The City in Film

Director T. Anderson’ s L.A. Plays Itself discusses the role of Los Angeles in the movies over the last 80 years or so. Anderson talks about L.A.’s character in film, that it is hard to ‘nail down’ in the same way that New York City is. In fact, the identity of L.A. seems to be defined by the movies; the character of the city is malleable and unidentifiable, much like a back-lot movie set. Anderson talks about this: the entire city is geared around movie-making, despite the fact that only one in twenty work in the business. Signs leading to production sets adorn many of the light poles around the city, and many of the buildings around town are more known for their role in films than for their actual role in the city. Two particular examples that Anderson brings up are the Bradbury building, by George Wyman and the Ennis House, by Frank Lloyd Wright. The Bradbury Building has been featured in numerous films; each time the building takes on a different character.

The Ennis House also take on many different roles, from the apartment of Deckard in Blade Runner to a haunted house in (not surprisingly) House on Haunted Hill.

The way that we understand L.A. through film reminds me of Eisenstien’s montage;  we pick up bits and pieces of the city, in small frames here and there, which we must take and assemble it as a whole in our minds. Unlike other cities which we can understand in just a few frames by their architectural icons or general character, L.A. takes a bit more to understand it, if we can at all. Perhaps it takes living there to ‘get it’ fully, and I’m not sure that’s a bad thing at all.