Hell on Frisco Bay (2005-2008 archive)

There are many reasons why I count Vertigo among my very favorite films but it would do no good to pretend that its setting in my native Frisco isn't one of the big ones. Likewise, it's too tempting not to count among the flaws of a film like Basic Instinct its terrible sense of Frisco geography. Even a film like The Graduate loses its ability to keep local audiences sucked into the story when Dustin Hoffman drives the wrong direction across the Bay Bridge and visits the Berkeley Zoo. (What Berkeley Zoo?- that looks like Monkey Island at Fleishacker to me! Yes, Frisco's zoo once bore a name that means "butcher" in German.) If you've ever lived in a place that's been filmed by Hollywood crews, you know these kinds of dissections. When I lived in Chiang Mai, Thailand I couldn't escape it; conversations about the use of the local airport in filming Air America periodically bubbled up, even though that film had pretty much vacated general consciousness years before. Apparently, even those living directly under the very shadow of the Hollywood sign can be fascinated by what the entertainment industry's cameras capture when turned toward its own home. Thom Andersen's essay film Los Angeles Plays Itself is exhibit A. It opens today at the Roxie, joining another documentary tribute to cinephilia that's been playing for a week already though I haven't seen it yet, Henri Langlois: Phantom of the Cinematheque.

Los Angeles Plays Itself was one of my favorite films seen last year (it had a couple local screenings and was accompanied by a series of Los Angeles-shot films at the Pacific Film Archive) because it aligns with my desire to view films as more than vessels for stories, or even aesthetic artifacts, but also cultural, historical and geographical records. And it does so taking full advantage of Andersen's vast knowledge, strong opinion, and dry wit. His thesis boils down to "if we can appreciate documentaries for their dramatic qualities, perhaps we can appreciate fiction films for their documentary revelations," and he does just that, using pertinent clips from an extensive and extremely genre-diverse collection of films to trace a history of the city of Los Angeles, its flagship industry of image-making, and the often uneasy symbiosis between the two. He looks at how films have utilized architecture to express character and emotion, pointing to the repeated use of certain buildings like the Bradbury Building (used in D.O.A., Marlowe, and Blade Runner among others.) He talks about Hollywood's portrayal of the city's dirty cops and politicians, and though he's not as concerned about the Owens Valley water grab (pointing out that what our forebears did to Hetch Hetchy up here was even more destructive) as the makers of Chinatown were, he still appreciates that film as an illustration of the struggle to get around town without a car. He shows how different directors had different touristic approaches to the places they film, distinguishing "low tourists" like Woody Allen from "high tourists" like Roger Corman and Andy Warhol. Europeans like Demy were usually of the latter variety, he argues, but Hitchcock was low through and through, which is why he preferred to shoot in picturesque Frisco and only made one film partially set in Los Angeles (Saboteur.)

Three hours fly by. Though Andersen's stream-of-consciousness is fascinating to listen to, narrated as it is over a parade of rare and familiar film clips (literally everything from the Music Box to the Exiles to Hanging Up), I also found the film absolutely inspiring. First of all, it made me want to see more of the films excerpted. There will be plenty of opportunities coming up for such a follow-up; Night of the Comet plays October 25 at the Parkway and This Gun For Hire October 26th at the Yerba Buena Center. Zabriskie Point will be at the Castro November 30 and December 1, and though the Noir City festival showcased Los Angeles-set noirs (including the title Andersen most regretted leaving out of his film when asked at the q-and-a last year, Joseph Losey's remake of M) in its 2005 edition earlier this year, the January 2006 version will also have a strong showing including the Blue Dahlia, Suspense, Nocturne, and the Big Sleep at the Balboa and Nobody Lives Forever and Hollow Triumph at the Palace of Fine Arts.

I also think Los Angeles Plays Itself will be a great inspiration to filmmakers, critics, scholars and curators with an eye toward geographical readings of films. I can't wait to see a Frisco filmmaker with strong opinions about Vertigo, the Graduate, the transformation of Union Square in light of Coppola's The Conversation, the disappearance of the eerie locations from the Lady From Shanghai (most recently the now-demolished aquarium), etc. make a film of this type. I might even try to figure out how to do something like it myself one of these days, though I'm certain I won't come up with anything nearly as rich or (dare I say) entertaining as Andersen's film. Meanwhile, it looks like this Promiscuous Cinema program on the latest SF Cinematheque calendar might be an event in the same spirit.