Los Angeles Plays Itself (Thom Andersen, 2003)

[hearthesilence]

I didn't realize it, but this film was re-edited and remastered for its tenth anniversary - it's already played elsewhere but it's finally come to NYC and screening in an HD DCP at IFC Center.

I think it was originally pieced and dubbed together from DVD's and VHS tapes so it wouldn't be hard to improve. Anyone see it yet?

[FerdinandGriffon]

Saw it last night. Some of the footage seems to have come from HD sources, but most from DVDs, and a number of films are still represented in VHS quality. So it's inconsistent, but I didn't find it that distracting. Plus all of the original 16mm footage Andersen shot looks great retransferred.

The film itself was a mixed bag for me. Andersen is often brilliant, but sometimes descends into pedantic curmudgeonlyness that seems to deliberately miss the point of the footage he's watching. At times I had to wonder what kind of film could possibly have made him happy, and the only thing I could imagine was a dull variety of socialist-realism. I suppose the last couple of films quoted do offer a genuine answer to my question, but I find it hard to agree with anyone so stubbornly hostile to stylization.

His criticism of Woody Allen is wonderful.

[colinr0380]

The film does capture an element of film criticism that often doesn't get touched on, and which seems even more valuable in the slightly more insular green-screened, virtual set era, and that is the way that even fictional films can sometimes capture elements of reality in the background or on whilst out on location. And that even completely fabricated films (like Who Framed Roger Rabbit? or Chinatown) can end up expressing interesting aspects of their society through their settings if the filmmakers are sensitive to such things.

Of course, as Andersen is at pains to point out (ever more grumpily!), that is all even more complicated in a city such as Los Angeles which has to constantly 'betray' itself in order to pretend to be other cities.

I have to admit to occasionally going and Google-mapping locations for films - one L.A. location that I recently did after re-watching the film on Blu-ray was the church that Prince of Darkness is set in. The interiors are sets but the exterior of the church is now the Centre For Visual Communication of Asian American Studies on 120 Judge John Aiso Street, and still looks much the same as it did over twenty years ago (at least on Google Maps!). There were also scenes for the film shot at the San Fernando Mission.

This rambling is also a way to get to the point that in the years since Los Angeles Plays Itself and the advent of DVD we're starting to get extra features that actually go and do location tours of certain significant sites as they exist today (the Horror's Hallowed Grounds series, an episode of which turns up on Prince of Darkness, is the main one coming to mind at the moment). That should make Thom Andersen's job both easier and harder in the future, as he might have more competition but also the emphasis will be placed more onto showing how locations change over time and are transformed according to the needs of their films (as in the sequence of the various uses that the Bradbury Building has been used for, variously from D.O.A. and Marlowe to Wolf and Blade Runner! Even The Artist most recently!), and should also help to shift an emphasis from just getting to see 'then and now' locations onto his commentary exploring architecture, the city and how it helps shape the identity of those who live there.

[Perkins Cobb]

Yes, I come to the opposite conclusion as Andersen and, as a former Angeleno, feel entitled to -- Andersen is insistent upon the primacy of Los Angeles as a real place but I always say that I prefer the fantasy of Los Angeles as seen in the movies. It's an amorphous place that takes its identity from its representation in the cinema, and every city should be so lucky as to be enshrined in the same way.

But of course it's exhilarating to see Andersen make his case; the gag about the LAPD slogan as depicted on its police cars alone is worth the whole three hours. I just wonder how any of it plays for people who haven't spent any time in Los Angeles. I first saw the film at the Film Forum ten years ago and the (sparse) crowd didn't seem to be into it at all. Sort of like films that evoke London nostalgia elicit a big shrug from me, for lack of a personal connection.

[colinr0380]

I've never been to America at all, so even Google Map searches just get piled into one big jumble of 'U.S.' visual imagery to me! Maybe I'm taking the opposite approach from Andersen with this film, starting off from "I remember that location from [whatever film]!" and then interested in seeing what the locations are like 'for real' (which of course is being presented in the form of a documentary film, and this is where I start twisting myself into knots!); while Andersen is starting with the Los Angeles surrounding him in his daily life and then showing how film has shifted and twisted that reality for their own ends, while small slivers of real life still show through the patchworked together virtual cityscape of the movies.

Perhaps it is not that the film might not play to non-Los Angeles audiences, just that it would play differently to audiences whose only experience of L.A. is through the films that are being critiqued. What is that adage about there being no such thing as bad publicity? At least the city is getting exposure, even in films that don't acknowledge their location and perhaps only through tiny details such as the police slogan or parts of L.A. that the production has not managed to properly conceal (that is often the joy of lower budget film, that they don't have the funds to create a hermetically sealed world), that help bore the sense of Los Angeles into the minds of audiences over a lifetime of film viewing.

[colinr0380]

Whilst watching Los Angeles Plays Itself again in the new Cinema Guild Blu ray, I had my own moment of strange déjà vu when I realised during the early section about locations that are purely movie sets that the "roadhouse at the corner of Avenue Q and 145th Street in Palmdale which has never had a paying customer but features prominently in Swordfish and Brother" also turned up a year or two after Andersen made his film (with a bit of CGI tinkering) in one of Channel 4 UK's channel idents which has been in regular rotation over the last decade!

Weirdly, though it is a dusk rather than a day shot, its even filmed with almost exactly the same tracking shot (presumably driving by on the road past it) that Andersen's film uses!



EDIT: And in the last few months the location has turned up again for Film4's new channel idents!

[Mr. Deltoid]

How is the Los Angeles Plays Itself Blu? For such a clip-heavy project, how does the picture quality fare Colin? How many of the extracts are in HD? Must have watched this three or four times after downloading it five-or-so years ago - wonderful, playful essay-film.

[warren oates]

It's totally worth the upgrade on numerous fronts. Every clip that they were able to has been recut in from sources in the highest available resolution. Now, obviously, that's not everything. And by its very nature this film is a collision of aspect ratios, media formats and variations in picture quality. But it looks better now than you've ever seen it, has been trimmed and rearranged slightly (as Andersen explains in the liner notes) and is accompanied by some excellent essays.

[Mr. Deltoid]

Cheers Warren - looks like an essential purchase!

[colinr0380]

It's definitely worth the upgrade. I've got a terrible looking copy of the previous version of the film ripped from YouTube (which the above screencapture is from, not the new Blu) and this is far better in all respects. It's never going to be state of the art - there are some obvious interlacing jaggies in some clips, VHS sources still for others such as for A Passion to Kill and weirdly Xanadu, and the Music Box clip doesn't look pristine. But the source material is a bit less important than the point being made in the commentary (while it maybe unintentionally kind of provides its own comment on a need for film preservation) and almost everything else looks like a big jump in quality, especially the filmed documentary portions.

[domino harvey]

I am stunned at the effusive response this film has received in some quarters (though its surface-level insights and grouchiness make its popularity on Letterboxd not at all surprising). This is what you’d get if you turned a conversation thread on the r/Movies sub-reddit into a documentary— inane harping on geographical “gaffes” plus an incessant hatred for Hollywood contradicted by the sheer volume of film clips employed to “make” his point. Of course, nearly every film clip is pointless and a distraction, and they function as a gimmick, not a tool for insight. Why would anyone want to watch three hours of someone who hates movies talk about movies? Who gave this man the Legion rights to speak for the city? How can he seriously posit that Altman is bad because he condescends in his depiction of his characters and then turn around and condescend to ”the walking class” by bolstering the lowest classes of Los Angeles as the “real” Los Angeles, venerating and praising them in an embarrassing slaver? This leads to the very Ray Carney bolstering of only Casavetes and some neo-realist aping indies focusing on minorities being the One True Los Angeles Movie Canon in the simplistic and insulting slumming-as-thesis conclusion of this film. The nobility of the lower working classes has long had representation in a variety of cinemas, including Hollywood, but like a myopic film studies undergrad, Andersen can only think in and express extremes and iconoclastic absolutes. There is an amusing but tiring irony in bemoaning the omnipresence of Hollywood and trying to argue that LA isn’t represented by the movies via lots of movie clips that effectively prove the opposite, though. By his own copious proof, the Los Angeles that operates within the movie business is the dominant cityscape, and “Movies Bad, Poor People Good” is not a compelling alternate reading of the city

Also, the bonus short about Tony Longo on the CG Blu-Ray is one of the most embarrassing pieces of shit I’ve ever seen. This director apparently has zero self awareness. There’s even a “researched by” credit card for himself, if you want to know who spent twenty seconds checking IMDB while making this would-be YT video

[senseabove]

My memorable critical shark-jumping, WT actual F moments from this were its discussion of Dragnet's technique as qualitatively similar to Ozu and Bresson and presenting A Woman Under the Influence as a comedy.

[hearthesilence]

Who gave this man the Legion rights to speak for the city? How can he seriously posit that Altman is bad because he condescends in his depiction of his characters and then turn around and condescend to ”the walking class” by bolstering the lowest classes of Los Angeles as the “real” Los Angeles, venerating and praising them in an embarrassing slaver? This leads to the very Ray Carney bolstering of only Casavetes and some neo-realist aping indies focusing on minorities being the One True Los Angeles Movie Canon in the simplistic and insulting slumming-as-thesis conclusion of this film. The nobility of the lower working classes has long had representation in a variety of cinemas, including Hollywood, but like a myopic film studies undergrad, Andersen can only think in and express extremes and iconoclastic absolutes.

The important point he was trying to make was how the working poor was depicted with little understanding in mainstream cinema, and this was also a reflection on how little the general public and mainstream culture understood the working poor. (As he pointed out, this would ultimately shape public policies that further marginalized them and made their lives even more difficult.)

For example, when I was in school and when I visited L.A. around then, virtually everyone I talked to agreed that no one walked in L.A. - you needed a car (or in this day and age, at least Lyft or Uber apps). It's telling that none of these people were among the working poor, and Andersen is right, there are quite a few people who DO need to rely on public transportation. But not surprisingly, at least when this film was made, expanding bus service wasn't fiscally popular. His depiction of this idea using those particular indie films isn't merely the result of anti-Hollywood sentiment - those films were made by people who grew up in those relevant communities, filmed there and drew from those communities for their cast and crew.

I like a lot of the Los Angeles films he criticizes, and I like Woody Allen's Manhattan, but he's right that a large portion of film culture (at least the part that's best known to the public) marginalizes the poor or has a very limited understanding of their problems just as many of us mentally keep them off of our radar.

[domino harvey]

Except that he ends his film by focusing on them as the “real” Los Angeleans, which will come as a shock to all the other people living in the city. And his argument is bunk in his own film, which has an entire section on Bunker Hill where Andersen literally shows scenes depicting the working stiffs depicted as living there. LA absolutely is a car city— everything is far away from everything else— that’s not even debatable. Yes, people without the resources to own a car must rely on public transit, but that doesn’t change the spatiality of the city (and according to this LA is ranked a very low 35th nationally for public transit ridership, which for a city its size says a lot)

[hearthesilence]

None of us are arguing that it isn't a car city - since the '50s it's been designed to heavily favor car transportation. But I wouldn't diminish the need certain people have for it, or what that actually reflects in the class divisions of that city.

You've linked to a "list of U.S. cities with high transit ridership." And while L.A. is sprawling, given public transit's reputation in Los Angeles (which is no surprise as I am constantly discouraged from using it), a 35th ranking doesn't strike me as terrible either.

I noticed that the list comes from a survey taken in 2015. L.A. has actually been trying to expand public transit since then - to my surprise, I was able to use their train system to most destinations when I've stayed downtown for work. This surprises a lot of people, and I only discovered it because I needed a cheap alternative for paid transportation. The exception is to Westwood and Beverly Hills, and I read that it would be "coming soon," but the estimated year that was given came and went because it turns out the upper class residents in those areas have campaigned heavily AGAINST that expansion, which says a lot.

[domino harvey]

It sounded to me like you were saying it’s only a car culture for those who can afford a car— Apologies if I misunderstood your point. I think those reliant on public transit are only too aware of the reality of the situation.

Back to what this film argues in its finale... Let me ask this: why would Andersen leave out the most famous filmed representation of LA mass transit, other than that its inclusion would refute his thesis?

[hearthesilence]

It sounded to me like you were saying it’s only a car culture for those who can afford a car— Apologies if I misunderstood your point. I think those reliant on public transit are only too aware of the reality of the situation.

Back to what this film argues in its finale... Let me ask this: why would Andersen leave out the most famous filmed representation of LA mass transit, other than that its inclusion would refute his thesis?

No worries. As to leaving that particular film out, the first inkling I had about L.A. transit was through that film, and I recall quite a few people making jokes about its depiction of mass transit and how it would play out in real life in L.A. (these are fans of the film too, they just accept that it's basically fantasy), so I'm not sure it would have worked well in any argument. FWIW, have you ever seen the documentary on Arthur Kane, the New York Dolls bassist who wasn't living well financially and needed a bus to commute to work in L.A.?

[domino harvey]

I have not, but I relied on mass transit in a vastly smaller major city, Baltimore, and my commute was 2 1/2 hours total each day to go five miles and back, so I can believe it

I disagree on the linked film’s absence being justified or that its Hollywood-y approach to mass transit wouldn’t fit the film’s arguments, as of course that’s the entire purported purpose of the movie. I believe he doesn’t include it because to do so, even at another juncture, would undermine his final argument about what Hollywood depicts versus indies. But I think we’re probably not going to agree on this film’s alleged virtues, so I won’t keep harping on it

[movielocke]

As something of an armchair expert on and user of la transit I have all the thoughts none of which I’m gonna post today.