William Parker...
1701
02:16:08,997 --> 02:16:11,497
...spearheaded the campaign against it.
1702
02:16:11,997 --> 02:16:14,496
Parker leaked Intelligence
Division files...
1703
02:16:14,497 --> 02:16:16,996
...to discredit city housing
authority spokesman.
1704
02:16:16,997 --> 02:16:19,497
Frank Wilkinson as a Communist.
1705
02:16:19,997 --> 02:16:24,496
Then just before the
municipal elections of 1953,
1706
02:16:24,497 --> 02:16:27,788
...Parker helped smear incumbent
mayor Fletcher Bowron,
1707
02:16:27,789 --> 02:16:29,788
...a public housing supporter,
1708
02:16:29,789 --> 02:16:31,997
...for being soft on Wilkinson.
1709
02:16:32,997 --> 02:16:35,497
Bowron lost by 30,000 votes,
1710
02:16:35,997 --> 02:16:38,997
...and the new mayor killed
public housing for good.
1711
02:16:42,497 --> 02:16:45,497
The LAPD didn't control the
rackets in the fifties,
1712
02:16:45,997 --> 02:16:47,497
...it controlled the city.
1713
02:16:47,997 --> 02:16:50,996
The police corruption
in L.A. Confidential...
1714
02:16:50,997 --> 02:16:52,997
...is quaint by comparison.
1715
02:17:00,497 --> 02:17:03,497
What was really wrong with the
police during the Parker years...
1716
02:17:03,997 --> 02:17:05,496
...is revealed quite precisely...
1717
02:17:05,497 --> 02:17:07,496
...if unintentionally...
1718
02:17:07,497 --> 02:17:08,996
...by Dragnet,
1719
02:17:08,997 --> 02:17:11,997
...the TV series parodied
in L.A. Confidential.
1720
02:17:14,997 --> 02:17:18,997
Parker introduced the paranoid
style into American police work,
1721
02:17:19,497 --> 02:17:20,996
...striving to create
a police force...
1722
02:17:20,997 --> 02:17:24,997
...that would be feared and hated
by criminals and citizens alike,
1723
02:17:25,497 --> 02:17:26,996
...and Sgt. Joe Friday,
1724
02:17:26,997 --> 02:17:28,997
...the Organization Superman,
1725
02:17:29,497 --> 02:17:31,497
...embodied it perfectly.
1726
02:17:32,997 --> 02:17:35,496
"- All right, hands up on the wall.
- Not this time. I've got friends with me."
1727
02:17:35,497 --> 02:17:37,996
"- Would you rather do it downtown?
- Ah, get off my back. You know I'm clean."
1728
02:17:37,997 --> 02:17:40,248
"Are you? Hands up on the wall."
1729
02:17:48,497 --> 02:17:50,997
"All right, take everything
out of your pockets."
1730
02:17:51,497 --> 02:17:53,997
"- Where am I gonna put it?
- The ground will hold it."
1731
02:17:55,497 --> 02:17:57,705
Joe Friday thinks like a computer.
1732
02:17:58,997 --> 02:18:00,997
He walks and talks like a robot.
1733
02:18:09,247 --> 02:18:12,205
Actually, I love Dragnet,
1734
02:18:12,247 --> 02:18:15,747
...particularly its late
sixties reincarnation...
1735
02:18:16,122 --> 02:18:19,247
...when Friday got a new partner
and took on the youth culture.
1736
02:18:19,247 --> 02:18:21,746
"- Will you be seeing my father
after you leave? - Sure."
1737
02:18:21,747 --> 02:18:23,246
"Ask him to read the Bible."
1738
02:18:23,247 --> 02:18:25,247
"The epistle of Paul
to the Ephesians."
1739
02:18:25,456 --> 02:18:28,039
"- Maybe he'll understand.
- How's that?"
1740
02:18:28,247 --> 02:18:30,247
"Because of what it says
about our generation."
1741
02:18:30,747 --> 02:18:32,580
"Tell him to read Chapter six."
1742
02:18:33,247 --> 02:18:35,247
"'Fathers, provoke not
your children to wrath."
1743
02:18:35,747 --> 02:18:38,122
"The old ways are not their ways."
1744
02:18:38,247 --> 02:18:41,247
"Your dusk is their dawn.
The future is theirs."
1745
02:18:41,622 --> 02:18:43,246
"Try chapter five, lady."
1746
02:18:43,247 --> 02:18:45,246
"The apostle Paul also said this:"
1747
02:18:45,247 --> 02:18:46,746
"Yes, what is that?"
1748
02:18:46,747 --> 02:18:51,746
"See then that ye walk circumspectly,
not as fools, but as wise."
1749
02:18:51,747 --> 02:18:54,246
Its creator and star Jack Webb...
1750
02:18:54,247 --> 02:18:58,746
...directed each episode with a rigor
equaled only by Ozu and Bresson,
1751
02:18:58,747 --> 02:19:02,747
...the cinema's acknowledged masters
of transcendental simplicity.
1752
02:19:05,247 --> 02:19:09,247
Dragnet admirably expressed
the contempt the LAPD had...
1753
02:19:09,579 --> 02:19:13,747
...for the law-abiding citizens it was
pledged "to protect and to serve".
1754
02:19:15,247 --> 02:19:17,247
It protected us from ourselves,
1755
02:19:18,247 --> 02:19:22,746
...and it served us despite our best
efforts to make the job more difficult.
1756
02:19:22,747 --> 02:19:25,746
"Quinn, we'd like you to
come down for a show-up."
1757
02:19:25,747 --> 02:19:30,246
"Mr. Friday, you'd just as well
know now, I'm not gonna do it."
1758
02:19:30,247 --> 02:19:33,247
"- You afraid to testify, Quinn?
- I just don't remember."
1759
02:19:33,747 --> 02:19:35,455
"What is it? Your family,
your wife and children?"
1760
02:19:35,456 --> 02:19:39,246
"I don't have no family. I'm it,
the whole kit and caboodle..."
1761
02:19:39,247 --> 02:19:42,246
"...but I don't want to go downtown and
get all mixed up in something."
1762
02:19:42,247 --> 02:19:44,746
"You'll have to go before the grand
jury; they'll subpoena you."
1763
02:19:44,747 --> 02:19:46,247
"Mr. Friday..."
1764
02:19:46,747 --> 02:19:48,247
"...I'd like to ask you a question:"
1765
02:19:49,622 --> 02:19:52,247
"...if you was me, would you do it?"
1766
02:19:52,747 --> 02:19:54,456
"Can I wait awhile?"
1767
02:19:55,247 --> 02:19:57,247
"Before I'm you."
1768
02:19:58,247 --> 02:20:01,247
Friday's heavy-handed
irony never lets up.
1769
02:20:02,247 --> 02:20:05,246
None of the witnesses or
suspects he questions...
1770
02:20:05,247 --> 02:20:07,247
...penetrate his wall
of condescension.
1771
02:20:07,747 --> 02:20:10,829
- " You don't believe anything I've said.
- You make it a little difficult, lady."
1772
02:20:10,830 --> 02:20:12,746
"Why? I've told you the truth."
1773
02:20:12,747 --> 02:20:14,705
"Sure you did, three different ways."
1774
02:20:15,497 --> 02:20:18,996
"As I've been saying, I deal
in ideas, nothing more."
1775
02:20:18,997 --> 02:20:20,704
"I might even sell you a few."
1776
02:20:20,705 --> 02:20:22,997
"You couldn't sell me
directions to the men's room."
1777
02:20:23,872 --> 02:20:27,246
The grotesques and lunatics
he encountered every week...
1778
02:20:27,247 --> 02:20:31,246
...must have gone a long way to
establish the city's reputation...
1779
02:20:31,247 --> 02:20:33,247
...as the world capital of the weird.
1780
02:20:33,747 --> 02:20:36,746
"Ah, the powers of
flowers draw you here."
1781
02:20:36,747 --> 02:20:39,746
"- No ma'am. We're police officers.
- Oh, how lovely."
1782
02:20:39,997 --> 02:20:40,996
"Are you Miss Deleon?"
1783
02:20:41,247 --> 02:20:45,246
"Noradella DeLeone was my
given name, my family name..."
1784
02:20:45,247 --> 02:20:47,746
"But I changed it about an hour ago..."
1785
02:20:48,247 --> 02:20:51,247
"It's so contrived, so out of it..."
1786
02:20:51,747 --> 02:20:53,247
"Just call me Agnes Hickey."
1787
02:20:54,247 --> 02:20:57,746
"I'm not like some. I dig the fuzz."
1788
02:20:58,497 --> 02:21:01,496
"After all, you're like the
flowers yourselves."
1789
02:21:01,497 --> 02:21:02,497
"You have to live, too."
1790
02:21:02,500 --> 02:21:05,497
"Yes ma'am. Did you report
your purse stolen by a dog?"
1791
02:21:06,997 --> 02:21:10,997
Of course, Dragnet isn't a
documentary portrait of the LAPD,
1792
02:21:11,997 --> 02:21:14,997
...and its detectives weren't
really like Joe Friday.
1793
02:21:16,497 --> 02:21:20,997
What's scary is that he represented
the department's ideal.
1794
02:21:24,497 --> 02:21:27,996
Sometimes I wonder if we are
more obsessed with the police...
1795
02:21:27,997 --> 02:21:29,997
...than people in other cities.
1796
02:21:30,497 --> 02:21:34,997
Is there any other city where the police
put their motto in quotation marks?
1797
02:21:35,497 --> 02:21:37,497
Are they trying to be ironic?
1798
02:21:40,997 --> 02:21:44,997
Can there be a movie about Los
Angeles that isn't about its police?
1799
02:21:48,497 --> 02:21:51,497
Only if it's a movie
about the film industry,
1800
02:21:51,571 --> 02:21:54,571
...and even then, the police
usually get called in...
1801
02:21:54,997 --> 02:21:57,496
...although it's often a
suburban police force,
1802
02:21:57,497 --> 02:21:59,997
...not the LAPD.
1803
02:22:00,997 --> 02:22:03,996
"Mr. Mill, I'm detective
DeLongpre, Pasadena Police."
1804
02:22:03,997 --> 02:22:06,996
"No, I... You're putting me in
a terrible position here..."
1805
02:22:06,997 --> 02:22:09,996
"I would... I would hate to get
the wrong person arrested."
1806
02:22:09,997 --> 02:22:13,496
"Oh please, this is Pasadena. We
do not arrest the wrong person,"
1807
02:22:13,497 --> 02:22:14,497
"...that's L.A."
1808
02:22:14,747 --> 02:22:16,746
The Dragnet image gave way first...
1809
02:22:16,747 --> 02:22:19,747
...to the existential realism
of Joseph Wambaugh,
1810
02:22:20,247 --> 02:22:23,747
...LAPD sergeant turned
novelist and screenwriter.
1811
02:22:44,747 --> 02:22:46,246
In Wambaugh movies,
1812
02:22:46,247 --> 02:22:49,747
...police work makes cops
alcoholic or neurotic.
1813
02:22:50,247 --> 02:22:54,746
"We see things sometimes - cops.
Other people don't see..."
1814
02:22:54,747 --> 02:22:56,746
"...leaves stains."
1815
02:22:56,747 --> 02:23:00,247
"When you're investigating
and collecting clues?"
1816
02:23:00,747 --> 02:23:02,246
"We don't collect clues..."
1817
02:23:02,247 --> 02:23:05,247
"...we collect garbage and
pray somebody confesses."
1818
02:23:06,247 --> 02:23:07,247
They behave badly,
1819
02:23:09,247 --> 02:23:10,747
...they lose fights,
1820
02:23:13,247 --> 02:23:14,747
...they are humiliated,
1821
02:23:19,747 --> 02:23:21,747
...they die.
1822
02:23:26,747 --> 02:23:29,746
During the youth gang
hysteria of the eighties,
1823
02:23:29,747 --> 02:23:32,747
...the stoically heroic
cop made a comeback,
1824
02:23:33,247 --> 02:23:36,747
...and urban movie violence
turned toward the apocalyptic.
1825
02:23:55,747 --> 02:23:57,747
A cop killing machine emerged:
1826
02:23:58,247 --> 02:24:00,747
James Cameron's Terminator.
1827
02:24:01,747 --> 02:24:03,747
"I'll be back."
1828
02:24:44,747 --> 02:24:47,247
Cameron enjoyed killing off cops,
1829
02:24:47,747 --> 02:24:52,747
...and all of us cop haters got a kick out
of watching the massacres he staged.
1830
02:25:06,247 --> 02:25:07,747
At the same time,
1831
02:25:08,247 --> 02:25:11,747
...the image of the Los Angeles
policeman was splintering.
1832
02:25:16,247 --> 02:25:21,247
Sylvester Stallone essayed two
versions of the dandy cop.
1833
02:25:37,747 --> 02:25:39,747
Mel Gibson played a suicidal cop,
1834
02:25:45,747 --> 02:25:48,247
...and Richard Gere a homicidal cop.
1835
02:25:51,247 --> 02:25:54,747
Andy Garcia and Al Pacino
played cops with arty wives...
1836
02:25:55,747 --> 02:25:59,747
...who make them live in
uncoplike designer houses.
1837
02:26:04,747 --> 02:26:06,747
"This is my friend Ralph."
1838
02:26:07,247 --> 02:26:09,747
"- You didn't tell me you were...
- Sit down."
1839
02:26:11,247 --> 02:26:12,747
"Don't you even get angry?"
1840
02:26:13,247 --> 02:26:14,747
"I'm angry."
1841
02:26:16,247 --> 02:26:18,247
"I'm very angry, Ralph..."
1842
02:26:18,747 --> 02:26:21,747
"You know, you can ball my
wife if she wants you to..."
1843
02:26:23,247 --> 02:26:26,747
"You can lounge around
here on her sofa..."
1844
02:26:27,747 --> 02:26:34,747
"...in her ex-husband's dead-tech, post-
modernistic bullshit house if you want to..."
1845
02:26:37,247 --> 02:26:38,746
"But you do not..."
1846
02:26:38,747 --> 02:26:40,746
"...get to watch..."
1847
02:26:40,747 --> 02:26:43,246
"...my fucking television set!"
1848
02:26:43,247 --> 02:26:44,747
"For God's sake."
1849
02:26:48,747 --> 02:26:53,747
After the videotaped and then televised
beating of Rodney King in 1991,
1850
02:26:54,747 --> 02:26:57,747
...Los Angeles movie
cops got even weirder.
1851
02:27:01,247 --> 02:27:03,747
There was a psycho cop...
1852
02:27:13,247 --> 02:27:15,247
"Well. I will be soon, baby,"
1853
02:27:15,747 --> 02:27:17,747
...a pussy-whipped cop...
1854
02:27:18,747 --> 02:27:21,122
"Say it."
1855
02:27:22,247 --> 02:27:24,246
- Okay.
- Say it.
1856
02:27:24,247 --> 02:27:25,746
"I'll be home soon."
1857
02:27:25,747 --> 02:27:27,747
"No, say it!"
1858
02:27:28,747 --> 02:27:31,747
"I'll be home soon... and I love you.
Okay?"
1859
02:27:34,747 --> 02:27:37,247
...and an uncontrollably horny cop,
1860
02:27:37,747 --> 02:27:39,746
...a slave to his dick.
1861
02:27:39,747 --> 02:27:41,747
"Are you a whore?"
1862
02:27:42,747 --> 02:27:43,747
"Maybe."
1863
02:27:44,747 --> 02:27:46,746
"Well, I wanna tell
you something..."
1864
02:27:46,747 --> 02:27:48,246
"- I like whores.
- Yeah?"
1865
02:27:48,247 --> 02:27:50,246
"Oh, I like 'em alot."
1866
02:27:50,247 --> 02:27:53,246
"- I bet you know a lot of 'em.
- I do."
1867
02:27:53,247 --> 02:27:55,747
"I'll fuck your brains
out for fifty bucks."
1868
02:27:56,247 --> 02:27:58,664
"Forget about that burger."
1869
02:28:01,247 --> 02:28:04,247
"God, this exciting for me.
Is it exciting for you?"
1870
02:28:04,747 --> 02:28:07,747
There was even a New Age
homicide detective,
1871
02:28:08,247 --> 02:28:11,246
...usually attired in a
collarless jacket...
1872
02:28:11,247 --> 02:28:14,247
...with a string of Tibetan
prayer beads around his neck.
1873
02:28:17,247 --> 02:28:19,455
"So tell me, man, what's
up with the beads?"
1874
02:28:19,747 --> 02:28:23,746
"These here? It's called a
mhala, Tibetan prayer beads."
1875
02:28:23,747 --> 02:28:25,246
"What do you use them for?"
1876
02:28:25,247 --> 02:28:27,747
"I use them to calm my mind
and purify my thoughts."
1877
02:28:28,747 --> 02:28:30,747
"Yeah? I use Jack Daniels."
1878
02:28:31,747 --> 02:28:33,746
"- Shut up!
- What's so threatening about it?"
1879
02:28:33,747 --> 02:28:39,746
Then there's the dog-hating motorcycle cop in Robert
Altman's gallery of beautiful, miserable people...
1880
02:28:39,747 --> 02:28:42,747
...living lives of noisy desperation...
1881
02:28:44,247 --> 02:28:48,246
...transposed from Raymond
Carver's Pacific northwest...
1882
02:28:48,247 --> 02:28:50,747
...to southern California.
1883
02:28:54,247 --> 02:28:56,687
"All right now. You go run away;
We don't want you anymore..."
1884
02:28:56,747 --> 02:28:58,747
"Run away, we don't
want you anymore..."
1885
02:29:02,247 --> 02:29:03,747
"Look at this."
1886
02:29:04,747 --> 02:29:06,247
"It's a bone."
1887
02:29:06,747 --> 02:29:08,247
"All right, go get it."
1888
02:29:14,247 --> 02:29:17,746
Introducing a collection of the
Carver stories he adapted,
1889
02:29:17,747 --> 02:29:19,246
Altman wrote,
1890
02:29:19,247 --> 02:29:21,746
..."The setting is
untapped Los Angeles..."
1891
02:29:21,747 --> 02:29:23,747
"...which is also Carver country..."
1892
02:29:25,247 --> 02:29:27,746
"...not Hollywood or Beverly Hills..."
1893
02:29:27,747 --> 02:29:29,746
"...but Downey, Watts..."
1894
02:29:29,747 --> 02:29:32,747
"...Compton, Pomona, Glendale..."
1895
02:29:33,747 --> 02:29:35,246
"...American suburbia..."
1896
02:29:35,247 --> 02:29:37,747
"...the names you hear about
on the freeway reports."
1897
02:29:39,747 --> 02:29:41,246
In other words,
1898
02:29:41,247 --> 02:29:43,746
...if you actually lived
in one of those places,
1899
02:29:43,747 --> 02:29:47,247
...instead of just hearing their names
on the radio traffic reports,
1900
02:29:47,747 --> 02:29:49,747
...you wouldn't be reading this book.
1901
02:29:50,747 --> 02:29:53,747
But the cityscapes in his
film don't look like Watts,
1902
02:29:54,247 --> 02:29:55,746
...or even Glendale,
1903
02:29:55,747 --> 02:29:57,747
...and they're not.
1904
02:29:59,247 --> 02:30:02,247
Only one couple lives
in the Hollywood Hills,
1905
02:30:02,747 --> 02:30:04,746
...but the others live
closer to Hollywood...
1906
02:30:04,747 --> 02:30:06,747
...than to Downey.
1907
02:30:08,747 --> 02:30:11,746
Altman's condescension
toward the outer suburbs...
1908
02:30:11,747 --> 02:30:14,746
...suggests the difficulties
Hollywood directors face...
1909
02:30:14,747 --> 02:30:18,247
...in trying to make a contemporary
film about Los Angeles.
1910
02:30:19,247 --> 02:30:21,746
They know only a
small part of the city,
1911
02:30:21,747 --> 02:30:24,747
...and that part has
been tapped too often.
1912
02:30:25,747 --> 02:30:29,747
A genre film or a literary
adaptation is the safest bet.
1913
02:30:31,747 --> 02:30:33,747
Altman's best film is both.
1914
02:30:41,497 --> 02:30:43,496
His version of Philip Marlowe...
1915
02:30:43,497 --> 02:30:46,496
...turns Raymond Chandler's
Anglo-Saxon white knight...
1916
02:30:46,497 --> 02:30:49,990
...into a chain-smoking
Jewish Don Quixote,
1917
02:30:49,997 --> 02:30:51,706
...a noble saphead.
1918
02:30:53,497 --> 02:30:54,496
"Hi, girls..."
1919
02:30:54,497 --> 02:30:56,497
"Have you seen my cat?"
1920
02:30:57,497 --> 02:30:59,496
"Well, the other day
he ran away, and..."
1921
02:30:59,497 --> 02:31:01,497
"...I'm leaving town for
a couple of days. So..."
1922
02:31:01,500 --> 02:31:03,496
"...I'd appreciate it,
if he shows up,"
1923
02:31:03,497 --> 02:31:06,497
"...if you could look after him,
or give him a bowl of milk..."
1924
02:31:07,497 --> 02:31:08,996
"They're not even there."
1925
02:31:08,997 --> 02:31:11,497
"It's okay with me."
1926
02:31:13,497 --> 02:31:15,497
"So, you murdered your
wife, huh Terry?"
1927
02:31:16,247 --> 02:31:17,747
"She didn't give me any choice."
1928
02:31:20,247 --> 02:31:22,247
"You didn't have much choice, huh?..."
1929
02:31:23,247 --> 02:31:24,746
"So you used me."
1930
02:31:24,747 --> 02:31:27,246
"What the hell, that's what friends
are for. I was in a jam..."
1931
02:31:27,247 --> 02:31:29,247
"...what the hell, nobody cares."
1932
02:31:29,497 --> 02:31:31,997
"Yeah, nobody cares but me."
1933
02:31:32,997 --> 02:31:34,497
"Well, that's you, Marlowe."
1934
02:31:34,705 --> 02:31:36,996
"You'll never learn.
You're a born loser."
1935
02:31:38,205 --> 02:31:41,872
There's no chance Marlowe will get
the good-bad girl at the end.
1936
02:31:42,997 --> 02:31:44,997
He won't even find his lost cat.
1937
02:31:54,497 --> 02:31:56,497
It's hard to make a personal film,
1938
02:31:57,080 --> 02:31:59,288
...based on your own experience,
1939
02:31:59,289 --> 02:32:01,497
...when you're
absurdly overprivileged.
1940
02:32:02,497 --> 02:32:04,997
You tend not to
notice the less fortunate,
1941
02:32:05,497 --> 02:32:07,789
...and that's almost everybody.
1942
02:32:08,997 --> 02:32:11,496
If you ridicule your
circle of friends,
1943
02:32:11,497 --> 02:32:13,997
...your film will
seem sour and petty.
1944
02:32:14,497 --> 02:32:16,997
If you turn their
problems into melodrama,
1945
02:32:17,289 --> 02:32:19,622
...your film will seem
pathetic and self-pitying.
1946
02:32:24,997 --> 02:32:26,496
In L.A. Story,
1947
02:32:26,497 --> 02:32:28,996
...Steve Martin followed
the path of ridicule...
1948
02:32:28,997 --> 02:32:32,705
...and created an honorably
failed romantic comedy.
1949
02:32:44,997 --> 02:32:47,997
Of course, it's L.A.,
not Los Angeles.
1950
02:32:49,997 --> 02:32:53,997
Martin's L.A. is almost as white
as Woody Allen's Manhattan.
1951
02:32:54,997 --> 02:32:57,122
There are two blacks
with speaking parts...
1952
02:32:57,206 --> 02:32:59,789
"Uh, yes, you're the
first ones to arrive."
1953
02:33:01,497 --> 02:33:02,996
"Right this way, please."
1954
02:33:02,997 --> 02:33:04,288
Both restaurant employees.
1955
02:33:04,289 --> 02:33:06,288
"I'm gonna tell you
what we got to eat."
1956
02:33:06,289 --> 02:33:08,496
"We got primavera pasta, six
diifferent kinds of meat."
1957
02:33:08,497 --> 02:33:10,497
You could call
these racist stereotypes,
1958
02:33:10,997 --> 02:33:13,289
...but the whole film is
nothing but stereotypes.
1959
02:33:14,206 --> 02:33:16,831
"Gee, I'm done already, and
I don't remember eating."
1960
02:33:19,705 --> 02:33:22,996
The comedies of
John Cassavetes cut deeper...
1961
02:33:22,997 --> 02:33:26,329
...because he had an eye and
an ear for ordinary madness.
1962
02:33:28,122 --> 02:33:29,496
"Hey, what time is it?"
1963
02:33:29,497 --> 02:33:32,996
Those flickers of lunacy that can
separate us from our fellows.
1964
02:33:32,997 --> 02:33:34,996
"Hey, listen. I'm waiting
for my kids at school..."
1965
02:33:34,997 --> 02:33:36,997
"You mind giving me
the time, do you?"
1966
02:33:38,497 --> 02:33:40,997
"What's the matter
with you, what the...?"
1967
02:34:17,997 --> 02:34:21,997
His comedies face up to
tragedy and reject it.
1968
02:34:27,997 --> 02:34:29,996
Suffering is self-evident,
1969
02:34:29,997 --> 02:34:32,997
...and its promise
of wisdom is illusory.
1970
02:34:37,872 --> 02:34:40,997
For Cassavetes, happiness
is the only truth.
1971
02:34:42,829 --> 02:34:44,872
So he drank himself to death.
1972
02:35:03,497 --> 02:35:07,497
Diane Keaton's Hanging Up
takes the path of melodrama.
1973
02:35:08,497 --> 02:35:09,872
An absent mother...
1974
02:35:10,080 --> 02:35:12,497
...and a prematurely
grumpy and old father...
1975
02:35:12,829 --> 02:35:16,289
...produce an intense rivalry
among three sisters.
1976
02:35:18,289 --> 02:35:22,289
"Eve, are you not going to speak to me?
Is that what this is all about?"
1977
02:35:22,497 --> 02:35:25,497
"And why aren't you talking to me?
I didn't even do anything."
1978
02:35:33,997 --> 02:35:36,496
But the father's
death restores harmony,
1979
02:35:36,497 --> 02:35:38,997
...at least long enough to
allow for a happy ending.
1980
02:35:46,872 --> 02:35:51,706
The three drama queens babble hysterically
on three-way cell phone hookups,
1981
02:35:51,829 --> 02:35:56,080
...transforming any space they
occupy into a pajama party den.
1982
02:35:58,997 --> 02:36:02,997
Keaton insists Hanging Up is
a film about Los Angeles,
1983
02:36:03,497 --> 02:36:06,496
...but public space is reduced
almost entirely...
1984
02:36:06,497 --> 02:36:11,497
...to a tunnel and a bridge allowing passage
through a city stripped of its population.
1985
02:36:13,872 --> 02:36:16,372
In Hanging Up, the people are missing.
1986
02:36:21,997 --> 02:36:25,497
Lawrence Kasdan tried to find
a middle way in Grand Canyon,
1987
02:36:25,997 --> 02:36:28,497
...a liberal version
of the urban nightmare.
1988
02:37:20,080 --> 02:37:22,496
Bad things happen to good people,
1989
02:37:22,497 --> 02:37:24,997
...and they start to wonder
about what it all means.
1990
02:37:25,414 --> 02:37:28,079
"The world doesn't make any
sense to me anymore..."
1991
02:37:28,080 --> 02:37:29,496
"I mean, what's going on?"
1992
02:37:29,497 --> 02:37:33,288
"There are babies lying
around in the streets."
1993
02:37:33,289 --> 02:37:35,079
"There are people living in boxes."
1994
02:37:35,080 --> 02:37:39,079
"There are people ready to shoot
you if you look at them."
1995
02:37:39,080 --> 02:37:40,955
"And we are getting used to it."
1996
02:37:42,829 --> 02:37:45,414
But this metaphysical
turn feels complacent,
1997
02:37:46,289 --> 02:37:49,497
...and Kasdan's movie wallows
in its own incomprehension.
1998
02:37:51,497 --> 02:37:54,414
A mugging is as
inexplicable as a miracle.
1999
02:37:55,080 --> 02:37:57,497
"Why bother trying?
Keep the baby..."
2000
02:37:57,829 --> 02:38:00,080
"You need her as much
as she needs you."
2001
02:38:03,997 --> 02:38:06,331
If the social fabric has disintegrated,
2002
02:38:07,122 --> 02:38:10,289
...can't we at least try to
understand how it happened?
2003
02:38:16,997 --> 02:38:17,997
Instead,
2004
02:38:18,080 --> 02:38:20,289
...Kasdan finds solace
in the little triumphs...
2005
02:38:20,414 --> 02:38:22,496
...and epiphanies of everyday life,
2006
02:38:22,497 --> 02:38:24,497
...like a driving lesson.
2007
02:39:06,706 --> 02:39:08,080
"Sorry, dad."
2008
02:39:08,706 --> 02:39:10,066
"Hey, this is difficult stuff..."
2009
02:39:11,497 --> 02:39:15,289
"Making a left turn in L.A. is one of the
harder things you're gonna learn in life."
2010
02:39:19,872 --> 02:39:22,497
There's a certain ironic wisdom here,
2011
02:39:22,997 --> 02:39:27,289
...but it's impossible to forget that this
particular challenge is a privilege.
2012
02:39:28,997 --> 02:39:30,289
But there is another city.
2013
02:39:30,497 --> 02:39:32,164
The real downtown,
2014
02:39:32,497 --> 02:39:34,996
...full of people who are
appparently invisible...
2015
02:39:34,997 --> 02:39:37,997
...to those who say it's
deserted after working hours.
2016
02:40:02,497 --> 02:40:04,497
And another cinema.
2017
02:40:05,497 --> 02:40:07,497
A city of walkers,
2018
02:40:07,997 --> 02:40:09,997
...a cinema of walking.
2019
02:40:11,829 --> 02:40:15,706
It begins with The Exiles
by Kent MacKenzie.
2020
02:40:16,497 --> 02:40:18,497
You could call it neorealist.
2021
02:40:19,997 --> 02:40:22,497
Since it comes from outside
the Hollywood studios,
2022
02:40:23,497 --> 02:40:25,497
...you could call it independent,
2023
02:40:25,997 --> 02:40:28,497
...but it's not exactly Pulp Fiction.
2024
02:40:29,997 --> 02:40:32,996
"I used to pray every night
and fall into bed..."
2025
02:40:32,997 --> 02:40:36,997
"...and ask for something
that I wanted..."
2026
02:40:37,205 --> 02:40:39,288
"...and I never got it or..."
2027
02:40:39,289 --> 02:40:41,706
"...it seemed like my prayers
were never answered..."
2028
02:40:41,872 --> 02:40:43,829
"So I just gave up."
2029
02:40:43,872 --> 02:40:45,828
"And now I don't hardly
go to church or..."
2030
02:40:45,829 --> 02:40:48,497
"...don't say my prayers sometimes."
2031
02:40:57,706 --> 02:40:58,706
MacKenzie,
2032
02:40:59,054 --> 02:41:01,954
...who died too young after
making just one more feature...
2033
02:41:02,080 --> 02:41:03,497
...was the pioneer.
2034
02:41:09,997 --> 02:41:11,497
Fifteen years later,
2035
02:41:11,997 --> 02:41:15,372
...there was finally a neorealist
movement in Los Angeles...
2036
02:41:15,872 --> 02:41:18,497
...led by young black
film-makers from the south:
2037
02:41:19,997 --> 02:41:22,414
Haile Gerima from Ethiopia,
2038
02:41:22,997 --> 02:41:25,205
...Charles Burnett from Mississippi,
2039
02:41:25,872 --> 02:41:27,997
...Billy Woodberry from Texas.
2040
02:41:29,706 --> 02:41:31,705
Haile Gerima's Bush Mama...
2041
02:41:31,706 --> 02:41:33,997
...is another movie
about the police,
2042
02:41:34,205 --> 02:41:36,705
...but it is one of the
first to show cops...
2043
02:41:36,706 --> 02:41:38,497
...entirely from the other side,
2044
02:41:38,706 --> 02:41:40,497
...from the viewpoint
of the brutalized,
2045
02:41:40,997 --> 02:41:42,997
...the black people
of south Los Angeles,
2046
02:41:43,080 --> 02:41:46,497
...who are made to feel they live
in an occupied territory.
2047
02:42:00,497 --> 02:42:02,997
Neorealism describes another reality,
2048
02:42:03,497 --> 02:42:06,497
...and it creates a
new kind of protagonist:
2049
02:42:07,289 --> 02:42:08,997
Dorothy, the bush mama,
2050
02:42:09,497 --> 02:42:11,706
...is a seer, not an actor.
2051
02:42:14,706 --> 02:42:17,289
There is a crack in the
world of appearances,
2052
02:42:17,997 --> 02:42:21,497
...and she is defenseless before
a vision of everyday reality...
2053
02:42:21,997 --> 02:42:23,706
...that is unbearable.
2054
02:42:27,205 --> 02:42:28,829
Who knows the city?
2055
02:42:30,497 --> 02:42:31,997
Only those who walk,
2056
02:42:33,080 --> 02:42:34,872
...only those who ride the bus.
2057
02:42:37,497 --> 02:42:40,496
Forget the mystical blatherings
of Joan Didion and company...
2058
02:42:40,497 --> 02:42:42,497
...about the automobile
and the freeways.
2059
02:42:44,997 --> 02:42:46,997
They say, nobody walks.
2060
02:42:47,497 --> 02:42:50,080
They mean no rich white
people like us walk.
2061
02:42:53,997 --> 02:42:55,997
They claimed nobody takes the bus,
2062
02:42:56,289 --> 02:42:57,496
...until one day...
2063
02:42:57,497 --> 02:42:59,496
...we all discovered
that Los Angeles...
2064
02:42:59,497 --> 02:43:02,497
...has the most crowded buses
in the United States.
2065
02:43:03,497 --> 02:43:05,621
The white men who run
the transit authority...
2066
02:43:05,622 --> 02:43:08,997
...responded to the news not
by improving service,
2067
02:43:09,497 --> 02:43:11,706
...but by discouraging ridership.
2068
02:43:12,497 --> 02:43:14,414
They raised fares.
2069
02:43:14,497 --> 02:43:16,997
They stopped printing
maps of the bus system.
2070
02:43:17,497 --> 02:43:21,497
They refused to post route maps
or schedules at bus stops.
2071
02:43:21,829 --> 02:43:25,829
They put their money into more glamourous
subway and light rail projects.
2072
02:43:26,497 --> 02:43:28,497
Sued for discrimination,
2073
02:43:28,997 --> 02:43:30,997
...they accepted a consent decree...
2074
02:43:31,997 --> 02:43:34,289
...and then rejected its provisions.
2075
02:43:44,872 --> 02:43:48,289
Neorealism also posits
another kind of time,
2076
02:43:50,997 --> 02:43:55,496
...a spatialized, nonchronological
time of meditation and memory.
2077
02:43:55,497 --> 02:43:56,496
"The baby's dead..."
2078
02:43:56,497 --> 02:43:58,577
"You understand what I'm saying?
The baby's dead..."
2079
02:43:58,997 --> 02:44:00,497
"She's dead."
2080
02:44:00,497 --> 02:44:02,496
"What you doin' up there, woman?"
2081
02:44:02,497 --> 02:44:06,872
In Bush Mama, everything is filtered
through Dorothy's consciousness,
2082
02:44:07,497 --> 02:44:09,204
...and the film follows it...
2083
02:44:09,205 --> 02:44:12,997
...as it slides freely from
perception to memory.
2084
02:44:23,997 --> 02:44:25,705
Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep...
2085
02:44:25,706 --> 02:44:28,497
...seems suspended outside of time.
2086
02:44:29,497 --> 02:44:32,997
Burnett blended together the
decades of his childhood,
2087
02:44:33,289 --> 02:44:35,497
...his youth, and his adulthood,
2088
02:44:35,997 --> 02:44:38,497
...and added an
idiosyncratic panorama...
2089
02:44:38,997 --> 02:44:40,997
...of classic black music,
2090
02:44:41,497 --> 02:44:44,497
...from Paul Robeson
to Lowell Fulsom.
2091
02:44:52,497 --> 02:44:55,496
So a portrait of one family
and it's neighborhood...
2092
02:44:55,497 --> 02:44:58,997
...became an epic of black
endurance and heroism.
2093
02:45:05,205 --> 02:45:07,497
The police are absent in Killer of Sheep,
2094
02:45:08,497 --> 02:45:10,997
...and everyone has a car or a truck,
2095
02:45:11,497 --> 02:45:13,997
...although they're often more
trouble than they're worth.
2096
02:45:19,497 --> 02:45:21,497
The protagonist has a job.
2097
02:45:22,497 --> 02:45:24,497
He is the killer of sheep.
2098
02:45:24,997 --> 02:45:27,622
But a job can break your heart, too.
2099
02:46:04,497 --> 02:46:07,996
White America had declared a
crisis of the black family...
2100
02:46:07,997 --> 02:46:11,497
...as a cover for its campaign
of incremental genocide...
2101
02:46:11,872 --> 02:46:15,497
...against its expendable
ex-slave population,
2102
02:46:15,997 --> 02:46:18,829
...rendered superfluous by
immigrant labor power,
2103
02:46:19,997 --> 02:46:24,497
...so black film-makers responded by
emphasizing families and children.
2104
02:46:29,497 --> 02:46:32,496
Although Hollywood would
lend credence to the assault...
2105
02:46:32,497 --> 02:46:35,996
...by imagining "South Central"
as a dystopian theme park...
2106
02:46:35,997 --> 02:46:38,497
...of crack whores
and drive-by shootings,
2107
02:46:38,997 --> 02:46:43,497
...independent black film-makers showed
that the real crisis of the black family...
2108
02:46:43,997 --> 02:46:46,497
...is simply the crisis of
the working class family,
2109
02:46:46,997 --> 02:46:48,497
...white or black,
2110
02:46:48,997 --> 02:46:51,496
...where family values
are always at risk...
2111
02:46:51,497 --> 02:46:54,997
...because the threat of
unemployment is always present.
2112
02:47:35,871 --> 02:47:38,271
"Y'all better run along or
you'll be late for church.
2113
02:47:41,497 --> 02:47:44,371
So many men unneeded, unwanted,
2114
02:47:44,372 --> 02:47:46,997
...in a world where there
is so much to be done.
2115
02:48:02,747 --> 02:48:05,246
Billy Woodberry's
Bless Their Little Hearts...
2116
02:48:05,247 --> 02:48:07,747
...takes a drive by
a reverse landmark,
2117
02:48:08,747 --> 02:48:10,746
...one of the closed
industrial plants...
2118
02:48:10,747 --> 02:48:12,538
...that had once provided jobs...
2119
02:48:12,539 --> 02:48:14,789
...for the black working
class of Los Angeles.
2120
02:48:36,247 --> 02:48:38,247
Built in 1919,
2121
02:48:38,539 --> 02:48:40,247
...and closed in 1980,
2122
02:48:40,921 --> 02:48:42,921
...the Good Year factory in
South Central Avenue...
2123
02:48:43,747 --> 02:48:48,247
...was the first and largest of the
four major tire manufacturing plants...
2124
02:48:48,747 --> 02:48:51,247
...once located in the Los Angeles area.
2125
02:49:11,956 --> 02:49:13,163
Once upon a time,
2126
02:49:13,664 --> 02:49:17,747
...visitors could take a guided
tour and see how tires were made...
2127
02:49:18,747 --> 02:49:20,247
...just as today...
2128
02:49:20,330 --> 02:49:22,746
...they can take a studio tour...
2129
02:49:22,747 --> 02:49:24,747
...and see how movies are made.177675