Thursday, March 15, 2012
Down the Rabbit Hole; Or: How I Lost My Cynicism and Fell In Love with Lexi Belle
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Saturday, March 10, 2012
The Top 40 New York Movies
To hell with Paris and Milan. New York is and will be the fashion capital of the world, and with al the style it generates, someone has to write about it. Cue Andrea Sachs, a fresh-faced college grad who comes to the Big Apple, only to become an underling of the fiercely demanding Miranda Priestly (played brilliantly by the always flawless Meryl Streep). The film’s inspiration is debatable (cough…cough…Anna Wintour…cough), but the setting is undeniable.
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| Film Goof: Chicks as hot as Anne Hathaway are not in New York. Or anywhere. |
How can a movie capture New York without ever really leaving two buildings? Because it captures a spirit, if just a broken one. The New York business man lives in the words of David Mamet. Ricky Roma, Dave Moss, George Aaronow, and Shelley "The Machine" Levene have all stood next to us on a subway at some point. The same way you just know Ewoks are called Ewoks, though it’ never said in the film, you just know that Premier Properties office is somewhere in the city that doesn’t sleep.
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| And yet, the man on the right is better remembered for dressing in drag. |
In the 80’s, it seemed like Woody Allen, one of the quintessential New York filmmakers, had lost his love for the city and the people who inhabited it. His two biggest hits thus far had been comedies that dealt with chameleon men and characters who leave their own movies. Yet all that changed when Woody got back to his comic-drama roots with Hannah And Her Sisters, a film that’s both funny and heartwarming, which chronicles two years in the life of a New York family who gather annually for Thanksgiving.
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| As you well remember, this is the Woody Allen movie where the people walk down the sidewalk while talking. |
New York seemed to have stopped being a setting for scares ever since Jason took Manhattan in ‘89. But leave it to Brooklyn born Darren Aronofsky, whose Brighton Beach-set Requiem For A Dream just missed the cut for this list, to craft a mathematical anomaly of a film: a ballet film guys go to see in droves; a horror film even the most easily-scared of girls love; an art-house film that became a box-office smash. From the Metropolitan Opera House to Nina’s unsettling sidewalk stroll, New York is clear in every frame, a tangible and integral part of the world of Black Swan.
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| We all no this was the money-making film so Portman could pursue her real passion project, No Strings Attached. |
“When you get caught between the moon and New York City, the best that you can do is fall in love” is the advice given in the theme to director Steve Gordon’s one and only film, and indeed that’s just what Dudley Moore and Liza Minelli do. Sure, on paper Arthur sounds like an average love story, but on camera there’s a certain magic to it, a vivacity and heart that exudes each scene. And think about it: This film just wouldn’t work if it was set in London or L.A., now would it?
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| Why, Russel Brand? Can't we leave well-enough alone? |
As much as I love Jackie Brown, and despite the fact that it was actually the title song for a completely different film, Bobby Womack’s “Across 110th Street” never fit better on screen than with Ridley Scott’s 2007 biopic of drug-king Frank Lucas. If we’re talking about great New York crime films, I’m sure Coppola and Scorsese come to mind quicker than Scott (and don’t worry, they have their place on this list), but if we’re gonna talk about capturing New York, I mean, Ridley shot 180 different locations within the five boroughs alone. ‘Nuff said.
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| Seriously, Denzel Washington shits badassery. |
Sure, many superheroes have guarded cities that seemed to hint at New York (Metropolis, anyone?), but Superman and Batman can keep their fictional cities, because we’ve got Spider-man watching out for us, and this has never been more clear than in Sam Raimi’s 2002 entry to the Spidey oeuvre. Yes, one still feels an odd chill when they see the deleted footage of Spidey catching a helicopter in a giant web he made between the Twin Towers, but the truth of it is that Spider-man’s New York is our New York, so much so that to this day, kids on the street look up to see if he’s swinging from a street lamp.
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| You know, before "Spider-Man" became synonymous with "cast injuries" or "emo Tobey". |
Debatably Roman Polanski’s finest work, Rosemary’s Baby chooses not to turn all of Manhattan into a big haunted house (possibly patrolled by a man in a hockey mask who can punch people’s heads off), but rather to focus on making one particular building the creepiest god damned building in the world. For many years, it was impossible to walk down 72nd street past the Dakota Building and not hear that haunting score by Krzysztof Komeda. Tragically, the location is now equally recognizable as the site of an actual horror, John Lennon’s murder. But the legacy of Rosemary’s Baby lives on to this day.
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| Do we do a Polanski joke? A Woody joke? There's too many opportunities. |
As a child of the 90’s, I grew up seeing NYC as a magical place, even in the pre-Giuliani-clean-up days (Am I the only one who misses street-corner three card monty?). But it seemed that the children of post-9/11 America would have a much different view of the city. For many years after the tragedy that took from many of us friends and family, a specter of horror hung above New York that not even Raimi’s web-slinger could sweep aside. Yet finally, in 2007, the magic came back to the Big Apple in the form of a princess named Giselle. Central Park’s Bethesda Fountain (once most recognizable as the setting for the final scene in Angels In America) became the center of a colorful dance sequence, and children once again saw or city as a city of wonder and magic.
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| This is a kids movie, so I won't speak inappropriately about Amy Adams...but I could. |
If I asked you “Who’s the black private dick who’s a sex machine to all the chicks?”, you’d damn right answer Shaft. Gordon Parks’ blaxploitation classic simultaneously launched and transcended the genre, showing the world a new side of action. No more pale-skinned cops cracking down on the black community for smoking a joint. Richard Roundtree blasted his way through Harlem as private detective John Shaft, looking cool every step of the way. Don’t we all wish we could climb out of the subway set to Isaac Hayes music?
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| This looked even more badass in a world pre-Black Dynamite |
One of the most beloved, unique, and quotable comedies of all time, Ghostbusters stars two SNL alum, and that “Live from New York” spirit shows. I could talk for hours about all the iconic scenes, but the finest testament to the film’s legacy in NY history is that any tour or Central Park carriage ride you take, they’re quick to point out “That’s the building from Ghostbusters!”
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| Insert Ghostbusters line here |
Everyone credits Rob Reiner for this modern classic, and indeed some credit is due, but a good deal of recognition should go to NY native Nora Ephron’s brilliant screenplay, which poses the hypothesis “Men and women can’t just be friends.” and proceeds to use all of NYC as a lab to test the theory. To this day, in a certain spot in the famous Katz’s Deli (where I hope they will one day sprinkle half my ashes) there is a sign that dangles above a table reading “Where Harry Met Sally…Hope You Have What She Had!”. Like the Ghostbusters building on NYC tours, there’s no better sign of a classic New York film than that.
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| Yes, kids. Meg Ryan was really hot once. |
You can’t talk about New York and not talk about baseball. I mean, the Yankees are just as New York as the tallest skyscraper, and the Mets are…well, like that hot dog cart on the corner of 43rd and 6th. But let’s go back to the Yankees. No movie, except maybe Field of Dreams, has ever packed more serenity, beauty and emotion into a film about baseball than Pride of the Yankees. Dealing with the tragic and untimely death of Lou Gehrig, many of Gehrig’s teammates, including Babe Ruth, played themselves, in order to pay tribute to their fallen friend. The final speech in the film tears at your heart strings, and in that moment you can feel how every New Yorker felt, pressed to their radio, as Lou declared himself “the luckiest man on the face of the Earth”, though New Yorkers were really the lucky ones for having had him.
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| Two cinematographers' heads exploded trying to film this epicness. |
Sure, half of it takes place on Skull Island. But in King Kong is arguably the most iconic image in movie history (can you honestly think of a more immediately and universally recognizable image from any film?), and what is it? King Kong climbing the Empire State Building. Movies and Manhattan have been synonymous ever since.
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| We see an iconic movie scene. Peter Jackson sees a way to kill some of the good will from LOTR. |
Marty was filming in Boston, Woody was in Europe, Sidney was dying, and Francis had fallen off the map. Yet New York had a new cinematic quartet, and their names were Charlotte, Samantha, Miranda and of course Carrie. They were some of the first to remind New York that life goes on after 9/11, and that though we were wounded, we were not broken. Hell, the show was called Sex and the City for a reason: without one of those two key elements, it simply wouldn’t work (see SATC 2). Every “article” Carrie writes is a love letter to New York, and the first film is a cinematographer’s playground, full of color and lights and locales, all within the confines of the greatest city in the world, at least in the humble opinion of four very fashionable ladies.
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| Laugh now, girls. Soon you'll be in the Middle East, and you won't like it. And neither will anyone else. |
On the opposite end of the spectrum from learning about not making the wedding bigger than Big, you have young Calogero Anello, who learned “The choices that you make will shape your life forever.” Based on writer Chazz Palminteri’s actual life in The Bronx, and directed by fellow NY native Robert DeNiro, this brilliant morality play deals with the oft-cinematically neglected title borough with equal parts scorching realism and thinly veiled affectionate nostalgia. And for those who think Chazz romanticized the past, well…“You can ask anybody from my neighborhood, and they'll just tell you, ‘This is just another Bronx tale’”
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| Here, of course, the pivotal scene where Sonny tells Calogero that Dean Keaton is Keyser Soze. |
Quite possibly the greatest Christmas movie of all time (and almost certainly the most remade), New York is irremovable from the story of this beloved film. Hell, it’s in the title, 34th street being the location of the iconic Macy’s, whose Santa in the Thanksgiving parade might be more then he appears to be, in the sense that he might be…well…exactly who he appears to be. That magic of New York I talked about that Enchanted brought back? For generations of kids, this movie instilled in them that sense of magic.
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| This was the Santa movie of the 40's. Ours is Bad Santa. God have mercy on our souls. |
Do your research and you’ll find that Frank Serpico was far less of an angel than the movie makes him out to be (Not that he was corrupt, but in the Seven Deadly Sins, he’s the poster boy for Pride), but movies about the NYPD tend to get New York right, even if they don’t get the story straight. However, in the hands of Sidney Lumet, the city becomes more than just a backdrop. Lumet captured the spirit of the corrupt, crime-ridden streets your folks warned you about, and showed the world New York’s knight in shining armor, even if he did like to admire his own shine.
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| Don't worry, New York. Barry Gibb is on the case. |
While Working Girl just barely missed the cut, there’s still an iconic ferry ride to be found on this list. Despite appearing in only a handful of shows, Babs is the queen of Broadway, and indeed all New York. Her turn as Fanny Brice earned her an Academy Award, and her rendition of “Don’t Rain On My Parade” is still as beloved today as it was in ‘68 (Hell, Lea Michele refused to alter it a bit when she performed it on Glee out of reverence), and watching that ferry pass the Statue of Liberty while Streisand belts out the climax of the song from the front, it’s sheer perfection. Even when it’s clearly set-pieces, it’s still clearly New York, and Barbara was, is and forever will be ours.
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| Hello gorgeous |
Like Glengarry Glen Ross, we almost never leave the bank, yet you know it’s New York. A hot day causes chaos to erupt when a bank robbery goes wrong, and suddenly the whole city seemingly turns out to watch the action. Pacino’s infamous shout of “Attica” has made it’s way into the American lexicon, and probably made a fair portion of middle America afraid to come visit our fair city. Which is fine by us, because as Dog Day Afternoon taught us, and Spike Lee would teach us again 20 years later, if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the city.
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| Above: Al Pacino in his second greatest role. Second, of course, to Jack and Jill. |
One of the greatest dance films of all time, with one of the greatest soundtracks, with one of the most iconic openings in movie history, and all it involves is paint cans, John Travolta, a Bee Gees track and a Brooklyn sidewalk. Who really remembers the story of this disco flick. All that stands out is the music, the moves, and the setting. Whether it’s the sidewalks, the discotheques, or the graffiti-coated subways that help remind you where all of this is taking place, Saturday Night Fever captures a point in time even the greats were ignoring. It’s not the bullet-riddled, crime soaked 70’s Scorsese depicted, nor the high-brow, intellectual haven Woody made it out to be. It was just hanging out, getting drunk, screwing and dancing, which is what the 70’s really was in New York for a lot of people, my folks included. So thanks for those mental images, Saturday Night Fever. May you burn in hell.
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| Yes, more happened in this movie than just disco. |
Ok, so most films about New York show the gorgeous and the spectacular, or maybe sometimes romanticize the dirty and dark until it’s spectacular. But every once and a while it’s nice to laugh at the less-than-perfect parts of our fair city. Anyone who’s ever traveled to Shea Stadium (R.I.P.) was already laughing as soon as Eddie Murphy’s character Akeem stated that “What better place to find a queen than the city of Queens?”. One of the all-time best comedies of the ‘80’s, and perhaps of all-time, Eddie Murphy’s finest film also captures a side of New York, hell a whole borrough, that nobody else was talking about, and did it with the same affection and humor it treated the central love story of the film.
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| There's no caption that can be funnier than the scene itself, so we'll just not try. |
Obscure, virtually unseen, poorly acted, poorly scripted, poorly edited. Generally this wouldn’t be the kind of film to make any list. But there’s a Godard-ian charm to Flesh, the story of a bisexual gigolo on the streets of 60’s New York, trying to raise money for his girlfriend’s lover’s abortion. Using real figures from Warhol’s inner-circle, including Candy Darling (the inspiration for both Lou Reed’s “Take A Walk on the Wild Side” and The Kinks’ “Lola”), Flesh is the closest anyone’s come to an in-the-moment documentary of the 60’s New York underground. There’s a serene sadness to it that no song or film ever truly captured again. No matter how dramatized or romanticized Hollywood made the 60’s out to be, the most accurate depiction can only be found in the most technically flawed film.
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| Here's the part of 60's New York Across the Universe neglected to show you. |
Brevity isn’t in the vocabulary of the acclaimed Western director, but clocking in at 4 and a half hours, Sergio’s final film (and his only non-cowboy one) is so intricately crafted, so detailed and intelligently composed that it’s decade-spanning story treats New York like it treats Noodles and Max. We see the good, we see the bad, and we see them grow. Many films have captured New York at a certain time, have captured a certain emotion. But Leone caught the pulse of a living city.
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| Man, wasn't childhood a blast? |
Sure, it doesn't just bleed New York like some of his other films, but it’s chock full of coke-fueled New York 70’s madness. The true story of Henry Hill is one of Scorsese’s finest moments, and if you’ve ever been to NYC hopped up on blow, this film nails it (...or so I’ve heard...ahem) from the tracking shots to the manic dialogue to the spirit both jovial and violent. Though Leone would do it to a greater extent in Once Upon A Time in America, Scorsese crams all that “Watch a boy and the city grow” stuff into the first third of the movie, leaving the other parts for him to fill with the city he adores. Dirty, seedy, crime ridden and for all of those reasons charming.
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| Yes, that is Mama Scorsese. Yes, my own mother will never be in a scene as epic as this. |
Let’s face it, New York is theatre. As much as mob movie fans want to think NY is all about crime and sex, all the theatres in Time Square no longer bear an XXX above them. Hell, most say “Disney theatrical productions”. And the greatest movie about the New York theatre scene just happens to be about the worst Broadway musical ever conceived. Decades before it became a hit Broadway musical itself, Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom were plotting to con investors out of money by producing “Springtime for Hitler”, a show that would probably still be more favorable than this season’s line-up, Once excluded. Somehow, The Producers succeeds where Smash, the NBC drama about putting on a Broadway musical, fails. It manages to be so essentially New York without being inaccessible to non-New Yorkers.
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| I'm sorry, what remake? |
As the pissed-off but misguided college students (of which I was once a part) down at Zuccoti Park want you to know, Wall Street is a part of New York. A big part. It’s where all the money comes from. And where all the money goes. All those guys in the suits in such a hurry walking through downtown Manhattan? They’re headed to Wall Street. Myriads of films have explored the druggie New York subculture, or the mob New York subculture, but only one has explored the subculture of the Wall Street stockbroker, and they nailed it to a T. It’s Manhattan wealth at its most excessive, and it serves as both a time capsule of wealthier days, and a chilling reminder of why we’re not in those wealthy days anymore.
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| I'm sorry, what sequel? |
You want to know why this is so high up on a list of New York films? Go back and read everything I said about Serpico (emphasis on the “not accurate story” part, since the entire film is horseshit), then go into Bensonhurst and drive under the BMT West End Line. That does it, right there. That’s NY, dead-on.
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| Because fuck accurate storytelling, we have guns! |
“New York, New York, a wonderful town!” That magical time of year known as fleet week that all New Yorkers know well. Sailors flood our sidewalks hungry for culture, excitement and…well, other stuff. On The Town, from it’s opening number on, captures that excitement. It doesn’t give the audience the dirty, seedy New York some crave. Rather it treats you like one of the sailors, seeing this living city for the first time, marveling at all the excitement it has to offer. It’s opening song says all there is to say about why we love New York. It is a wonderful town, isn’t it?
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| That's not a still from the movie. That's just Sinatra pointing to a random New york woman and saying "You next". |
You know? For all the falling in love people seem to do in the New York of the movies, it seems like there’s a lot more gunfire. Maybe it’s the geography or the history, but New York has been the setting for many a crime film, including quite possibly the greatest of all time. Coppola’s obsession with detail shines through in his masterpiece, perfectly recreating the New York of the 40’s and 50’s. To this day, locations from the film like the Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan or the “Corleone Compound” in Staten Island are instantly recognizable. Even as you read this, I’m certain your mind is being flooded with that haunting score and the image of Don Barzini being shot on the steps of the New York State Supreme Court.
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| Here's the moment where Brando was just fat enough for Coppola. Then Apocalypse Now happened. |
10.) Sweet Smell of Success (1957) dir. Alexander MackendrickOne of the most brilliant, brooding and inimitable films in American cinematic history, Sweet Smell of Success seems at times a neglected classic. But for those who have seen it, the story of the desperate press agent Sidney Falco’s efforts to please the villainous J.J. Hunsecker packs a strong punch, in no small part due to the striking realism of the film. That realism owes a great deal to the fact that Lancaster and co. chose to have the film shot on location in New York City, which director Mackendrick felt was essential to the feel of the film, because “One of the characteristic aspects of New York, particularly of the area between 42nd Street and 57th Street, is the neurotic energy of the crowded sidewalks. This was, I argued, essential to the story of characters driven by the uglier aspects of ambition and greed.” In those moments when, from out his apartment window, Hunsecker stands out overlooking his city, he is a king in an empty castle, looming over the bustling crowds beneath him, as so many have done before and after.
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| And yet Tony Kurtis is more remember for dressing in drag. |
Quite possibly the most beloved film about romance and relationships, the believability of Annie Hall lies in it’s setting. The city in which Alvie and Annie live isn’t the Technicolor dream world of Les Parapluies de Cherbourg or An American in Paris, but rather the same smoke-seared skyline under which Travis Bickel drives, albeit the city beneath is a bit brighter in the daytime. Yet simply because he doesn’t hide the shadows or saturate the colors doesn’t mean Woody does have the utmost love and reverence for his urban playground. New York is treated with such an affection in this film that when it switches locations to LA, it just feels…unnatural. Sure, it may not capture the fairytale romanticism some of us embue in NY, nor the gunshots and gangsters many want to believe walk down every street. Instead, Woody gives us a real portrait of real New York for real people.
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| Back when Diane Keaten dating Woody Allen gave average men everywhere hope. Then Warren Beatty killed it. |
Though not the first by Martin Scorsese, anyone who’s seen Boxcar Bertha will tell you that Mean Streets is the first Martin Scorsese film. Marty has always had a unique view of the world, and though it may not be as sleek or as stylish as Raging Bull or Goodfellas, Mean Streets truly captures New York through Marty’s eyes. Perhaps it is because of his low budget that the New York inhabited by Charlie and Johnny Boy feels so authentic; Marty had no choice but to film the real thing. Crowd shots of Little Italy were clearly filmed from out a window, and when DeNiro blows up the mailbox, you genuinely don’t know if they even had a permit to do that. Never before had someone captured the dark parts of the city so authentically, and some would argue never since.
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| Catholic guilt doesn't really factor into any of Marty's work, does it? |
If Mean Streets set a gritty atmosphere to convey a stark realism, Wise and Robbins classic film adaptation of one of America’s greatest musicals set out to use it’s colors, sets and overall style to convey the tone of love burning within the darkness of a city ton apart by racism and violence. The opening showdown sequence is unforgettable, perfectly blending the dark violence of the gang-warfare the city so desperately tries to hide with the colorful pageantry we so want the world to think is all we have going on. Though most of the film was shot on LA soundstages, West Side Story depicts an uber-stylized New York that’s still genuinely believable. Sure, those too swept up in the Scorsese view of NY’s criminal element may find the dance-fights unbearable, but for anyone who’s ever walked down a New York City sidewalk at night, you don’t see the cabs’ blaring lights or the graffiti soaked walls. West Side Story doesn’t give the audience the New York of the down-trodden and hopeless. The city of Tony and Maria, of the Sharks and the Jets, is the city of the young and in love, the Technicolor streets and fire escapes that seems as though the whole town was built solely for you two. That city does exist, if you look with the right eyes.
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| The choreography in today's street fights is far more Martha Graham influenced. |
Perhaps there’s something bad about the fact that I fell in love with the seedy New York of the 60’s from Lou Reed’s tales of whores and hustlers, mainly on the Transformer album. Any thoughts I had, though, of their being a glamor or a chic to the NY underground were quickly eradicated when I first set eyes on Schlesinger’s tales of two lost souls scrapping by in downtown Manhattan. The only X-Rated film to ever win Best Picture (it’s rating was quickly switched to an R afterwards), Midnight Cowboy depicts the same bleak, gritty city that Mean Streets set out to show, but without much of the viscerally thrilling violence to pull us out of the abyss we’re gazing into as these two crushed souls wander aimlessly through both broken down diners and high-society parties alike. The dark side of the revered 1960’s is on display here, and the decaying city Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo wander is unflinchingly real. Even the famous “I’m walking here” moment wasn’t planned. That was an actual New York City driver’s impatience that sparked that moment of accidental authenticity. Midnight Cowboy serves as a time-capsule to a city long since scrubbed down and Disney-fied, for better or worse; yet to this day, in moments of sadness and introspection, just hum “Everybody’s Talkin’” as you walk down any street in Manhattan and you’ll feel right at home.
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| There's two-time Academy Award winner Dustin Hoffman, and Angelina Jolie's dad. |
Coppola’s eye for detail was back in full force in the sequel to his 1972 masterpiece, but it’s study of New York’s bygone years expands further; no longer just exploring the New York run by new Corleone family don Michael as he comes to grips with a changing world at the tail end of the 50’s, it also goes back to examine the life of young Vito, trying to make ends meet in the tenements of the 20’s. For anyone with immigrant ancestors who wondered what life was like “back in the day”, they need look no further than this. Few films perfectly capture New York as it is today, fewer as it was once. Coppola captured two distinct chapters in the city’s life, little detail by little detail, so much that you would swear he’d traveled back in time. As an Italian-American New Yorker, The Godfather Part II is the ultimate testament to where we came from.
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| Fun fact: This is still how most Italian-Americans answer the door. |
Audrey Hepburn has never been more stunning or more stylish than in this, her most iconic role in her most iconic film set in one of the most iconic cities in the world. Holly Golightly fled her small-town life to find a city that was as alive and carefree as she, and did she ever. Holly makes New York her playground, lives life exactly as she likes, and makes it impossible, both for Paul and for us, not to fall in love with her. Her vivacity alone could turn the whole city into Technicolor, and to be in love in Manhattan is to see the city as Blake Edwards shows it here. The closest thing to crime we see is Holly and Paul gleefully stealing masks from a store, as they gallivant about the city feeling as gay and reckless as two young lovers could. The sweetness of their reconciliation in the rain is as distinctly New York as it is beautiful. Holly Golightly teaches us to fall in love, not with any one particular person per se, but with Manhattan itself. With it’s people, it’s buildings, and of course, with Tiffany’s. Anyone who feels Edward’s masterpiece depicts an unreal city has clearly never stood outside Tiffany’s and sworn they heard “Moon River” playing in the wind.
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| Nowadays, that glass is 10 kinds of bulletproof. |
Marty and Woody might be New York’s two most revered chroniclers, but…they may be leaving something out of their films. Like minorities. Any minorities. Hell, New York has one of he most diverse populations in the country, yet only three films on this list have black protagonists, and as for Asian characters…some day the people involved with Breakfast At Tiffany’s will have to apologize in hell, that’s all I’ll say. But you can almost understand why. Race is a touchy subject in cinema. The only time it really gets dealt with is in sanitized Hollywood tear-jerkers which set out to say that “Racism is wrong”. So ethnically diverse areas of New York like Brooklyn or Queens tend to get ignored in cinema, unless it’s a white-washed version full of lots of Italians and guns. Leave it to Spike Lee, though, to make a brilliantly stylized and yet no less realistic vision of Bed-Stuy in his magnum opus, Do The Right Thing. A film about racial tension on one fateful, hot summer’s day, Do The Right Thing shakes people. It’s impossible for it not to. It’s startlingly real portrait of lower-class people finally seeing all the tension below the surface come to a head in the most dramatic of ways always sparks an intense debate over “who was wrong” and “who was right”. Most viewers will agree that the message of the film is wrong. What they can’t seem to agree on is what the message of the film is. So begins a debate that usually boils down to “It’s the black guy’s fault” or “It’s the white guy’s fault”, without either side realizing the irony of their argument, or that such an argument, mixed with the exhaustion o a heat wave, could lead to one of them hurling a trash can through a window just as easily as Mookie did in the film’s climax. Do The Right Thing doesn’t exist to point the finger or pass judgment, but rather to provoke discussion. In that, it succeeds with flying colors, and brilliantly captures the unspoken segregation in the minds and hearts of New York.
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| The whole point of Do The Right Thing is to explain why delivery takes so long. |
Taking the stylistic elements of Mean Streets and ramping it up times 1,000, Taxi Driver may well be Scorsese’s finest hour, and DeNiro’s most iconic role. The seedy underbelly of NYC is the setting for Travis Bickle’s descent into madness, and Scorsese captures it to a T. Anyone who’s ever wandered downtown at night and pulled their jacket a bit tighter from discomfort with their surroundings, they’ve seen the people who live in the world of Taxi Driver. Yet as repugnant as Scorsese makes New York out to be, it’s clear that Marty also has an affection for his dark, brooding home. The New York of Taxi Driver is tangible, accessible, you feel like you’re there, no matter where you watch it. You can feel the cool breeze slide through the crack in the taxi’s window. Your lungs clench from the smoke in the air. The frenetic energy of Travis’s mind intertwines with the blinding headlights and glaring streetlamps in a way that both disorients and strangely acclimates one with this strange yet familiar dark place we all know within ourselves, a place New York at night embodies, or at least it did in the 1970’s. Scorsese embraces the shadows of New York City, and more importantly what lurks within them. In almost no film is New York as integral a set piece, and it feels at times like the city was constructed just for this film, just for Travis Bickle to have the perfect jungle to stalk through.
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| I feel sad I've never had a cab driver that looked like this. |
It was tough to decide between this or Taxi Driver, and I know in part due to TD’s mystique and grittiness many will disagree with the choice, but never has their been a more open and unrepentant love-letter to the city that doesn’t sleep than this. The opening sequence alone will make anyone even just a mile outside of Manhattan homesick, and while it’s story may not be as accessible as Annie Hall, there are so many New Yorkers who can relate to the idea of being too caught up in imperfections and one’s own neuroses to find true happiness anywhere. Isaac wants Mary when he’s with Tracy, who he can’t take seriously because of her age. Yet once his relationship with Mary goes south, he realizes her flaws and wants Tracy back. Indeed, the only successful love affair Isaac has is with his city, which he willfully admits he romanticizes “all out of proportion”. As he says in the opening, he always saw Manhattan in black and white, and set to the music of George Gershwin, and invites us all to see Manhattan the very same way, and once you have, it’s impossible to wander a New York City street without humming “Rhapsody In Blue”, a song now inseparable from the city after Woody married the two in both the opening and climax of his film. At points both comic and tragic, it removes those surreal moments that were present in Annie Hall to create an all the more believable story. The film doesn’t even feel as though Allen had to “recreate” New York. Not a moment feels cinematic or “Hollywood”, but rather the whole thing is as though he simply dropped these characters into the very Manhattan we traverse every day and let them exist. Though that’s not to say his love for his city doesn’t show in the cinematography. A key scene in Isaac and Mary’s relationship takes place on a bench across from the Queensboro Bridge (a testament to the film’s believability is that even die-hard New Yorkers who know there’s no bench there don’t get pulled out of the film for a second) that’s lit up so exquisitely as to almost make the heart skip a beat, and almost every other shot sets out to capture the beauty of Manhattan as much as capture the story. In truth, the real romance in the film isn’t between Isaac and Mary or Isaac and Tracy, but between the filmmaker and his home. Not many of us have ever plotted to kill a Senator, or sold our bodies on the streets, danced with a fairytale princess, swung with Spider-Man or smashed in a pizza shop window. But everyone has walked and talked with someone they were attracted to. Everyone’s sat and wondered why life is worth living. Everyone has blown it with someone they thought was “the one”. Woody Allen gives us, in Manhattan and most of his work, the New York we really have all known. At least I hope you have, because it’s an absolutely wonderful place to know. It’s a feeling everyone should have, quite honestly, that feeling that New York is your town “…and it always would be”.
It's impossible to choose just one shot, so here's the entire opening. Never has there been a finer love-letter:
Honorable Mentions (flicks that just barely missed the cut):
- Kids
- Requiem for a Dream
- Working Girl
- Raging Bull
- The Odd Couple
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