"00 , 00:01:36:00 , Los Angeles, California." "00 , 00:01:39:00 , They make movies here." "00 , 00:01:43:00 , I live here." "00 , 00:01:51:00 , Sometimes I think that gives me the right to criticize the way movies depict my city." "00 , 00:01:53:00 , I know it's not easy." "00 , 00:01:54:00 , The city is big." "00 , 00:01:56:00 , The image is small." "00 , 00:02:00:00 , Movies are vertical." "00 , 00:02:02:00 , At least when they're projected on a screen." "00 , 00:02:07:00 , The city is horizontal, except for what we call downtown." "13 , 00:02:12:13 , Maybe that's why the movies love downtown more than we do." "00 , 00:02:18:00 , If it isn't the site of the action, 07 , 00:02:20:07 , they try to stick its high-rise towers in the back of the shot." "01 , 00:02:29:01 , But movies have some advantages over us." "11 , 00:02:32:11 , They can fly through the air." "17 , 00:02:34:17 , We must travel by land." "12 , 00:02:37:12 , They exist in space." "16 , 00:02:40:16 , We live and die in time." "00 , 00:02:44:00 , So why should I be generous?" "21 , 00:02:50:21 , Of course, I know movies aren't about places, 05 , 00:02:52:05 , they're about stories." "00 , 00:02:56:00 , If we notice the location, 00 , 00:02:58:00 , we are not really watching the movie." "00 , 00:03:03:00 , It's what's up front that counts." "09 , 00:03:07:09 , Movies bury their traces, 00 , 00:03:09:00 , choosing for us what to watch," "00 , 00:03:11:00 , then moving on to something else." "00 , 00:03:17:00 , They do the work of our voluntary attention, 00 , 00:03:20:13 , and so we must suppress that faculty as we watch." "13 , 00:03:25:00 , Our involuntary attention must come to the fore." "00 , 00:03:30:00 , But what if we watch with our voluntary attention, 00 , 00:03:32:00 , instead of letting the movies direct us?" "00 , 00:03:38:00 , If we can appreciate documentaries for their dramatic qualities, 00 , 00:03:41:00 , perhaps we can appreciate fiction films" "00 , 00:03:43:13 , for their documentary revelations." "00 , 00:03:52:00 , And what if suspense is just another alienation effect." "00 , 00:03:55:00 , Isn't that what Hitchcock taught?" "00 , 00:04:01:00 , For him, suspense was a means of enlivening his touristy travelogues." "00 , 00:04:07:00 , Then maybe I can find another way to animate this city symphony in reverse." "00 , 00:04:12:00 , Maybe this effort to see how movies depict Los Angeles 00 , 00:04:16:13 , may seem more than wrong-headed or mean-spirited." "00 , 00:04:29:00 , Los Angeles, it is said, 00 , 00:04:31:00 , is the most photographed city in the world." "01 , 00:04:35:01 , If you walk around enough, 01 , 00:04:37:00 , you'll start to notice" "00 , 00:04:39:00 , the mysterious temporary signs 00 , 00:04:41:00 , that direct crew members to a movie location." "00 , 00:05:03:00 , If you walk through the right neighborhoods, 00 , 00:05:05:00 , you'll see the long rows of white trucks" "00 , 00:05:07:00 , that mark and fence off a location shoot." "00 , 00:05:19:00 , Los Angeles is where the relation between reality and representation gets muddled." "17 , 00:05:21:17 , [Newspaper headline: 2 Charged in Murder Like One in Film They Produced] 18 , 00:05:25:00 , Their film is about the killing of a strip club mogul." "00 , 00:05:29:00 , Six years earlier, 00 , 00:05:31:00 , the producer and the star had conspired to murder" "00 , 00:05:34:00 , the real owner of the strip club where the film is set 00 , 00:05:36:00 , and take over his empire." "00 , 00:05:48:00 , The strip clubs made them rich, 00 , 00:05:50:00 , but their movie flopped." "00 , 00:05:55:00 , A real movie shoot 00 , 00:05:57:00 , can create a better public spectacle" "00 , 00:05:59:00 , than the fake movie studio tours." "00 , 00:06:35:00 , In a city where only a few buildings 00 , 00:06:37:00 , are more than a hundred years old," "00 , 00:06:41:00 , where most traces of the city's history have been effaced, 00 , 00:06:44:00 , a place can become a historic landmark" "00 , 00:06:46:00 , because it was once a movie location." "00 , 00:06:51:00 , As it is for people, 00 , 00:06:53:00 , so it is for places:" "00 , 00:06:57:00 , getting into the movies becomes a substitute for achievement." "00 , 00:07:01:00 , Actors have head shots, 00 , 00:07:04:00 , buildings get architectural photographs." "00 , 00:07:19:00 , Plaques and signs mark the sites of former movie studios." "22 , 00:07:32:22 , Streets and parks are named for movie stars." "00 , 00:07:42:00 , Even movie writers." "00 , 00:07:48:13 , A small bust near the Griffith Park Planetarium 13 , 00:07:50:00 , marks the spot" "00 , 00:07:52:13 , where James Dean once played a rebel without a cause." "00 , 00:07:57:00 , The inscription claims Dean wasn't really a rebel:" "00 , 00:07:59:13 , those were only roles he played." "00 , 00:08:05:00 , But wasn't he more of a rebel in life 00 , 00:08:07:00 , than in the movies?" "00 , 00:08:11:00 , where he always played a milquetoast Oedipus, 00 , 00:08:15:00 , trying not to murder but to please an imperfect father" "00 , 00:08:18:00 , who is either too stern... 00 , 00:08:28:14 , or too soft?" "00 , 00:08:48:00 , A narrow public stairway 00 , 00:08:49:13 , between Vendome Street" "13 , 00:08:51:13 , and Descanso Drive in Silver Lake 00 , 00:08:54:00 , has been named the Music Box Steps," "00 , 00:08:58:13 , after the classic Laurel and Hardy short 13 , 00:09:01:00 , filmed there in 1932." "00 , 00:10:14:13 , Some buildings that look functional 13 , 00:10:16:13 , are permanent movie sets." "00 , 00:10:19:13 , A McDonald's in City of Industry 13 , 00:10:21:13 , is never open to the public." "00 , 00:10:23:13 , Here actors are paid 13 , 00:10:25:00 , so we can see them smile" "00 , 00:10:27:00 , as they ingest their Big Macs." "00 , 00:10:32:00 , A roadhouse 00 , 00:10:35:00 , at the corner of Avenue Q and 145th Street" "00 , 00:10:36:13 , in Palmdale 00 , 00:10:38:00 , has never served a regular patron," "00 , 00:10:41:00 , but it appears prominently 00 , 00:10:43:00 , in Swordfish and Brother." "00 , 00:11:02:00 , And other buildings that have lost their purpose 02 , 00:11:04:02 , can be preserved as movie locations," "00 , 00:11:07:00 , like the Ambassador Hotel, 00 , 00:11:10:00 , famous since 1968" "00 , 00:11:12:00 , because Sirhan Sirhan 00 , 00:11:14:00 , assassinated Robert Kennedy there." "00 , 00:11:18:00 , Sometimes it works the other way around:" "13 , 00:11:21:13 , a building constructed as a movie set 13 , 00:11:23:13 , takes on an afterlife." "13 , 00:11:26:13 , Mr. Blandings's dream house, 00 , 00:11:29:00 , fictionally located in the woods of Connecticut," "00 , 00:11:31:13 , has been preserved as an administration building 13 , 00:11:34:00 , at Malibu Creek State Park." "13 , 00:11:39:04 , Los Angeles 00 , 00:11:41:00 , may be the most photographed city in the world," "00 , 00:11:43:00 , but it's one of the least photogenic." "00 , 00:11:46:00 , It's not Paris or New York." "22 , 00:11:49:22 , In New York, everything is sharp and in-focus, 00 , 00:11:53:00 , as if seen through a wide-angle lens." "00 , 00:11:57:00 , In smoggy cities like Los Angeles, 00 , 00:12:00:00 , everything dissolves into the distance," "00 , 00:12:02:00 , and even stuff that's close-up 00 , 00:12:04:00 , seems far off." "00 , 00:12:08:20 , New York seems immediately accessible to the camera." "00 , 00:12:11:13 , Any image from almost any corner of the city 00 , 00:12:14:00 , is immediately recognizable" "00 , 00:12:15:00 , as a piece of New York." "00 , 00:12:19:00 , Los Angeles is hard to get right, 00 , 00:12:21:13 , maybe because traditional public space" "00 , 00:12:23:13 , has been largely occupied 13 , 00:12:26:00 , by the quasi-private space of moving vehicles." "16 , 00:12:29:16 , It's elusive, 14 , 00:12:31:14 , just beyond the reach of an image." "00 , 00:12:34:13 , It's not a city that spread outward from a center 13 , 00:12:37:13 , as motorized transportation supplanted walking," "00 , 00:12:42:00 , but a series of villages that grew together, 00 , 00:12:44:00 , linked from the beginning" "00 , 00:12:46:00 , by railways and then motor roads." "00 , 00:12:49:00 , The villages became neighborhoods 00 , 00:12:51:00 , and their boundaries blurred," "00 , 00:12:53:00 , but they remain separate provinces, 04 , 00:12:56:00 , joined together primarily by mutual hostility" "00 , 00:13:00:00 , and a mutual disdain for the city's historic center." "13 , 00:13:05:00 , Maybe that's why the movies turned their back on their city of origin, 00 , 00:13:07:00 , almost from the beginning." "00 , 00:13:09:00 , They claimed to come from Hollywood, 00 , 00:13:11:00 , not from Los Angeles," "00 , 00:13:16:00 , although the first southern California studios weren't even in Hollywood, 00 , 00:13:19:00 , but in another suburb with an even more idyllic name:" "13 , 00:13:21:13 , Edendale 13 , 00:13:23:13 , just north of Echo Park Lake," "13 , 00:13:28:13 , where Jake Gittes would spy on Hollis Mulwray in Chinatown." "00 , 00:13:32:00 , Mack Sennett had his studio there, 00 , 00:13:35:00 , and when the lake was drained in 1913," "00 , 00:13:39:00 , he could improvise a movie plot around it." "00 , 00:13:54:13 , The movies moved west, 07 , 00:13:57:00 , and Edendale doesn't exist anymore." "00 , 00:14:02:00 , It somehow got lost between Echo Park and Silver Lake." "00 , 00:14:07:00 , The movies claimed to come from Hollywood, 00 , 00:14:11:00 , even though there were more movie studios in Culver City," "13 , 00:14:16:13 , one of the small independent municipalities tucked into the west side of Los Angeles." "00 , 00:14:20:00 , In the golden age of comedy, 00 , 00:14:22:00 , when an urban setting was required," "00 , 00:14:25:00 , it was usually downtown Culver City." "07 , 00:14:37:00 , But Culver City was ?" "the heart of screenland" only in the eyes of its civic fathers." "00 , 00:14:40:13 , The greater renown of Hollywood so frustrated them 13 , 00:14:44:13 , that they once proposed appropriating the name for themselves." "00 , 00:14:49:00 , Culver City would have been renamed Hollywood." "13 , 00:14:52:13 , Why not?" "00 , 00:14:55:00 , After all, Hollywood isn't just a place, 00 , 00:14:58:00 , it's also a metonym for the motion picture industry." "00 , 00:15:04:00 , But if you're like me and you identify more with the city of Los Angeles 00 , 00:15:06:00 , than with the movie industry," "00 , 00:15:09:00 , it's hard not to resent the idea of Hollywood, 00 , 00:15:13:13 , the idea of the movies as standing apart from and above the city." "00 , 00:15:17:13 , People blame all sorts of things on the movies." "13 , 00:15:21:00 , For me, it's their betrayal of their native city." "13 , 00:15:23:00 , Maybe I'm wrong, but 00 , 00:15:27:13 , I blame them for the custom of abbreviating the city's name to L.A." "13 , 00:15:30:00 , "Gotta find somebody in L.A."" "00 , 00:15:31:13 , "Maybe he's not even in L.A."" "13 , 00:15:33:00 , "How far did you say you're going?"" "00 , 00:15:34:13 , "Los Angeles."" "13 , 00:15:36:00 , "L.A.?"" "13 , 00:15:38:00 , "L.A.'s good enough for me, mister."" "00 , 00:15:40:00 , "L.A. was the gang capital of America."" "00 , 00:15:44:00 , "Hello, L.A!"" "00 , 00:15:49:00 , "Hello, Plissken." "00 , 00:15:51:00 , Welcome to L.A!"" "00 , 00:15:57:00 , The acronym functions here as a slightly derisive diminutive." "00 , 00:15:59:00 , Now it's become second nature, 00 , 00:16:01:00 , even to people who live here." "00 , 00:16:06:00 , Maybe we adopted it as a way of immunizing ourselves against the implicit scorn, 13 , 00:16:09:00 , but it still makes me cringe." "00 , 00:16:14:00 , Only a city with an inferiority complex would allow it." "00 , 00:16:37:00 , When people say "L.A."" "00 , 00:16:39:03 , they often mean "show business."" "00 , 00:16:41:13 , "I'm an actress... 20 , 00:16:46:20 , Did you ever see Massacre in Blood City?"]" "23 , 00:16:49:23 , That's another presumption of the movies:" "23 , 00:16:55:00 , that everyone in Los Angeles is part of their "industry" or wants to be." "00 , 00:16:56:05 , Actually, 05 , 00:16:59:00 , only one in forty residents of Los Angles County" "00 , 00:17:01:13 , works in the entertainment industry." "13 , 00:17:04:00 , But the rest of us simply don't exist." "00 , 00:17:08:00 , We might wonder if the movies 00 , 00:17:10:13 , have ever really depicted Los Angeles." "13 , 00:17:22:13 , The City as Background 00 , 00:17:28:13 , At first, Los Angeles was just a destination, not a place." "13 , 00:17:31:18 , Movie characters visited, 18 , 00:17:34:00 , they didn't live here." "00 , 00:17:42:00 , "Are you sure we're still in the United States?"" "00 , 00:17:44:00 , "I think Los Angeles is."" "00 , 00:17:47:00 , It was a resort, not a city." "00 , 00:17:57:00 , When its streets and buildings appeared in movies, 00 , 00:18:00:00 , they were just anonymous backdrops." "00 , 00:18:04:00 , Nobody called Los Angeles the capital of the Pacific Rim 00 , 00:18:08:00 , or worried about how it stacked up with the great cities of the world." "00 , 00:18:12:00 , The varied terrain and eclectic architecture 00 , 00:18:17:00 , allowed Los Angeles and its environs to play almost any place." "00 , 00:18:23:13 , Lake Arrowhead, 13 , 00:18:26:13 , seventy-eight miles from downtown Los Angeles," "13 , 00:18:29:00 , could play Switzerland, 00 , 00:18:41:00 , and Calabasas in the San Fernando Valley" "00 , 00:18:43:00 , could play the valley of Ling in China 00 , 00:18:46:00 , after M-G-M excavated some rice paddies." "00 , 00:18:54:13 , More often than not, 13 , 00:18:57:00 , Los Angeles played some other city... 00 , 00:19:00:00 , Sinclair Lewis's Zenith in Babbitt... 00 , 00:19:10:13 , Chicago in The Public Enemy... 13 , 00:19:14:00 , "Say, you can let me off here." "I'm going to meet my friends on the corner."" "00 , 00:19:19:00 , Jimmy Cagney drops off Jean Harlow in front of the new Bullock's Wilshire department store." "07 , 00:19:27:00 , Our Art Deco ?" "cathedral of commerce" had opened in September 1929, 00 , 00:19:30:00 , seventeen months before The Public Enemy was filmed." "00 , 00:19:34:00 , It was a new kind of dry goods emporium, 00 , 00:19:37:00 , located in the suburbs for the motorcar trade." "00 , 00:19:43:00 , Presumably only locals would recognize this Los Angeles landmark, 00 , 00:19:47:13 , but as they drove aimlessly around what is now called the Wilshire Center district," "00 , 00:19:50:13 , anyone who knows anything about Chicago 13 , 00:19:53:00 , might find the cityscape strangely rural." "13 , 00:19:56:13 , "From Chicago?"" "13 , 00:19:59:00 , "Not exactly." "I came from Texas."" "00 , 00:20:02:00 , In The Street with No Name, 00 , 00:20:04:00 , Los Angeles played Center City." "00 , 00:20:14:00 , Again and again, it has played a city with no name." "13 , 00:20:20:00 , Its landmarks are obscure enough that they could play many roles." "00 , 00:20:26:00 , The most venerable of these landmarks is the Bradbury Building at Third and Broadway, 00 , 00:20:28:00 , dating from 1893." "13 , 00:20:34:13 , It was discovered by architectural historian Esther McCoy in 1953." "00 , 00:20:38:00 , She claimed architect George Herbert Wyman 00 , 00:20:44:00 , had been inspired by Edward Bellamy's utopian vision of a socialist architecture in the year 2000:" "00 , 00:20:47:00 , a vast hall full of light, 00 , 00:20:51:13 , received not alone from the windows on all sides but from the dome." "00 , 00:20:59:13 , But the movies discovered the Bradbury Building before the architectural historians did." "00 , 00:21:03:00 , The earliest appearance I know came in 1943." "00 , 00:21:09:13 , In China Girl, it played the Hotel Royale in Mandalay, Burma." "00 , 00:21:18:13 , The following year, in The White Cliffs of Dover, 13 , 00:21:23:00 , it played a London military hospital overflowing with wounded soldiers." "00 , 00:21:32:13 , Its first indelible role was in D.O.A.:" "00 , 00:21:37:00 , fatally poisoned by a luminous toxin slipped into his drink at a jazz club, 00 , 00:21:42:00 , Frank Bigelow has one day before dying to track down his killer," "00 , 00:21:47:13 , and he finds him at the Phillips Import-Export Company... 13 , 00:21:51:00 , room 427." "00 , 00:22:25:00 , The Bradbury Building was again the site of a bizarre revenge killing in Indestructible Man." "13 , 00:22:29:13 , This time, an executed convict, 13 , 00:22:31:00 , brought back to life" "00 , 00:22:35:13 , and given superhuman strength by a scientific experiment gone awry, 00 , 00:22:40:00 , hunts the three sleazy hoodlums who set him up to take the fall." "13 , 00:23:05:13 , In Marlowe, the mayhem was less lethal." "13 , 00:23:09:13 , Here the Bradbury Building houses Philip Marlowe's office, 00 , 00:23:14:13 , which Raymond Chandler had located in a shabby building on Hollywood Boulevard." "00 , 00:23:18:13 , "Mr. Marlowe?"" "13 , 00:23:20:00 , "Yes."" "00 , 00:23:29:03 , "What can I do for you?"" "00 , 00:23:50:00 , The Bradbury Building had become just another cliché in a film of clichés, 13 , 00:23:53:13 , the most misanthropic of all the Marlowe movies." "13 , 00:24:00:00 , Screenwriter Hampton Fancher and director Ridley Scott 00 , 00:24:04:13 , disagreed about employing the Bradbury Building as a location for Blade Runner." "13 , 00:24:09:13 , Fancher argued it was too familiar, overdone." "13 , 00:24:12:00 , Scott responded, 00 , 00:24:14:13 , "Not the way I'll do it."" "00 , 00:24:21:00 , He gave the building a new, more elaborate facade through mattework, 00 , 00:24:25:00 , and he turned the interior atrium into a picturesque ruin." "00 , 00:24:31:13 , After a long overdue restoration in the early nineties, 13 , 00:24:33:13 , it went upscale." "00 , 00:24:38:00 , In Murder in the First, 00 , 00:24:40:13 , a period movie set in 1941," "00 , 00:24:44:13 , it housed the offices of a prosperous San Francisco lawyer, 13 , 00:24:53:00 , and in Wolf, the office of a prominent New York publishing firm." "13 , 00:25:02:00 , Now it has found a use that seems consonant with its career in the movies 13 , 00:25:10:13 , Another Blade Runner location," "13 , 00:25:12:13 , Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis house, 13 , 00:25:15:00 , has had an even longer movie career." "13 , 00:25:19:00 , The most massive of the Mayan Revival houses 00 , 00:25:22:00 , Wright designed around Los Angeles in the twenties," "00 , 00:25:26:13 , it first appeared in the movies in 1933 13 , 00:25:29:00 , as the home of a female auto tycoon." "00 , 00:25:36:00 , The interiors are studio sets, 00 , 00:25:39:00 , typical Warner Bros. Art Deco," "00 , 00:25:42:00 , as are some of the exteriors." "13 , 00:25:45:13 , Wright had left out the swimming pool." "00 , 00:25:51:13 , William Castle rediscovered it in 1958, 13 , 00:25:54:00 , just before Wright's death." "13 , 00:26:04:00 , Vincent Price has offered $10,000 to five people 00 , 00:26:08:00 , if they can last the night in this century-old haunted house." "00 , 00:26:17:13 , Once again, the interiors are unrelated to Wright's architecture." "13 , 00:26:41:00 , In 1968 Gus Brown bought the Ennis house and restored it." "13 , 00:26:47:13 , To help pay the maintenance and preservation costs, 13 , 00:26:51:00 , he began promoting it as a location site," "00 , 00:26:53:00 , not only for movies and TV shows, 00 , 00:26:56:13 , but also for infomercials and music videos." "00 , 00:27:14:00 , Blade Runner was his proudest catch, 00 , 00:27:19:00 , but my favorite is A Passion to Kill," "00 , 00:27:22:00 , a low-budget neo-noir film." "00 , 00:27:24:00 , It plays a psychiatric clinic 00 , 00:27:28:00 , where a patient can sometimes seduce her therapist." "00 , 00:27:47:00 , But director Rick King allows the architecture to upstage the action." "00 , 00:27:53:00 , The Ennis house apparently transcends space and time." "00 , 00:27:57:00 , It could be fictionally located in Washington 13 , 00:27:59:13 , or Osaka." "00 , 00:28:04:00 , It could play an ancient villa... 00 , 00:28:11:00 , a nineteenth century haunted house... 13 , 00:28:16:00 , a contemporary mansion... 13 , 00:28:21:00 , a twenty-first century apartment building... 00 , 00:28:28:00 , or a twenty-sixth century science lab" "00 , 00:28:31:00 , where Klaus Kinski invents time travel." "00 , 00:28:34:13 , "I got my blood into this... 13 , 00:28:36:00 , And now you have it... 00 , 00:28:38:00 , Look, right in the palm of my hand." "00 , 00:28:40:00 , Time!" "00 , 00:28:44:00 , We can go back into the past and change it as we wish."" "13 , 00:28:52:00 , The Union Station is a more recognizable landmark." "00 , 00:28:56:00 , As the major gateway to Los Angeles in the forties and fifties, 13 , 00:28:59:00 , it has been a location for many movies" "00 , 00:29:03:00 , and a favorite site for movie kidnappings." "13 , 00:29:07:13 , "Listen, madam."" "00 , 00:29:10:13 , "You stole that."" "13 , 00:29:12:13 , "Know what this is?"" "13 , 00:29:14:13 , "" " It's a game." "" " It's no game." "Just walk."" "13 , 00:29:18:00 , "" " Why?" "Cuz if you don't, I'll blow your fucking heart out."" "00 , 00:29:21:00 , Through its corridors and grand lobby have passed 00 , 00:29:23:00 , gangsters... 00 , 00:29:27:00 , drug dealers... 13 , 00:29:33:00 , political protesters... 13 , 00:29:45:00 , Munchkins... 00 , 00:29:53:00 , even an alien in heat disguised as a railroad conductor." "00 , 00:29:58:00 , Yet Union Station hasn't always played itself." "00 , 00:30:02:00 , During its fallow days in the early eighties, 00 , 00:30:05:00 , before its revival as an interurban railway hub," "13 , 00:30:08:00 , it was a police station in Blade Runner." "13 , 00:30:13:00 , In the 1950 movie Union Station, 00 , 00:30:16:13 , the only film in which it has a starring role," "13 , 00:30:19:00 , it is not located in Los Angeles." "00 , 00:30:24:13 , Actually it's never located anywhere precisely." "00 , 00:30:31:00 , The station is only a commuter ride from Westhampton, 00 , 00:30:35:00 , which would place it in New York City," "00 , 00:30:42:00 , yet one of the villains takes an elevated train out of the station, 00 , 00:30:45:00 , suggesting Chicago." "00 , 00:30:51:00 , The police chase him into the stockyards." "00 , 00:30:53:00 , This must be Chicago, 00 , 00:30:57:00 , but what about those palm trees?" "00 , 00:31:42:00 , In The Replacement Killers, 00 , 00:31:45:13 , Union Station played the Los Angeles International Airport," "13 , 00:31:47:13 , LAX." "00 , 00:31:58:00 , Our airport is certainly replaceable." "13 , 00:32:02:00 , The best anyone might say for it is that it looks like all the others, 13 , 00:32:05:00 , maybe just a little worse." "00 , 00:32:09:00 , The railway terminal had been designed as public space;" "00 , 00:32:14:00 , the airport was designed for crowd control." "00 , 00:32:22:00 , It has been an inevitable if uninspiring location for movies set in Los Angeles, 00 , 00:32:27:00 , but some directors have tried to sidestep its terminal blandness." "00 , 00:32:31:00 , Clint Eastwood set The Rookie in Los Angeles, 00 , 00:32:37:00 , but he filmed the climactic airport terminal chase at the San Jose International Airport." "00 , 00:32:49:13 , In Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" ", 13 , 00:32:53:00 , the "theme" restaurant in the middle of the airport parking lot, 00 , 00:32:56:00 , originally intended as the control tower," "00 , 00:33:00:00 , portrayed a passenger terminal." "13 , 00:33:16:13 , Of course movies lie about Los Angeles, 13 , 00:33:21:00 , but sometimes they make us wish the real city corresponded more closely to their vision." "13 , 00:33:26:05 , In Miracle Mile, 05 , 00:33:29:13 , Johnie's Coffee Shop at Wilshire and Fairfax" "13 , 00:33:32:00 , has a fantastic revolving sign, 00 , 00:33:34:00 , and it's open all night." "00 , 00:33:37:00 , At the time the film was made, 00 , 00:33:39:00 , Johnnie's had no revolving sign," "00 , 00:33:41:00 , and it closed before dinnertime." "00 , 00:33:45:00 , Now it's closed indefinitely." "00 , 00:33:50:00 , Other lies are simply benign." "13 , 00:33:53:13 , Government agencies sometimes get fictional names." "00 , 00:33:59:13 , "Dr. Stevens, meet Special Agent Pomeroy of the National Bureau of Investigation."" "13 , 00:34:01:20 , "N.B.I.?"" "20 , 00:34:04:13 , "You don't look like an N.B.I. man to me, Mr. Pomeroy."" "13 , 00:34:07:13 , "Well, you don't look like a doctor, doctor."" "13 , 00:34:09:00 , People have fake addresses." "00 , 00:34:17:00 , "Stark, Jim Stark." "Here it is, 1753 Angelo." "Well, well."" "13 , 00:34:20:13 , Or fake phone numbers... 00 , 00:34:23:13 , "Lexington 0-five-five-four-nine."" "00 , 00:34:25:00 , "What's the number?"" "00 , 00:34:27:00 , "Five-five-five-seven-six-o-five."" "00 , 00:34:30:13 , "Five-five-five-four-four-eight-seven."" "13 , 00:34:34:00 , "Five-five-five-sixty-nine-sixty-nine."" "13 , 00:34:46:13 , "Write down my number, ... 13 , 00:34:50:13 , five-five-five-six-three-two-one." "Got it?"" "13 , 00:34:53:00 , "Wait a minute... 00 , 00:34:57:00 , Five-five-five's not a real number." "They only use that in the movies."" "00 , 00:35:00:00 , "No shit, honey." "What do you think this is?" "Real life?"" "00 , 00:35:05:00 , Other lies are annoying." "13 , 00:35:08:00 , To someone who knows Los Angeles only from movies, 00 , 00:35:14:00 , it might appear that everyone who has a job lives in the hills or at the beach." "00 , 00:35:21:00 , The dismal flatland between 13 , 00:35:25:00 , is the province exclusively of the lumpen proletariat." "00 , 00:35:30:00 , And most of them live next to an oil refinery." "05 , 00:35:55:00 , And in death they will rest next to an oil derrick." "13 , 00:36:08:00 , A hillside house may be appropriate for a hack composer ... 00 , 00:36:22:00 , or a drug dealer on the way up." "00 , 00:36:24:00 , "Where'd you get this furniture?"" "00 , 00:36:26:00 , "Nice Italian lady picked this out."" "00 , 00:36:28:00 , "Oh, so nice." "Gianni Versace, right?" "Mike Tyson wears Versace."" "00 , 00:36:33:00 , "David, come on." "Take your feet off the couch." "You don't do that at your mother's house, do you?"" "00 , 00:36:36:00 , "Nouveau anal, I think this is called." "But all right."" "00 , 00:36:38:00 , "And here...here...here...coaster...coaster."" "13 , 00:36:41:13 , Or a music promoter on the way down." "13 , 00:36:43:00 , "Terry Valentine."" "00 , 00:36:46:00 , "Very nice to meet you."" "13 , 00:36:54:13 , "You know, ... 13 , 00:36:58:13 , ...you could see the sea out there if you could see it."" "00 , 00:37:04:13 , But in reality, a bookstore clerk couldn't afford to rent a house above Sunset Plaza, 00 , 00:37:07:00 , even if it is, as she claims" "00 , 00:37:09:00 , "small and kind of run-down."" "00 , 00:37:13:13 , A fixer with jetliner views, in the local realtor jargon, 13 , 00:37:18:13 , would still have rented for two or three thousand dollars per month in 1995," "00 , 00:37:22:00 , no matter how much in need of TLC." "13 , 00:37:26:13 , Her bank robber boyfriend might live in Malibu." "00 , 00:37:29:13 , And back in the sixties, 13 , 00:37:32:13 , bohemian young people did live by the sand in Venice," "13 , 00:37:35:13 , although I don't remember the Infinite Pad." "00 , 00:37:44:00 , We may regard Cobra's Venice loft as a relic of the golden eighties 13 , 00:37:47:13 , when product placement superseded script-writing" "00 , 00:37:53:00 , and movie cops abandoned the suburbs to become urban pioneers." "13 , 00:38:12:00 , But what about a struggling true-crime writer 00 , 00:38:15:00 , and an unemployed photographer so cash-strapped" "10 , 00:38:20:00 , they must recruit paying passengers for their move from Pittsburgh to California?" "13 , 00:38:25:14 , Yet when they arrive in Los Angeles, 00 , 00:38:30:13 , they immediately take up residence in a spacious Malibu beach cottage." "00 , 00:38:35:00 , And I don't like geographic license." "15 , 00:38:39:10 , It's hard to make a theoretical argument against it." "00 , 00:38:42:00 , After all, in a fiction film, 00 , 00:38:44:00 , a real space becomes fictional." "00 , 00:38:48:13 , Why shouldn't a car chase jump from the Venice canals 00 , 00:38:52:00 , to the Los Angeles harbor thirty miles away?" "00 , 00:39:19:00 , Why shouldn't the exit from a skating rink in Westwood 00 , 00:39:23:00 , open directly onto Fletcher Bowron Square in downtown Los Angeles," "00 , 00:39:25:00 , fifteen miles east?" "13 , 00:39:31:00 , But one fiction is not always as good as another, 00 , 00:39:40:13 , and like dramatic license," "13 , 00:39:44:00 , geographic license is usually an alibi for laziness." "00 , 00:39:48:00 , Silly geography makes for silly movies." "00 , 00:39:52:00 , "I warned you I'd kill her."" "13 , 00:40:03:00 , And the best Los Angeles car chase movie 00 , 00:40:04:13 , is stubbornly," "13 , 00:40:06:13 , even perversely literalist 13 , 00:40:08:13 , "Attention, all units. ... 13 , 00:40:12:00 , ..." "Roadblock being set up at Torrance Mazda agency, ... 00 , 00:40:14:00 , One-Nine-O street and Hawthorne Boulevard." "00 , 00:40:15:13 , Use caution."" "00 , 00:40:38:13 , Director Toby Halicki realized Dziga Vertov's dream:" "00 , 00:40:42:13 , an anti-humanist cinema of bodies and machines in motion." "00 , 00:40:50:00 , His materialist masterpiece was the first manifesto 00 , 00:40:53:00 , for a cinema of conspicuous destruction." "00 , 00:41:03:00 , centered in the South Bay, 00 , 00:41:07:00 , the unglamorous southern coastal region of the Los Angeles basin" "00 , 00:41:09:13 , stretching from Long Beach to El Segundo 13 , 00:41:14:00 , that would later become the domain of William Friedkin... 13 , 00:41:19:00 , Quentin Tarantino... 13 , 00:41:21:00 , and Michael Mann," "00 , 00:41:24:13 , who would accidentally rename the most familiar icon of South Bay movies, 00 , 00:41:28:00 , the Vincent Thomas Bridge." "00 , 00:41:33:00 , "Saint Vincent Thomas Bridge, that's escape route number one."" "00 , 00:41:38:00 , Vincent Thomas was San Pedro's representative in the state assembly for many years, 00 , 00:41:41:00 , but he hasn't been canonized yet," "00 , 00:41:44:00 , not even in Pedro." "00 , 00:41:48:13 , Accidents happen, 13 , 00:41:50:13 , but some lies are malignant." "00 , 00:41:54:13 , They cheapen or trivialize the real city." "00 , 00:42:01:00 , One of the glories of Los Angeles is its modernist residential architecture, 13 , 00:42:07:00 , but Hollywood movies have almost systematically denigrated this heritage" "00 , 00:42:09:00 , by casting many of these houses 06 , 00:42:11:06 , as the residences of movie villains." "00 , 00:42:17:00 , It begins with The Damned Don't Cry in 1950." "00 , 00:42:20:00 , Frank Sinatra's Palm Springs retreat, 00 , 00:42:23:00 , designed by Stewart Williams," "00 , 00:42:26:00 , plays the home of a local gangster boss." "13 , 00:42:31:16 , Then in 1955, 00 , 00:42:35:00 , a band of psycho kidnappers led by John Cassavetes" "00 , 00:42:39:00 , holes up in a prototypically mid-century modern house 00 , 00:42:41:00 , in the Hollywood Hills." "00 , 00:43:00:13 , And there has usually been something sinister about the Ennis house." "00 , 00:43:06:00 , Its most frequent role is the mansion of some gangster chieftain, 00 , 00:43:09:00 , often a representative of the yellow peril." "13 , 00:43:20:00 , The most celebrated episode in Hollywood's war against modern architecture 00 , 00:43:22:00 , is L.A. Confidential." "00 , 00:43:26:00 , Richard Neutra's Lovell house, 08 , 00:43:31:00 , the first great manifestation of the International Style in southern California," "00 , 00:43:33:00 , plays the home of Pierce Patchett, 13 , 00:43:35:00 , pornographer," "00 , 00:43:36:00 , pimp, 00 , 00:43:38:00 , prince of the shadow city" "00 , 00:43:40:13 , where whatever you desire is for sale." "00 , 00:43:46:00 , Actually director Curtis Hanson greatly admires the Lovell house." "10 , 00:43:49:13 , He even gives it a special credit at the end of the film, 00 , 00:43:53:13 , according it the honorific title favored by its original owner:" "00 , 00:43:56:00 , the Lovell Health House." "00 , 00:43:58:00 , Is it just a convention then?" "00 , 00:44:00:00 , The architectural trophy house 00 , 00:44:04:00 , is the modern equivalent of the black hat or the mustache." "00 , 00:44:06:00 , It's nothing to take seriously." "00 , 00:44:11:00 , Well, the architecture critic of the Los Angeles Times took it seriously." "06 , 00:44:16:00 , He cited L.A. Confidential as some kind of proof 00 , 00:44:20:13 , that the utopian aspirations of modernist architecture were bogus" "00 , 00:44:25:00 , He wrote, 00 , 00:44:30:00 , "The house's slick, meticulous forms seem the perfect frame for that kind of power... 00 , 00:44:34:00 , Neutra's glass walls open up to expose the dark side of our lives" "00 , 00:44:39:00 , they suggest the erotic, the broken, the psychologically impure."" "13 , 00:44:43:13 , So now we know." "13 , 00:44:45:00 , As the movies have shown, 00 , 00:44:49:00 , these pure modern machines for better living were dens of vice." "13 , 00:44:51:13 , In fact, 13 , 00:44:56:00 , this fiction is contradicted not only by the original spirit of the Lovell house," "00 , 00:44:58:00 , but by its entire history." "00 , 00:45:02:13 , It was designed as a kind of manifesto for natural living, 13 , 00:45:06:13 , and it became a center for radical left-wing political meetings in the thirties." "13 , 00:45:15:00 , There is one modernist architect Hollywood lets off lightly:" "13 , 00:45:17:00 , Pierre Koenig." "00 , 00:45:21:00 , Perhaps it's because he had a knack for turning steel-and-glass cubes 00 , 00:45:24:00 , into Hollywood Regency style mini-mansions." "00 , 00:45:27:00 , His Stahl house is an icon of modern architecture 00 , 00:45:30:00 , and lately a movie star." "13 , 00:45:34:00 , In The Marrying Man, 00 , 00:45:38:13 , it plays the Hollywood pied-à-terre of a multimillionaire playboy," "13 , 00:45:42:13 , although the film is set twelve years before it was built." "13 , 00:45:45:00 , In The First Power, 05 , 00:45:47:13 , it plays the home of a police psychic," "00 , 00:45:52:00 , and in Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" "00 , 00:45:55:00 , it is the west coast base of Zola Taylor, 00 , 00:45:57:00 , the female vocalist in the Platters." "13 , 00:46:04:00 , We feel bad when Frankie Lymon trashes it." "13 , 00:46:11:00 , On the other hand, 00 , 00:46:15:00 , the architect Hollywood most loves to hate is John Lautner." "13 , 00:46:17:20 , In Twilight, 20 , 00:46:21:00 , a Lautner house overlooking the San Fernando Valley" "00 , 00:46:24:00 , is a crooked cop's reward for his corruption." "13 , 00:46:31:00 , "Nice place you got here... 13 , 00:46:33:18 , ..." "It sure beats Los Feliz"" "00 , 00:46:37:00 , "You're up above the smog."" "13 , 00:46:40:05 , "Quite a pad you got here, man."" "00 , 00:46:43:00 , A more elaborate Lautner house in the hills of Beverly 00 , 00:46:46:00 , plays the Malibu beach house of porn king Jackie Treehorn" "00 , 00:46:48:00 , in The Big Lebowski." "00 , 00:46:50:13 , "How's the smut business, Jackie?"" "00 , 00:46:54:13 , "I wouldn't know, dude." "I deal in publishing."" "00 , 00:46:58:00 , Lautner's most famous house is the Chemosphere, 00 , 00:47:01:00 , a hexagon of wood, steel, and glass," "00 , 00:47:06:00 , raised above its hillside lot on a single concrete column." "13 , 00:47:09:13 , It appears in Body Double 13 , 00:47:12:13 , as the bachelor pad of a lunatic driller killer." "00 , 00:47:17:13 , Lautner's interiors may be sometimes vulgar, 13 , 00:47:20:00 , or excessively ostentatious," "00 , 00:47:22:00 , but he can't be blamed for this one, 00 , 00:47:27:00 , a bit of excessive art direction designed to parody eighties excesses." "00 , 00:47:37:00 , The ultimate insult to Lautner's work came in Lethal Weapon 2." "00 , 00:47:40:00 , The Garcia house on Mulholland 00 , 00:47:45:00 , is the home office of a drug ring organized by the South African consulate." "13 , 00:47:47:14 , Enraged by their diplomatic immunity, 00 , 00:47:51:13 , Mel Gibson pulls down their house with his pickup truck." "13 , 00:47:56:13 , Not only is Lautner slick and superficial, 00 , 00:47:59:00 , he's incompetent." "00 , 00:48:04:00 , Lethal Weapon 2 is also the work of a modern architecture fan." "13 , 00:48:09:13 , Producer Joel Silver is famous for his tasteful restoration of a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Hollywood 13 , 00:48:13:13 , and a Wright-designed plantation in South Carolina." "00 , 00:48:18:00 , Even though Lautner was Wright's disciple, 00 , 00:48:22:13 , Hollywood's conventional ideology once again trumped personal conviction." "13 , 00:48:42:00 , At least Silver has also trashed post-modernist architecture." "00 , 00:48:47:13 , The thirty-four-story Fox Plaza in Century City 13 , 00:48:50:00 , co-starred with Bruce Willis in Die Hard." "13 , 00:48:57:13 , When a gang of high-stakes robbers 13 , 00:49:02:00 , posing as terrorists take over the building and capture thirty plus hostages," "00 , 00:49:05:00 , the FBI would sacrifice a good number of the hostages 00 , 00:49:07:00 , in order to save the building." "13 , 00:49:09:13 , "What you figure the breakage?"" "13 , 00:49:12:00 , "I figure we take out the terrorists,... 00 , 00:49:15:00 , ..." "lose twenty, twenty-five per cent of the hostages." "Tops."" "13 , 00:49:17:00 , "I can live with that."" "13 , 00:49:22:00 , But the rogue cop inside has other ideas." "00 , 00:49:28:13 , Among all the authority figures on the scene, 13 , 00:49:30:13 , he alone places people above property." "13 , 00:49:33:00 , "Get down, get the fuck down!"" "13 , 00:49:35:13 , "Nail that sucker."" "00 , 00:49:58:00 , The Fox Plaza played the Nakatomi Plaza, 00 , 00:50:01:00 , the Los Angeles branch office of a Japanese multinational." "13 , 00:50:04:00 , In the late eighties, 00 , 00:50:07:13 , Japanese corporations did own many of the local office towers." "13 , 00:50:13:00 , In the movies, they owned them all." "00 , 00:50:30:00 , "Jesus, if an elevator's gonna talk, it should speak in American."" "00 , 00:50:36:13 , There are a few Los Angeles landmarks that almost always play themselves:" "13 , 00:50:39:00 , City Hall... 13 , 00:50:41:13 , Grauman's Chinese Theatre... 00 , 00:50:45:00 , Griffith Planetarium... 00 , 00:50:48:00 , the four-level freeway interchange... 13 , 00:50:52:00 , the concrete channel of the Los Angeles River... 00 , 00:51:01:00 , the Eastern Columbia Building at Eighth and Broadway... 13 , 00:51:09:00 , the Bonaventure Hotel at Fifth and Figueroa... 13 , 00:51:14:00 , the Beverly Hills Hotel at Sunset and Rodeo," "13 , 00:51:18:00 , the Paradise Motel at Sunset and Beaudry... 13 , 00:51:23:00 , Clayton Plumbers at Westwood and LaGrange... 00 , 00:51:32:00 , Circus Liquor at Burbank and Vineland... 13 , 00:51:38:00 , Pink's Hot Dogs at La Brea and Melrose... 13 , 00:51:45:00 , the Memorial Coliseum in Exposition Park." "00 , 00:51:57:00 , With hard wooden seats for all, 00 , 00:52:00:13 , the Coliseum is the most democratic American stadium" "00 , 00:52:03:13 , and the last of its kind to survive." "13 , 00:52:07:00 , As a place where thousands of people congregate, 00 , 00:52:17:00 , like the enigmatic sniper in Two-Minute Warning" "00 , 00:52:19:13 , with a perfect aim for aging movie stars," "13 , 00:52:41:13 , or the ?" "invisible invaders" in Edward L. Cahn's 1959 film 13 , 00:52:45:13 , who utilize a zombie to commandeer the public-address system 13 , 00:52:48:13 , and deliver one of their laconic ultimatums." "13 , 00:52:53:00 , "People of earth, ... 00 , 00:52:56:00 , ... this is your last warning." "13 , 00:53:02:13 , Unless the nations of your planet surrender immediately, 13 , 00:53:05:00 , ...all human lives will be destroyed."" "00 , 00:53:20:00 , And, of course, there's the Hollywood sign." "00 , 00:53:27:13 , Since it marks quite literally the ascendancy of Hollywood over the rest of Los Angeles, 13 , 00:53:30:13 , I should despise it," "13 , 00:53:33:00 , as I despise the Hollywood Walk of Fame, 00 , 00:53:37:00 , where the stars cost the honorees or their sponsors $15,000," "00 , 00:53:40:00 , where the Hollywood Blacklist still lives." "00 , 00:53:44:00 , There are stars for the enforcers 00 , 00:53:47:00 , and the informers," "00 , 00:53:52:00 , but none for those they informed on." "00 , 00:53:56:00 , It should be called the Hollywood Walk of Shame." "13 , 00:54:07:00 , Maybe I find it poignant that a decayed advertisement for a real estate development 13 , 00:54:09:13 , could become a civic landmark." "00 , 00:54:13:00 , Or maybe it's just that we have to love it 00 , 00:54:16:00 , because it's such a fat target for outsiders." "13 , 00:54:19:00 , Like that expatriate Englishman David Thomson, 00 , 00:54:22:00 , who loves everything about America" "00 , 00:54:24:00 , except what's worth loving." "00 , 00:54:27:23 , He loves Hollywood, but not the Hollywood sign." "00 , 00:54:30:13 , He once wrote:" "13 , 00:54:34:00 , "That HOLLYWOOD sign is so endlessly funny, and dreadful, ... 00 , 00:54:36:00 , and L.A. is proud of it."" "00 , 00:54:45:00 , These are the landmarks that are destroyed in disaster movies." "00 , 00:55:33:00 , Whenever the legitimacy of authority comes into question, 00 , 00:55:36:00 , Hollywood responds with disaster movies." "00 , 00:55:39:13 , And whenever there's a disaster movie, 13 , 00:55:41:00 , there's George Kennedy." "13 , 00:55:42:13 , "Rosa, let's go."" "13 , 00:55:44:00 , "Better not,"" "13 , 00:55:57:13 , "Come on, Rosa." "Come on, settle down will ya?"" "00 , 00:56:01:00 , "Earthquakes bring out the worst in some guys, that's all."" "13 , 00:56:08:00 , Disaster movies remind us how foolish and helpless we really are 00 , 00:56:12:00 , and thus demonstrate our need for professionals" "00 , 00:56:14:00 , and experts to save us from ourselves." "00 , 00:56:19:00 , They define the sources of legitimate authority." "00 , 00:56:33:00 , We must depend on specialists, 00 , 00:56:35:00 , but which ones can we trust?" "00 , 00:56:38:00 , "I got through. ... 00 , 00:56:41:05 , ..." "Can you get me a jack hammer and a bolt cutter?"" "05 , 00:56:44:00 , "Use a jack hammer and then the roof will fall in."" "00 , 00:56:46:00 , "Look, I think there are some people alive in there ... 00 , 00:56:47:13 , ...and I'm gonna try and get them out."" "13 , 00:56:50:00 , "Well, nobody else is and you can't do it all alone."" "00 , 00:56:52:00 , "I won't be alone, ... 00 , 00:56:54:00 , ...he's coming with me."" "00 , 00:57:04:00 , A priest can be useful." "00 , 00:57:07:00 , "We're gonna crash, we're gonna be killed, I know we're all gonna be..."" "13 , 00:57:11:00 , But not a politician." "00 , 00:57:13:00 , "Like the mighty fist of God, ... 00 , 00:57:16:00 , ..." "Armageddon will descend upon the city of Los Angeles,... 00 , 00:57:20:00 , ... the city of sin, the city of Gomorroh, the city of Sodom." "00 , 00:57:24:13 , ..." "And waters will arise and separate this sinful, sinful city ... 00 , 00:57:27:00 , ... from our country."" "00 , 00:57:38:00 , Mike Davis has claimed that Hollywood takes a special pleasure in destroying Los Angeles, 00 , 00:57:41:00 , a guilty pleasure shared by most of its audience." "13 , 00:57:47:00 , The entire world seems to be rooting for Los Angeles to slide into the Pacific 00 , 00:57:49:13 , or be swallowed by the San Andreas fault." "13 , 00:57:58:13 , In Independence Day, 13 , 00:58:01:00 , who could identify with the caricatured mob... 13 , 00:58:05:00 , dancing in idiot ecstasy...to greet the extraterrestrials?" "00 , 00:58:08:13 , There is a comic undertone of 'good riddance' 13 , 00:58:13:00 , when kooks like these are vaporized by the earth's latest ill-mannered guests." "00 , 00:58:47:00 , But to me the casual sacrifice of Paris in Armageddon 00 , 00:58:49:00 , seems even crasser." "13 , 00:58:53:13 , Are the French being singled out for punishment because they admire Jerry Lewis too much?" "13 , 00:58:58:00 , Or because they have resisted Hollywood's cultural imperialism too fervently?" "00 , 00:59:14:00 , In a sense, Hollywood's frequent destruction of Los Angeles is just as crass, 13 , 00:59:20:00 , but it's more often a case of economic expediency than of ideology." "00 , 00:59:24:00 , Hollywood destroys Los Angeles because it's there." "11 , 00:59:29:13 , Our film-makers don't really believe the Los Angeles City Hall is 13 , 00:59:33:00 , a more resonant civic symbol than the Empire State Building." "13 , 00:59:35:13 , But they are well aware that it's closer." "00 , 00:59:54:13 , "This used to be a hell of a town, officer."" "00 , 00:59:58:00 , "Yeah."" "13 , 01:00:05:00 , In disaster movies, 00 , 01:00:08:00 , at least Los Angeles is finally there as a character," "23 , 01:00:22:13 , The City as Character 13 , 01:00:28:13 , James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler" "00 , 01:00:31:13 , had made Los Angeles a character in their novels, 00 , 01:00:34:00 , and it became a character for the movies" "00 , 01:00:36:20 , when Chandler and Billy Wilder adapted Cain's novel, 00 , 01:00:39:00 , Double Indemnity." "00 , 01:00:45:00 , The sense of place was so precise that Richard Schickel would later claim, 13 , 01:00:49:13 , "You could charge L.A. as a co-conspirator in the crimes this movie relates."" "00 , 01:00:56:00 , Departing from Cain's text, 00 , 01:00:59:00 , Chandler and Wilder created a protagonist-narrator" "00 , 01:01:03:00 , who has ideas or at least opinions about the city around him, 00 , 01:01:08:13 , and his voice-over commentary is addressed to an esteemed colleague whose opinion he cares about" "00 , 01:01:11:13 , and whose intelligence he tries to emulate." "13 , 01:01:17:00 , "Office memorandum. ... 13 , 01:01:21:00 , ..." "Walter Neff to Barton Keyes, claims manager. ... 13 , 01:01:24:13 , ..." "Los Angeles." "July 16, 1938." "13 , 01:01:28:00 , Dear Keyes." "13 , 01:01:32:00 , I suppose you'll call this a confession when you hear it." "00 , 01:01:35:00 , Well, I don't like the word "confession"." "13 , 01:01:39:13 , I just want to set you straight about something you couldn't see because it was smack up against your nose." "13 , 01:01:41:13 , It all began last May." "13 , 01:01:43:00 , Around the end of May it was." "00 , 01:01:46:00 , I remembered this auto renewal near Los Feliz Boulevard." "00 , 01:01:48:00 , So I drove over there." "00 , 01:01:52:00 , It was one of those California Spanish houses everyone was nuts about ten or fifteen years ago." "13 , 01:01:56:00 , This one must of cost somebody about 30,000 bucks, 00 , 01:01:59:13 , that is, if he ever finished paying for it."" "13 , 01:02:02:13 , "I'm Walter Neff, Pacific All-Risk."" "13 , 01:02:04:00 , Like Chandler and Wilder, 00 , 01:02:06:00 , Walter Neff is a smart aleck and a snob." "00 , 01:02:09:00 , "Is there anything I can do?"" "00 , 01:02:10:13 , "The insurance ran out on the fifteenth."" "13 , 01:02:13:13 , I'd hate to think of your having a smashed fender or something while you're not... 13 , 01:02:16:13 , ... fully covered."" "00 , 01:02:19:00 , "Perhaps I know what you mean, Mr. Neff. ... 13 , 01:02:21:00 , ..." "I was just taking a sun bath."" "00 , 01:02:23:00 , "No pigeons around, I hope."" "00 , 01:02:24:13 , And a bit of an asshole, 13 , 01:02:26:13 , although less of one than the man he murders." "13 , 01:02:30:00 , "Next thing you'll tell me I need earthquake insurance, 00 , 01:02:32:00 , ...and lightning insurance, and hail insurance..."" "00 , 01:02:36:13 , "If we bought all the insurance they could think up, we'd stay broke paying for it, wouldn't we, honey?"" "13 , 01:02:40:00 , "What keeps us broke is your going out and buying five hats at a crack."" "00 , 01:02:42:13 , "Who needs a hat in California?"" "13 , 01:02:47:00 , And less of a monster than his partner in crime." "13 , 01:02:56:13 , "Ok." "This has got to be fast. ... 00 , 01:03:00:00 , ..." "Here, take his hat. ..." "Pick up his crutches back on the tracks." "00 , 01:03:04:00 , The murder that inspired Cain's novel had occurred fifteen years earlier 00 , 01:03:06:00 , in Queen's Village, New York," "13 , 01:03:13:13 , but the crime seemed to fit the rootlessness and moral corruption of the southern California middle class." "00 , 01:03:20:00 , Double Indemnity and the Cain adaptations that followed it 00 , 01:03:25:00 , convinced everyone that Los Angeles is the world capital of adultery and murder." "10 , 01:03:27:13 , "Okay, baby,that's it."" "00 , 01:03:30:13 , "What's the matter, aren't you going to kiss me?"" "00 , 01:03:37:13 , "It's straight down the line, isn't it?"" "00 , 01:03:44:00 , "I love you, Walter."" "13 , 01:03:47:00 , "I love you, baby."" "13 , 01:03:53:00 , Nowhere else is evil so banal." "00 , 01:04:01:00 , Double Indemnity evokes Los Angeles without much location shooting, 00 , 01:04:03:00 , but each location is memorable:" "13 , 01:04:06:13 , the Glendale train station at night, 00 , 01:04:13:00 , a street corner identified as Vermont and Franklin" "13 , 01:04:17:00 , (although actually it's Hollywood and Western), 13 , 01:04:21:13 , the exterior of Jerry's Market on Melrose," "13 , 01:04:36:00 , and the Spanish Colonial Revival house that plays the residence of Phyllis Dietrichson, 00 , 01:04:39:00 , her husband, and her step-daughter." "03 , 01:04:43:00 , Neff's voice-over places this house in the hills of Los Feliz, 13 , 01:04:46:00 , and that location seems right," "13 , 01:04:50:13 , although the actual house is a few miles to the west, 13 , 01:04:53:00 , just above the north end of Vine Street," "13 , 01:04:56:00 , close to Hollywoodland where Cain had placed it." "00 , 01:05:03:00 , They must have searched for a house that matched this description as closely as possible:" "13 , 01:05:05:13 , It was built cock-eyed." "13 , 01:05:09:00 , The garage was under the house, 13 , 01:05:13:13 , the first floor was over that," "00 , 01:05:20:00 , and the rest of it was spilled up the hill anyway they could get it in." "00 , 01:05:28:00 , Although all the interiors were filmed on studio sets, 00 , 01:05:31:00 , Wilder stuck close to reality here," "00 , 01:05:36:00 , taking his inspiration from the dramatic entry hall staircase." "00 , 01:05:42:00 , He simply moved the living room from the left side of the entry hall to the right side." "00 , 01:05:51:00 , For Wilder, a consistent modernist, 00 , 01:05:55:00 , the phony historicism of the architecture and interior decor" "00 , 01:05:59:00 , reflects the dishonesty of the lives contained within." "00 , 01:06:04:13 , But tastes have changed." "13 , 01:06:09:00 , Now we all love those red-tile roofs and that wrought iron grillwork 00 , 01:06:11:00 , and would do anything to preserve them." "00 , 01:06:18:00 , So just as modernist architecture connotes epicene villainy, 13 , 01:06:23:00 , the Spanish Colonial Revival suggests petty bourgeois good taste." "00 , 01:06:33:00 , It's the ideal home for a good-bad call girl ripe for reform 13 , 01:06:45:00 , or a vigilante hero out for revenge" "00 , 01:06:53:00 , Genteel respectability is the message in Mildred Pierce, 00 , 01:06:56:00 , Hollywood's second version of a James M. Cain novel," "00 , 01:06:59:00 , in which the suburbs of Los Angeles have a bit part." "00 , 01:07:05:00 , "We lived on Corvallis Street, where all the houses looked alike." "00 , 01:07:07:00 , Ours was number eleven-forty-three." "13 , 01:07:10:00 , It's an odd observation 13 , 01:07:13:00 , since the houses we see don't all look alike," "13 , 01:07:16:00 , but a typical criticism of Los Angeles." "00 , 01:07:19:00 , If you don't like one thing, 00 , 01:07:21:13 , complain about its opposite as well." "13 , 01:07:24:13 , The architecture is too eclectic, 13 , 01:07:26:13 , but it's also too uniform." "00 , 01:07:36:00 , Once again, the drama ends in murder." "00 , 01:07:55:00 , And so it will in The Postman Always Rings Twice, 00 , 01:07:58:00 , the last novel in Cain's southern California trilogy." "00 , 01:08:02:00 , Hollywood filmed it twice, 00 , 01:08:05:00 , in 1946 and again in 1981." "00 , 01:08:15:13 , Cain's novels were written in the thirties, 11 , 01:08:18:00 , and they reflect the fears of a lower middle class" "00 , 01:08:20:13 , hit especially hard by the Depression." "13 , 01:08:24:00 , Explicitly or implicitly, 13 , 01:08:28:00 , the mid-forties movie adaptations are period films." "13 , 01:08:33:13 , The contemporary postwar world looked brighter." "13 , 01:08:37:13 , "Daddy says, southern California is the coming part of the country. ... 13 , 01:08:41:00 , ..." "Dad dy says, six out of every ten veterans will settle here after the war. ... 00 , 01:08:42:00 , ..." "Daddy says..."" "00 , 01:08:45:00 , "Never mind about your daddy." "Don't you have any ideas of your own?"" "00 , 01:08:49:00 , "Well, for a returning Marine, I've got some super ideas."" "13 , 01:08:57:00 , A new suburbia was created for the vets back from the war." "13 , 01:09:02:13 , They could look forward to a good job in the booming aircraft industry, 13 , 01:09:06:13 , a detached house for every family," "00 , 01:09:12:13 , a trash incinerator in every backyard, 00 , 01:09:16:13 , and plenty of bathrooms without toilets" "00 , 01:09:19:00 , at least for movie characters." "00 , 01:09:31:00 , In movies, there were many harbingers of a baby boom, 13 , 01:09:35:13 , yet these excessively cute kids would become, in just a few years," "00 , 01:09:40:00 , the excessively troubled teenagers of Rebel Without a Cause, 13 , 01:09:42:00 , the first teen noir." "00 , 01:09:45:00 , "That's a fine way to behave."" "00 , 01:09:47:00 , "Well, you know who he takes after."" "00 , 01:09:49:00 , "You're tearing me apart!"" "00 , 01:09:55:13 , Director Nicholas Ray photographed real locations around Los Angeles 13 , 01:09:58:13 , to look like sets in a studio musical." "00 , 01:10:03:13 , Musicals establish alternate worlds, 13 , 01:10:06:13 , and that is precisely Ray's achievement." "13 , 01:10:15:00 , The teenagers live in a world that is parallel to the adult world of normality and stability, 13 , 01:10:17:13 , in a world they have created for themselves" "13 , 01:10:20:00 , and that is almost a parody of film noir." "13 , 01:10:27:13 , Their world is more dangerous than that of their parents 13 , 01:10:30:13 , and more attractive." "00 , 01:10:33:00 , "Hit your lights!"" "00 , 01:10:38:00 , It is also privileged in the film." "13 , 01:10:42:00 , We see the adult world through their eyes." "13 , 01:10:45:00 , But we have no other perspective on theirs." "13 , 01:10:51:13 , The teenagers are able to create their own separate world 13 , 01:10:54:13 , only because of their easy access to automobiles." "13 , 01:11:01:00 , They were the first teenagers with cars, 00 , 01:11:03:00 , at least in the movies," "13 , 01:11:08:00 , and maybe that's why Rebel Without a Cause seems so prophetic 00 , 01:11:10:13 , and so evocative of Los Angeles." "13 , 01:11:22:13 , More conventional noir films only fitfully revealed the look of the city." "00 , 01:11:35:00 , Those streets dark with something more than night 13 , 01:11:39:00 , were still more often than not located on studio back lots." "00 , 01:11:46:00 , Film noir generally shunned the mean streets for the meaner sewers." "13 , 01:12:15:00 , The real streets appear in Kiss Me Deadly, 13 , 01:12:17:13 , although this urban road movie" "13 , 01:12:20:13 , didn't announce itself as a portrait of Los Angeles." "13 , 01:12:27:13 , It's a private eye movie, 13 , 01:12:30:00 , a revisionist version of Mickey Spillane" "00 , 01:12:33:13 , that tries to reverse his hyperfascist version of McCarthyism 13 , 01:12:36:13 , by giving Mike Hammer enough rope to hang himself." "13 , 01:12:43:13 , "My dear sir."" "13 , 01:12:48:13 , "Now tell me about the key."" "13 , 01:12:50:13 , "Just a minute, sir."" "00 , 01:12:58:00 , It's close to definitive as a portrait of the city in the mid-fifties." "00 , 01:13:02:13 , Kiss Me Deadly is a literalist film." "13 , 01:13:06:00 , Mike Hammer has a real address:" "00 , 01:13:08:13 , 10401 Wilshire Boulevard." "00 , 01:13:14:00 , And when he pulls away from his apartment building in his new Corvette, 13 , 01:13:17:13 , what we see is what was really there." "13 , 01:13:25:00 , "My mustache, my father's mustache. ... 13 , 01:13:26:18 , ..." "Let's go to the freeway. ... 18 , 01:13:29:00 , I want to see how this little bird flies."" "00 , 01:13:32:00 , Mike Hammer's journeys, 00 , 01:13:33:18 , all shot on location," "18 , 01:13:35:18 , reveal a city divided." "13 , 01:13:38:13 , The rich... 13 , 01:13:40:00 , and the poor." "13 , 01:13:45:13 , The old... 13 , 01:13:47:00 , and the new." "13 , 01:13:50:00 , What was new then is still with us." "00 , 01:14:03:00 , "This is Crestview five-four-one-two-four... 00 , 01:14:07:00 , Mr. Hammer, whom you are calling, is not available at present. ... 00 , 01:14:09:00 , If you wish to leave a record of your call," "00 , 01:14:12:00 , ... please state your message at the sound of the tone."" "13 , 01:14:16:05 , "Hello, Mike, just checking to see if you got home... 05 , 01:14:18:05 , Please call me when you..."" "05 , 01:14:19:05 , "Velda."" "00 , 01:14:24:00 , What was old has been destroyed." "13 , 01:14:27:13 , Images of things that aren't there any more 13 , 01:14:30:00 , mean a lot to those of us who live in Los Angeles," "00 , 01:14:33:14 , and practically nothing to everyone else, 13 , 01:14:39:13 , except perhaps when they represent things that have disappeared from urban centers everywhere," "13 , 01:14:42:13 , like drive-in restaurants 00 , 01:14:47:00 , or drive-in movies." "00 , 01:15:39:00 , Of course, there are certain types of buildings that aren't designed to last." "00 , 01:15:45:13 , They must be rebuilt every five or ten years 13 , 01:15:48:13 , so they can adapt to changing patterns of consumption." "13 , 01:15:57:00 , So the image of an obsolete gas station 00 , 01:15:58:05 , or grocery store" "13 , 01:16:03:13 , can evoke the same kind of nostalgia we feel for any commodity whose day has passed." "00 , 01:16:08:00 , Old movies allow us to rediscover these icons, 00 , 01:16:11:13 , even to construct a documenary history of their evolution." "13 , 01:16:14:00 , "Tell this character we want to go..."" "00 , 01:16:15:13 , "Can I help you, sir?"" "13 , 01:16:17:13 , "Oh, yeah." "Give me five gallons of regular."" "13 , 01:16:18:13 , "Regular."" "13 , 01:16:20:13 , "I thought you said we were going to dancing.."" "13 , 01:16:23:00 , "Come here, homes." "Come here, I wnt to talk to you."" "00 , 01:16:26:00 , "Wo Puld you check under the hood, too, please?"" "00 , 01:16:27:00 , "Sure."" "00 , 01:16:46:00 , "Hello, there." "Fill'er up?"" "13 , 01:16:49:00 , "Two dollars, no knock!"" "13 , 01:16:52:00 , "Yes, sir."" "13 , 01:19:33:00 , "There goes Williams." "He slides." "He's in there, safe."" "13 , 01:19:36:13 , But who cares about our old minor league baseball parks, 13 , 01:19:39:00 , Wrigley Field, home of the Angels," "00 , 01:19:43:00 , and Gilmore Field, home of the Hollywood Stars, 00 , 01:19:47:00 , or the Twinks, as our local sportswriters liked to call them?" "13 , 01:19:54:00 , "Cushions a dime." "Ten cents only." "Be comfortable for a dime." "Get your cushions here."" "13 , 01:20:02:00 , Who remembers Steve Bilko and Bobby Bragan and Carlos Bernier?" "00 , 01:20:33:13 , The crowd scenes in The Atomic City feature real baseball fans, 00 , 01:20:35:13 , not professional extras," "13 , 01:20:37:05 , who were then still cast 05 , 01:20:41:00 , according to the requirements of a production code that prohibited" "00 , 01:20:45:00 , any scenes showing the social intermingling of white and colored people." "00 , 01:20:54:00 , They suggest that Los Angeles may have been more comfortably integrated in 1952 13 , 01:20:56:13 , than it is today." "00 , 01:21:01:13 , And who mourns the Pan Pacific Auditorium, 00 , 01:21:05:00 , our Streamline Moderne palace," "00 , 01:21:07:00 , once the city's most famous landmark, 00 , 01:21:11:00 , where the college basketball teams played their games," "13 , 01:21:15:00 , where Robert Frank photographed the Motorama in 1956." "00 , 01:21:19:13 , It played a dog racing track in Johnny Eager 13 , 01:21:25:13 , and an arena for ice skating shows in Suspense." "13 , 01:21:31:00 , In 1980, after the Pan Pacific had been abandoned, 00 , 01:21:34:00 , Lawrence Gordon produced an ill-fated fantasy" "00 , 01:21:37:13 , of what the preservationists call adaptive reuse." "13 , 01:21:43:13 , A muse inspires a young artist to convince an aging clarinetist 00 , 01:21:48:00 , that it is the ideal locale for the nightclub he wants to open." "00 , 01:21:52:13 , "You really think this could work out for Danny?"" "13 , 01:21:56:00 , "I think this place could be anything you want it to be."" "00 , 01:21:58:13 , "Yeah, but what the hell to call it?"" "13 , 01:22:06:13 , "In Xanadu did Kublah Khan a stately pleasure dome decree."" "00 , 01:22:09:15 , Alas, their dream turns out to be... 00 , 01:22:14:00 , a roller disco." "13 , 01:22:17:00 , The film failed, 00 , 01:22:21:00 , and what was left of the Pan Pacific burned down nine years later." "00 , 01:22:24:00 , It deserved better, 00 , 01:22:26:13 , both in the movies and in reality." "00 , 01:22:33:00 , "A place where nobody dared to go ... 00 , 01:22:38:00 , ..." "A love that we came to know ... 00 , 01:22:41:00 , ..." "They call it Xanadu."" "00 , 01:22:47:00 , So did the Richfield Building, 00 , 01:22:49:00 , which had to make way for taller," "00 , 01:22:51:00 , uglier skyscrapers." "00 , 01:22:54:00 , There are many photographs, 00 , 01:22:56:00 , but only a few movie shots." "00 , 01:22:59:00 , Thanks to Antonioni." "13 , 01:23:05:00 , What about Ship's Westwood, 00 , 01:23:07:00 , a coffee shop that was open all night?" "00 , 01:23:11:00 , It was an institution, 00 , 01:23:16:00 , but it didn't stand a chance when someone realized you could put a skyscraper in the same space." "13 , 01:23:29:13 , "Thanks, Amy."" "13 , 01:23:32:00 , At least the Far East Café is still there." "13 , 01:23:36:13 , It closed down after the 1994 earthquake, 00 , 01:23:39:13 , but it is supposed to reopen soon." "00 , 01:23:44:00 , And so is the Angel's Flight." "00 , 01:23:46:00 , Our beloved funicular, 00 , 01:23:48:00 , "the shortest railway in the world"" "00 , 01:23:51:00 , built in 1901, 13 , 01:23:55:13 , ripped up in 1969 by the Community Redevelopment Agency," "13 , 01:23:58:13 , reconstructed in 1996, 00 , 01:24:01:00 , a block south of its original location," "00 , 01:24:06:00 , closed after a crash in February 2001, 13 , 01:24:08:13 , just a few days after I filmed it." "00 , 01:24:11:13 , But it's still there... 13 , 01:24:13:00 , sort of." "00 , 01:24:17:00 , The reconstructed Angel's Flight was a tourist ride, 13 , 01:24:19:00 , a simulation," "13 , 01:24:21:13 , because it had lost its original purpose." "00 , 01:24:25:00 , Bunker Hill, 13 , 01:24:28:13 , the residential neighborhood at the top of the Angel's Flight," "00 , 01:24:31:00 , had vanished." "00 , 01:24:40:00 , The movies loved Bunker Hill." "13 , 01:24:43:13 , The lords of the city hated it." "13 , 01:24:49:13 , Rents were low, so it put the wrong kind of people too close to downtown." "00 , 01:24:56:00 , Bunker Hill became a target for slum clearance or urban renewal." "00 , 01:25:03:13 , They had to destroy it in order to save it." "13 , 01:25:09:13 , And destroy it they did, 13 , 01:25:12:00 , although it took more than ten years." "13 , 01:25:18:00 , Bunker Hill was the most photographed district in Los Angeles, 00 , 01:25:24:00 , so the movies unwittingly documented its destruction and depopulation." "00 , 01:25:27:00 , In the late forties, 00 , 01:25:30:00 , it could represent a solid working-class neighborhood," "13 , 01:25:41:13 , a place where a guy could take his girl home to meet his mother." "00 , 01:25:45:13 , "Ah, buena sera, mamma mia."" "13 , 01:25:47:00 , "Buena sera."" "00 , 01:25:55:14 , It was film noir territory, 00 , 01:25:59:00 , but it was a refuge from the meaner streets of the city." "00 , 01:26:03:13 , By the mid-fifties, 13 , 01:26:06:00 , it had become a neighborhood of rooming houses" "00 , 01:26:09:00 , where a man who knows too much might hole up or hide out." "00 , 01:26:18:00 , Hollywood had come to accept Raymond Chandler's vision of Bunker Hill 00 , 01:26:22:00 , As old town, wop town, crook town, arty town... 05 , 01:26:24:00 , where you could find anything" "00 , 01:26:28:00 , from crooks on the lam to ladies of anybody's evening 00 , 01:26:31:00 , to County Relief clients brawling with haggard landladies" "00 , 01:26:34:00 , in grand old houses with scrolled porches... 13 , 01:26:37:00 , "A guy could get a heart attack walking up here."" "00 , 01:26:39:00 , "Who invited you?"" "13 , 01:26:41:00 , "Carmen Trivago, what room?"" "00 , 01:26:42:00 , "Follow your ear."" "13 , 01:26:45:00 , The best Bunker Hill movie is The Exiles, 00 , 01:26:49:00 , an independent low-budget film by Kent MacKenzie," "00 , 01:26:53:00 , about Indians from Arizona exiled in Los Angeles, 13 , 01:26:56:00 , shot in 1958," "13 , 01:26:58:00 , completed in 1961." "00 , 01:27:06:13 , It reveals the city as a place where reality is opaque, 00 , 01:27:09:00 , where different social orders" "00 , 01:27:11:00 , coexist in the same space 00 , 01:27:13:00 , without touching each other." "00 , 01:27:39:00 , Better than any other movie, 00 , 01:27:42:00 , it proves that there once was a city here," "05 , 01:27:46:00 , before they tore it down and built a simulacrum." "08 , 01:27:55:13 , The end of Bunker Hill is visible in The Omega Man." "00 , 01:27:57:13 , By 1971 00 , 01:28:01:13 , it made a good location for a post-apocalyptic fantasy." "00 , 01:28:06:00 , Charlton Heston plays an urban survivalist in a cityscape 00 , 01:28:08:00 , depopulated by biological warfare." "00 , 01:28:14:13 , He has learned to become totally self-reliant." "00 , 01:28:19:13 , If he wants to see a movie, 13 , 01:28:21:13 , he has to project it himself." "00 , 01:28:25:13 , "This is really beautiful , man.... 00 , 01:28:28:13 , ..." "If we can't all live together and be happy?" "... 00 , 01:28:31:00 , ..." "If you have to be afraid to walk out in the street, 00 , 01:28:34:13 , if you have to be afraid to smile at somebody, right?" "00 , 01:28:38:00 , What kind of a way is that to go through this life?"" "00 , 01:28:41:13 , All his movie shows are matinees, 13 , 01:28:46:00 , because at night he must fight off a gang of Luddite hippie vampires," "00 , 01:28:49:00 , his only companions in the city." "00 , 01:29:02:13 , Thirteen years later, 13 , 01:29:05:00 , the same plot and the same location" "00 , 01:29:07:13 , reappear in Night of the Comet." "13 , 01:29:10:13 , In the wake of a disaster 13 , 01:29:12:13 , apparently brought on by comet dust," "13 , 01:29:15:00 , a small band of human survivors 00 , 01:29:17:00 , again battle zombie-like mutants," "13 , 01:29:29:13 , but the center of the action, 13 , 01:29:31:00 , Bunker Hill," "00 , 01:29:33:00 , has been totally transformed." "00 , 01:29:41:00 , The new Bunker Hill looks like a simulated city, 00 , 01:29:43:00 , and it played one in Virtuosity." "13 , 01:30:03:00 , But the directors who did the most to make Los Angeles a character in movies 00 , 01:30:04:00 , and then a subject" "00 , 01:30:07:00 , were outsiders, like Wilder, or tourists." "13 , 01:30:12:00 , They weren't interested in what made Los Angeles like a city;" "00 , 01:30:17:00 , they were interested in what made Los Angeles unlike the cities they knew." "00 , 01:30:22:00 , Just as there are highbrows and lowbrows, 00 , 01:30:25:00 , there are high tourists and low tourists." "00 , 01:30:30:00 , Just as there are highbrow directors and lowbrow directors, 13 , 01:30:34:00 , there are high tourist directors and low tourist directors." "13 , 01:30:37:00 , Low tourist directors 00 , 01:30:39:13 , generally disdain Los Angeles." "13 , 01:30:43:13 , They prefer San Francisco and the coastline of northern California." "13 , 01:30:46:13 , More picturesque." "13 , 01:30:55:00 , The greatest low tourist director is, of course, 00 , 01:30:57:00 , Alfred Hitchcock," "00 , 01:31:02:13 , and he set four memorable films around the San Francisco Bay Area." "13 , 01:31:16:00 , But only one of his thirty American films 13 , 01:31:19:00 , is set even partially in Los Angeles." "13 , 01:31:22:00 , The first ten minutes of Saboteur 00 , 01:31:25:00 , are located in or around Los Angeles," "00 , 01:31:27:00 , but it could be anywhere in America 00 , 01:31:29:00 , where there is an aircraft factory." "13 , 01:31:32:00 , The scenes were shot in the studio, 00 , 01:31:35:00 , and there is nothing distinctive to the region in the sets." "13 , 01:31:43:13 , Hitchcock even had Marion Crane bypass Los Angeles 13 , 01:31:48:00 , on her fateful journey from Phoenix to the Bates Motel in northern California." "00 , 01:31:55:00 , But he never had an unkind word for his adopted home town, 00 , 01:31:57:00 , at least in his movies." "13 , 01:32:04:00 , Another low tourist director, 00 , 01:32:05:13 , Woody Allen," "13 , 01:32:09:13 , plainly expressed his disdain for Los Angeles in his most popular movie 13 , 01:32:11:13 , "No, I cannot..." "You keep bringing it up, ... 13 , 01:32:13:00 , but I don't wanna live in a city 00 , 01:32:17:00 , where the only cultural advantage is that you can make a right turn on a red light."" "00 , 01:32:22:00 , As the cinematic chronicler of New York's middle-brow middle class, 13 , 01:32:25:13 , the people who believe what they read in the New York Times," "13 , 01:32:28:13 , Allen rarely strays from his native milieu." "13 , 01:32:33:00 , But his best friend does move to Los Angeles, 00 , 01:32:34:13 , and Woody follows" "00 , 01:32:37:00 , although only for a visit." "13 , 01:32:40:13 , "You know, I can't believe that this is really Beverly Hills."" "00 , 01:32:43:00 , "The architecture is really consistent isn't it, ... 00 , 01:32:46:00 , ..." "French next to Spanish, next to Tudor, next to Japanese."" "13 , 01:32:48:13 , "God, it's so clean out here."" "00 , 01:32:51:00 , "It's because they don't throw their garbage away, ... 00 , 01:32:53:00 , ... they make it into television shows."" "13 , 01:33:00:00 , His tale of two cities becomes a tale of two marquees." "13 , 01:33:09:00 , In fact, The Sorrow and the Pity did play in Los Angeles 13 , 01:33:11:00 , I saw it here" "13 , 01:33:13:00 , and, for all I know, 00 , 01:33:17:00 , The House of Exorcism and Messiah of Evil played in New York." "13 , 01:33:23:00 , But if New York has Woody Allen to live down, 13 , 01:33:25:00 , we can't feel superior." "13 , 01:33:27:00 , We have Henry Jaglom, 13 , 01:33:29:00 , who is even balder," "13 , 01:33:31:00 , even more narcissistic, 00 , 01:33:33:00 , even more solipsistic." "00 , 01:33:35:00 , "I've learned that risks are the best thing... 00 , 01:33:38:00 , ..." "Everything that happens good and exciting, that happens in film and in life ... 00 , 01:33:42:00 , Risk is my middle name."" "06 , 01:33:48:06 , While New Yorkers are generally hostile, 00 , 01:33:51:13 , the British are often fascinated." "13 , 01:33:53:00 , In The Loved One, 00 , 01:33:55:13 , Tony Richardson acknowledges his ambivalence." "00 , 01:33:56:00 , Tony Richardson acknowledges his ambivalence." "00 , 01:33:59:00 , The local architecture is kitsch, 13 , 01:34:01:13 , but it is transcendent kitsch." "13 , 01:34:16:00 , A movie studio is a cruel court 00 , 01:34:20:00 , where everyone is subject to the most wayward whim of its mogul," "13 , 01:34:25:00 , but the back lot is an enchanted village of accidental surrealism." "13 , 01:34:28:00 , "The climate here suits me admirably. ... 00 , 01:34:30:00 , And the people here are so kind and generous." "00 , 01:34:32:00 , They talk entirely for their own pleasure, 00 , 01:34:34:00 , and they never expect you to listen."" "13 , 01:34:37:13 , People who hate Los Angeles 13 , 01:34:39:13 , love Point Blank." "00 , 01:35:06:00 , British director John Boorman 00 , 01:35:09:00 , managed to make the city look both bland and insidious," "13 , 01:35:13:13 , like the gangster organization Lee Marvin smashes, 13 , 01:35:17:13 , which goes by the name Multiplex Products Company." "13 , 01:35:34:13 , For me 13 , 01:35:36:00 , the highlight of the film" "00 , 01:35:40:00 , is the astonishing tableau of grotesque interior decoration schemes." "13 , 01:35:45:00 , It's enough to make you believe the seventies began in the mid-sixties." "00 , 01:36:17:00 , Is an LSD movie low tourist or high tourist?" "00 , 01:36:20:13 , Roger Corman, the director of The Trip, 13 , 01:36:22:13 , is no tourist in Los Angeles," "00 , 01:36:27:00 , but he probably needed a guidebookto open the doors of perception." "13 , 01:36:31:00 , Luckily he had Jack Nicholson to write the script, 00 , 01:36:34:00 , Peter Fonda and Bruce Dern as traveling companions," "00 , 01:36:38:00 , and Dennis Jakob to create the montage sequences." "00 , 01:37:11:00 , Experimental high tourist film-makers like Corman, 13 , 01:37:12:13 , Maya Deren," "13 , 01:37:14:00 , Andy Warhol, 00 , 01:37:15:13 , and Fred Halsted" "13 , 01:37:19:00 , discovered a pastoral arcadia near the heart of Los Angeles." "00 , 01:37:31:00 , Deren and her collaborator Alexander Hammid 00 , 01:37:33:00 , could find a private Eden" "00 , 01:37:37:00 , just by gazing out the window of their Spanish Colonial Revival duplex 13 , 01:37:39:00 , above the Sunset Strip." "00 , 01:37:47:13 , For Warhol, 00 , 01:37:52:13 , Hollywood formulas represented an innocence that could be regained only "sort of"" "00 , 01:37:59:00 , but Sam Rodia's towers in Watts 00 , 01:38:01:00 , were a bit of paradise not yet lost." "00 , 01:38:22:00 , In the early sixties, 00 , 01:38:25:00 , the Watts Towers were the first world's most accessible," "13 , 01:38:28:00 , most user-friendly civic monument." "00 , 01:38:55:00 , Fred Halsted's gay porn masterpiece 00 , 01:38:57:00 , recapitulates the loss of Eden," "00 , 01:39:00:00 , moving from the idyllic rural canyons 13 , 01:39:03:00 , to the already mean streets of Hollywood." "12 , 01:39:19:12 , As the landscape becomes more urban, 13 , 01:39:22:00 , the sex gets rougher." "05 , 01:39:36:00 , Continental European directors 00 , 01:39:39:13 , so they appreciate Los Angeles," "00 , 01:39:42:00 , even the tacky stuff we hate, 00 , 01:39:44:00 , like the Sunset Strip." "00 , 01:39:49:15 , In The Outside Man by Jacques Deray, 00 , 01:39:53:00 , a Parisian hit man stranded in Los Angeles" "00 , 01:39:55:00 , discovers a city of parking lots, 00 , 01:39:58:00 , motels," "00 , 01:40:00:13 , bus stations, 00 , 01:40:05:13 , coffee shops," "13 , 01:40:13:00 , strip bars, 00 , 01:40:19:00 , and real estate opportunities." "00 , 01:40:24:00 , It's all quite ugly, I suppose, 13 , 01:40:29:00 , but it adds up to a precise portrait of the city in 1973," "13 , 01:40:31:00 , just as I remember it." "00 , 01:40:41:00 , Like most Europeans in southern California, 00 , 01:40:45:00 , Antonioni was more interested in the desert than in the city." "00 , 01:40:49:00 , If you should ever find yourself in Death Valley in August, 00 , 01:40:52:00 , you will hear more German spoken than English." "00 , 01:40:55:13 , But before heading for Zabriskie Point, 00 , 01:41:00:00 , Antonioni took his protagonist on a high tourist spin around Los Angeles," "13 , 01:41:05:13 , starting with the now-famous murals at the Farmer John's meat packing plant in Vernon, 13 , 01:41:09:00 , later featured in Brian De Palma's Carrie" "00 , 01:41:11:00 , and Jon Jost's Angel City." "13 , 01:42:20:00 , His tour of industrial Los Angeles ended abruptly and improbably 00 , 01:42:22:00 , at Sunset and Rodeo." "00 , 01:42:48:00 , Jacques Demy loved Los Angeles as only a tourist can." "13 , 01:42:50:00 , Or maybe I should say, 00 , 01:42:52:00 , as only a French tourist can." "13 , 01:42:56:00 , I resented Model Shop when it came out 00 , 01:42:58:13 , because it was a westside movie." "13 , 01:43:00:00 , Its vision of the city 00 , 01:43:02:00 , didn't extend east of Vine Street." "00 , 01:43:04:13 , But now I can appreciate 13 , 01:43:08:00 , an early poignant attempt to defend Los Angeles as a city." "00 , 01:43:11:00 , It's totally incoherent, 00 , 01:43:14:00 , but if you live here, you have to be moved." "13 , 01:43:17:00 , "I was driving down Sunset, ... 00 , 01:43:20:00 , ... and I turned on one of those roads that lead up into the hills, ... 00 , 01:43:22:00 , ... and I stopped at this place that overlooks the whole city." "00 , 01:43:24:00 , ..." "It was fantastic. ... 00 , 01:43:26:00 , I suddenly felt exhilarated." "13 , 01:43:29:00 , I was really moved by the geometry of the place, 00 , 01:43:31:13 , its conception, its baroque harmony." "13 , 01:43:34:00 , It's a fabulous city." "00 , 01:43:39:00 , To think some people claim it's an ugly city when it's really pure poetry, 00 , 01:43:41:00 , it just kills me." "03 , 01:43:43:03 , I wanted to build something right then, 05 , 01:43:44:13 , create something." "00 , 01:43:46:00 , Do you know what I mean?"" "00 , 01:43:48:00 , "Yeah, I do." "I understand."" "00 , 01:43:57:00 , The opinion expressed by Raquel Welch in Flareup is more typical." "00 , 01:44:01:00 , "It's better from up here than down close."" "13 , 01:44:09:00 , Roman Polanski later stole her line 00 , 01:44:11:00 , and improved upon it:" "00 , 01:44:14:00 , "There's no more beautiful city in the world... 13 , 01:44:18:13 , provided it's seen by night and from a distance."" "04 , 00:00:06:16 , It was the outsider Polanski 16 , 00:00:09:16 , who made Los Angeles a subject for movies," "16 , 00:00:12:16 , working in collaboration with a native screenwriter 16 , 00:00:14:16 , Robert Towne." "16 , 00:00:19:16 , The city could finally become a subject in the early seventies 16 , 00:00:22:04 , because it had finally become self-conscious." "04 , 00:00:26:16 , It could no longer be mistaken for a sunny Southern town." "04 , 00:00:28:16 , It had big-city problems:" "04 , 00:00:30:16 , big-city racism 04 , 00:00:32:16 , and big-city race riots." "04 , 00:00:36:16 , The 1965 Watts uprising 04 , 00:00:40:04 , had revealed a racial faultline in Los Angeles." "04 , 00:00:43:16 , The open secrets of police brutality 16 , 00:00:45:16 , and housing discrimination" "16 , 00:00:47:16 , could no longer be swept aside." "04 , 00:00:51:16 , The rioting could be evoked in movies 16 , 00:00:54:16 , only after it had safely passed into history," "04 , 00:00:58:16 , and even then it required a golden oldies soundtrack." "04 , 00:01:58:04 , Yet the shadow of Watts loomed over movies about Los Angeles." "04 , 00:02:01:04 , Isn't the notion of Chinatown 02 , 00:02:04:04 , as the forsaken hellhole of civic negligence" "11 , 00:02:06:11 , a displaced vision of Watts?" "04 , 00:02:12:04 , The endless boom was ending, 02 , 00:02:16:04 , and the new depression hit southern California particularly hard." "04 , 00:02:22:16 , As David Gebhard and Robert Winter wrote in their guide to architecture in Los Angeles, 04 , 00:02:26:04 , "no one seemed sure of the future any longer."" "16 , 00:02:27:16 , Smog, 16 , 00:02:29:16 , the congestion of people" "16 , 00:02:31:16 , and their extension, the automobile, 16 , 00:02:34:16 , the continual destruction of farm land," "16 , 00:02:37:24 , potential and real water shortages 04 , 00:02:40:04 , created doubts of such magnitude" "04 , 00:02:43:16 , that even the usual boosterism of Southern California 04 , 00:02:48:04 , found it increasingly difficult to reassert the old beliefs."" "04 , 00:02:52:16 , The questions began." "04 , 00:02:54:16 , How did we go wrong?" "04 , 00:02:56:16 , When did we go wrong?" "16 , 00:03:00:16 , Although Los Angeles is a city with no history, 04 , 00:03:05:04 , nostalgia has always been the dominant note in the city's image of itself." "04 , 00:03:07:21 , At any time in its history, 04 , 00:03:10:16 , Los Angeles was always a better place" "04 , 00:03:12:04 , "a long time ago"" "04 , 00:03:14:04 , than in the present." "16 , 00:03:17:04 , What was new in the seventies 04 , 00:03:19:16 , was a nostalgia for what might have been," "04 , 00:03:24:04 , a sense that everything might have been different except for one defining event." "16 , 00:03:28:04 , We began to look for an originary sin." "04 , 00:03:31:04 , Robert Towne took an urban myth 04 , 00:03:35:16 , about the founding of Los Angeles on water stolen from the Owens River Valley" "04 , 00:03:37:16 , and made it resonate." "04 , 00:03:43:04 , Chinatown isn't a docudrama;" "16 , 00:03:45:04 , it's a fiction." "16 , 00:03:47:04 , The water project it depicts 04 , 00:03:49:16 , isn't the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct" "04 , 00:03:53:16 , engineered by William Mulholland before the First World War." "04 , 00:03:57:04 , Chinatown is set in 1938, 16 , 00:03:59:04 , not 1905." "16 , 00:04:02:16 , The Mulholland-like figure, 16 , 00:04:04:04 , Hollis Mulwray," "04 , 00:04:06:16 , isn't the chief architect of the project, 16 , 00:04:09:21 , but rather its strongest opponent," "04 , 00:04:12:16 , who must be discredited and murdered." "16 , 00:04:16:04 , Mulwray is against the Alto Vallejo Dam 16 , 00:04:18:04 , because it's unsafe," "04 , 00:04:21:04 , not because it's stealing water from somebody else." "16 , 00:04:23:16 , "In case you've forgotten, gentlemen, ... 16 , 00:04:27:16 , over five hundred lives were lost when the Van der Lip Dam gave way... 04 , 00:04:31:16 , And now you propose yet another dirt-banked terminus dam" "04 , 00:04:34:04 , with slopes of two and one half to one, 04 , 00:04:35:16 , one hundred twelve feet high," "16 , 00:04:37:16 , and a twelve-thousand acre water surface." "16 , 00:04:40:16 , Well, it won't hold." "16 , 00:04:43:16 , I won't build it." "It's that simple."" "04 , 00:04:48:04 , But there are echoes of Mulholland's aqueduct project in Chinatown." "16 , 00:04:50:16 , "That dam's a con job."" "16 , 00:04:51:16 , "What dam?"" "16 , 00:04:53:16 , "The one your husband opposed ... 16 , 00:04:55:04 , they're conning L.A. into building it, ... 04 , 00:04:58:04 , but the water's not gonna go to L.A. It's coming right here."" "04 , 00:04:59:16 , "To the Valley?"" "16 , 00:05:01:16 , "Everything you can see." "Everything around us... 16 , 00:05:05:16 , They're blowing these farmers out of their land and then picking it up for peanuts." "16 , 00:05:10:16 , You have any idea at all what this land'll be worth with a steady water supply?" "16 , 00:05:13:16 , About thirty million more than they paid for it."" "04 , 00:05:19:04 , Mulholland's project enriched its promoters 04 , 00:05:22:04 , through insider land deals in the San Fernando Valley," "23 , 00:05:25:04 , just like the dam project in Chinatown." "16 , 00:05:33:04 , The disgruntled San Fernando Valley farmers of Chinatown, 16 , 00:05:39:04 , because of an artificial drought," "04 , 00:05:41:16 , seem like stand-ins for the Owens Valley settlers 16 , 00:05:44:16 , whose homesteads turned to dust" "16 , 00:05:47:04 , when Los Angeles took the water that irrigated them." "16 , 00:05:51:16 , The Van Der Lip Dam disaster, 04 , 00:05:56:16 , which Hollis Mulwray cites to explain his opposition to the proposed dam," "16 , 00:06:02:16 , is an obvious reference to the collapse of the St. Francis Dam in 1928." "16 , 00:06:06:16 , Mulholland built this dam after completing the aqueduct, 16 , 00:06:11:16 , and its failure was the greatest unnatural disaster in the history of California." "16 , 00:06:19:03 , These echoes have led many viewers to regard Chinatown 16 , 00:06:21:04 , not only as docudrama," "04 , 00:06:22:16 , but as truth, 16 , 00:06:25:16 , the real secret history of how Los Angeles got its water," "04 , 00:06:28:16 , and it has become a ruling metaphor 16 , 00:06:31:16 , for non-fictional critiques of Los Angeles development." "16 , 00:06:36:04 , "Chinatown Revisited"" "04 , 00:06:37:16 , is the phrase Mike Davis coined 16 , 00:06:42:16 , for the downtown skyscraper boom of 1973 to 1986," "04 , 00:06:47:16 , and he cast future mayor Richard Riordan as its prime fixer." "16 , 00:06:51:16 , A publicly financed civic project 16 , 00:06:54:04 , had again generated windfall profits" "04 , 00:06:56:17 , for a wealthy ring of insiders." "16 , 00:07:06:16 , Films about Los Angeles would be period films, 04 , 00:07:09:04 , set in the past or in the future." "16 , 00:07:11:16 , They would replace a public history 16 , 00:07:13:16 , with a secret history." "04 , 00:07:16:16 , Jake Gittes tries to expose a con job, 16 , 00:07:18:16 , but he fails." "16 , 00:07:20:04 , "This is Noah Cross, if you don't know. ... 04 , 00:07:21:16 , Evelyn's father, if you don't know. ... 16 , 00:07:23:09 , He's the bird you're after, Lou. ... 09 , 00:07:25:04 , I can explain everything, but just give me five minutes." "04 , 00:07:26:04 , That's all I need." "04 , 00:07:28:04 , He's rich; do you understand?"" "16 , 00:07:30:16 ," " Shut up!" "...can get away with anything." "16 , 00:07:33:16 , "I am rich." "I am Noah Cross... 04 , 00:07:37:04 ," " Evelyn Mulray is my daughter."" " He's crazy, Lou." "04 , 00:07:38:18 , He killed Mulray because of the water thing." "16 , 00:07:41:09 , I'm telling you." "Just listen to me for five minutes."" "09 , 00:07:43:04 , Noah Cross is too powerful." "04 , 00:07:46:16 , He can murder his incorruptible ex-partner and get away with it." "04 , 00:07:50:16 , He can rape the land, figuratively, 16 , 00:07:52:16 , and rape his own daughter, literally," "04 , 00:07:56:04 , and keep the child produced by this incestuous union." "04 , 00:08:00:04 , The truth will never come out." "04 , 00:08:03:04 , I could quote David Thomson again:" "16 , 00:08:06:16 , "I know the additive of corruption in L.A.'s water. ... 16 , 00:08:08:16 , I've seen Chinatown," "16 , 00:08:11:04 , and I know there's no sense in protesting."" "04 , 00:08:15:16 , "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown."" "04 , 00:08:21:16 , Chinatown teaches that good intentions are futile." "04 , 00:08:23:16 , It's better not to act, 16 , 00:08:26:16 , even better not to know." "04 , 00:08:30:16 , Somehow this dark vision hasn't offended anybody." "16 , 00:08:32:16 , "All right, clear the area. ... 04 , 00:08:34:16 , ..." "On the sidewalk, ... 04 , 00:08:38:16 , ..., on the sidewalk. ... 04 , 00:08:41:16 , ..." "Get off the street."" "04 , 00:08:45:16 , This is history written by the victors, 04 , 00:08:49:04 , but as usual it is written in crocodile tears." "04 , 00:08:55:04 , In fact, 16 , 00:08:57:16 , the truth was always out there." "04 , 00:09:01:16 , The public history is the real history." "04 , 00:09:05:16 , The insider land deals were exposed 16 , 00:09:07:16 , by the Hearst press in 1905," "04 , 00:09:10:04 , two weeks before the public voted 04 , 00:09:13:04 , on a bond issue to purchase water rights." "04 , 00:09:16:16 , The bond issue still passed fourteen to one, 04 , 00:09:20:16 , and no artificial drought was required to fool the voters." "16 , 00:09:25:16 , The Los Angeles Aqueduct wasn't a con, 04 , 00:09:28:16 , and it was less destructive" "16 , 00:09:31:04 , than the water projects New York and San Francisco 04 , 00:09:33:02 , were building around the same time." "04 , 00:09:39:16 , Los Angeles might have been more generous to the genocidal Indian fighters of the Owens Valley, 16 , 00:09:42:16 , but if there had been no aqueduct," "04 , 00:09:46:04 , today our city would be just another Santa Barbara, 16 , 00:09:48:04 , a complacent tourist town" "04 , 00:09:52:04 , where the rich feel no obligation to acknowledge the existence of the poor." "16 , 00:09:58:09 , For locals like me, 09 , 00:10:00:16 , what gives Chinatown its special resonance" "16 , 00:10:02:16 , is its subsidiary theme:" "04 , 00:10:06:04 , the struggle to get around Los Angeles without a car." "16 , 00:10:12:16 , Jake Gittes loses his wheels halfway though the film." "04 , 00:10:18:16 , Suspicious San Fernando Valley farmer shoot out the radiator 16 , 00:10:20:16 , and a front tire." "04 , 00:10:26:09 , For the second half of the movie, 09 , 00:10:28:04 , he's dependent on others," "04 , 00:10:30:16 , and his sense of mastery disappears." "04 , 00:10:33:21 , "Curly where's your car?"" "21 , 00:10:35:04 ," " In the garage." " Where's that?" "16 , 00:10:36:04 , "Off the alley."" "02 , 00:10:38:02 , "Can you give me a ride somewhere?"" "04 , 00:10:39:04 , "Sure, soon as we eat."" "04 , 00:10:41:02 , "Right now, Curly." "It can't wait."" "04 , 00:10:43:16 , "I'll tell my wife."" "16 , 00:10:45:04 , "Tell her later, Curl, huh?"" "16 , 00:10:47:16 , He's always one or two steps behind, 16 , 00:10:49:16 , and he never catches up." "16 , 00:10:54:04 , The loss of a car is a form of symbolic castration, 04 , 00:10:56:16 , in the movies and in life." "04 , 00:11:01:04 , The best films about Los Angeles are, 16 , 00:11:02:16 , at least partly," "04 , 00:11:04:16 , about modes of transportation." "04 , 00:11:09:16 , Getting from place to place isn't a given." "04 , 00:11:16:21 , Cars break down, 04 , 00:11:19:16 , they get flat tires," "04 , 00:11:22:16 , they get towed." "04 , 00:11:27:04 , "Hey, what's going on here?"" "16 , 00:11:29:16 , Or you don't have a car." "16 , 00:11:31:16 , You have to catch a bus 04 , 00:11:33:16 , or you have to walk." "16 , 00:11:44:16 , In Sunset Blvd., 16 , 00:11:48:16 , the action is set off by a visit two repo men pay on Joe Gillis." "16 , 00:11:50:04 , "Joseph C. Gillis?"" "04 , 00:11:51:04 , "That's right."" "04 , 00:11:52:18 , "We've come for the car."" "16 , 00:12:02:04 , Soon they are chasing Gillis's '46 Plymouth convertible along Sunset, 16 , 00:12:08:04 , and a blowout strands him in the driveway of silent screen star Norma Desmond." "16 , 00:12:27:19 , Without a car, he will die." "04 , 00:12:45:16 , In Falling Down, 16 , 00:12:46:16 , a hellish traffic jam" "16 , 00:12:50:04 , induces William Fisher to abandon his car 04 , 00:12:53:16 , and set off on a long march across Los Angeles." "04 , 00:12:57:04 , He will become an urban terrorist for a day, 16 , 00:13:00:16 , railing against the degradation of public space." "04 , 00:13:04:04 ," " You know what?" " What?" "16 , 00:13:10:16 , "I think it's out of order."" "16 , 00:13:14:16 , But his condescension is so thick you have to sympathize with his victims." "04 , 00:13:18:16 , "Drink, eighty-fie cents." "You pay or go!"" "16 , 00:13:20:16 , "What's a 'fie'?" "I don't understand a 'fie.' ... 16 , 00:13:22:16 , There's a 'v' in the word." "It's 'fi-ve.' 16 , 00:13:24:04 , They don't have 'v's' in China?"" "04 , 00:13:26:16 , "I'm not Chinese." "I'm Korean."" "16 , 00:13:28:16 , "Whatever." "You come to my country; you take my money;" "16 , 00:13:30:16 , you don't even have the grace to learn how to speak my language?"" "16 , 00:13:36:04 , Transportation is the central theme in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, 04 , 00:13:40:16 , which offers itself as a cartoon version of Chinatown." "16 , 00:13:47:04 , It updates the downfall of Los Angeles to 1947, 16 , 00:13:51:16 , with the death of the trolleys and the birth of the freeways." "04 , 00:13:59:04 , "Hey, mister, ain't you got a car?"" "04 , 00:14:03:04 , "Who needs a car in L.A.?" "We've got the best public transportation system in the world." "16 , 00:14:07:16 , In 1947, 16 , 00:14:10:16 , many would have disagreed with Eddie Valiant's endorsement" "16 , 00:14:13:16 , of Pacific Electric's Big Red Cars 16 , 00:14:16:16 , and the yellow cars of the Los Angeles Railway." "04 , 00:14:19:04 , Complaints about overcrowding, 16 , 00:14:20:16 , slowness," "16 , 00:14:22:04 , discriminatory pricing, 04 , 00:14:23:16 , and poor service" "16 , 00:14:25:16 , had been endemic for more than thirty years." "04 , 00:14:28:16 , But after the war, 04 , 00:14:36:04 , "Several months ago I had the good providence to stumble upon a plan of the City Council ... 16 , 00:14:39:16 , ... a construction plan of epic proportions." "04 , 00:14:42:21 , They are calling it a freeway."" "04 , 00:14:44:20 , "A freeway?" "... 04 , 00:14:46:16 , ..." "What the hell's a freeway?"" "04 , 00:14:51:04 , "Eight lanes of shimmering cement running from here to Pasadena. ... 04 , 00:14:53:04 , ..." "Smooth, safe, fast. ... 16 , 00:14:56:04 , Traffic jams will be a thing of the past... 04 , 00:15:01:04 , ..." "I see a place where people get on and off the freeway, ... 16 , 00:15:03:16 , on and off, off and on, 16 , 00:15:05:16 , all day, all night." "16 , 00:15:11:16 , Soon, where Toontown once stood, there will be a string of gas stations, 04 , 00:15:16:16 , inexpensive motels, restaurants that serve rapidly prepared food," "16 , 00:15:18:16 , tire saloons, 16 , 00:15:21:16 , automobile dealerships," "06 , 00:15:23:16 , and wonderful, 16 , 00:15:28:16 , wonderful billboards reaching as far as the eye can see." "16 , 00:15:34:04 , ..." "My God, it'll be beautiful."" "16 , 00:15:38:04 , "C'mon, nobody's going to drive this lousy freeway ... 04 , 00:15:40:16 , ... when they can take the Red Car for a nickel."" "16 , 00:15:42:16 , "Oh, they'll drive." "They'll have to. ... 16 , 00:15:43:16 , You see, ... 16 , 00:15:47:16 , I bought the Red Cars so I could dismantle it."" "16 , 00:15:51:16 , The fictional machinations of the diabolical Judge Doom 16 , 00:15:55:16 , were modeled on the real intrigues of National City Lines," "16 , 00:15:58:16 , the public transit company controlled by General Motors 16 , 00:16:00:16 , and other automotive interests." "16 , 00:16:02:16 , During the forties, 16 , 00:16:05:16 , it bought up interurban railways throughout the U.S." "04 , 00:16:08:04 , and replaced streetcars with buses, 04 , 00:16:11:16 , allegedly to sabotage public transportation." "16 , 00:16:18:04 , Another conspiracy to destroy Eden, 16 , 00:16:20:04 , but in this movie" "04 , 00:16:22:16 , there is a counter-historical happy ending." "16 , 00:16:25:16 , There is no need for words of consolation." "04 , 00:16:28:16 , Nobody has to tell its detective hero." "04 , 00:16:31:16 , "Forget it, Eddie, it's Toontown."" "04 , 00:16:39:16 , Valiant kills Judge Doom after a protracted duel, 16 , 00:16:44:04 , and we may assume the Red Cars are saved," "09 , 00:16:45:21 , along with Toontown, 04 , 00:16:47:04 , but once again," "16 , 00:16:49:16 , the people are excluded, 16 , 00:16:54:16 , although the toon characters get to rejoice in the happy ending." "16 , 00:17:01:04 , Actually trolleys had been on the way out since the twenties 04 , 00:17:04:04 , when proposals for public ownership were defeated." "16 , 00:17:10:04 , Eddie Valiant himself gets around town by automobile 04 , 00:17:13:16 , after a single Red Car ride at the beginning of the movie." "04 , 00:17:19:16 , The real postwar struggle over mass transit 16 , 00:17:22:04 , reached a climax in 1949" "16 , 00:17:25:16 , when a proposal for a new light rail network 16 , 00:17:28:04 , was narrowly defeated in the City Council." "16 , 00:17:33:16 , An alternative to cars and buses 04 , 00:17:37:04 , was defeated not by General Motors and its allies," "16 , 00:17:41:04 , but by the promoters of decentralized suburban development." "16 , 00:18:02:16 , Downtown was doomed." "16 , 00:18:26:04 , and there was an attempt to promote loft living on its eastern margins, 16 , 00:18:28:16 , an effort advertised in a few films," "04 , 00:18:43:16 , For movie-makers, 04 , 00:18:37:16 , For movie-makers," "16 , 00:18:47:16 , a real downtown existed only in the past or in the future." "04 , 00:18:58:16 , The wartime downtown evoked by Edward James Olmos in American Me 04 , 00:19:01:16 , was a dangerous place for Mexican-Americans." "16 , 00:19:06:16 , Olmos didn't need the alibis of artistic license 16 , 00:19:11:16 , to isolate where and when it all went wrong for Los Angeles:" "16 , 00:19:13:16 , June 1943, 16 , 00:19:15:16 , the Zoot Suit Riots." "04 , 00:19:26:16 , Stirred up by racist propaganda in the local press, 04 , 00:19:29:16 , gangs of sailors went on a week-long rampage," "04 , 00:19:32:16 , beating and stripping self-styled pachucos 04 , 00:19:39:04 , because their baggy suits had become a provocative symbol of a defiant ethnic identity." "04 , 00:19:51:16 , Olmos depicts these assaults as a humiliating defeat 04 , 00:19:55:16 , that disgraced and disarmed the greatest generation of Chicanos" "16 , 00:20:00:16 , and produced a sick culture of amoral masochistic toughness 16 , 00:20:02:16 , as a reaction formation." "04 , 00:20:13:16 , "Which one, ese?"" "04 , 00:20:17:04 , "Don't matter."" "04 , 00:20:21:16 , "Fuck it, homes."" "16 , 00:20:24:16 , "La Primera lives!"" "04 , 00:20:45:21 , The downtown of the future 21 , 00:20:48:09 , appeared with a vengeance in Blade Runner," "16 , 00:20:50:21 , a movie set in 2019." "04 , 00:20:54:16 , By then suburbia has moved off world, 04 , 00:20:58:04 , the dark satanic mills of the industrial sublime" "04 , 00:21:00:04 , are belching overtime, 16 , 00:21:03:16 , and the smog has turned to acid rain." "04 , 00:21:12:04 , Blade Runner has been called the ?" "official nightmare" of Los Angeles, 16 , 00:21:14:16 , yet this dystopian vision is, 16 , 00:21:16:04 , in many ways," "04 , 00:21:18:16 , a city planner's dream come true." "04 , 00:21:23:16 , Finally, a vibrant street life." "16 , 00:21:27:16 , A downtown crowded with night-time strollers." "16 , 00:21:35:04 , Neon beyond our wildest dreams." "04 , 00:21:41:16 , Only a Unabomber could find this totally repellent." "16 , 00:21:45:16 , The streets are littered with electronic parking meters, 04 , 00:21:48:04 , but there are no cars parked next to them." "04 , 00:21:55:16 , The VTO has replaced the SUV, 04 , 00:21:58:16 , but there are no traffic jams in the sky." "04 , 00:22:04:16 , The hero Deckard drives his car home from his job downtown, 16 , 00:22:11:16 , yet when he pulls into the grounds of the hundred-story apartment building where he lives," "16 , 00:22:13:16 , he finds a parking place right next to the front door." "04 , 00:22:17:16 , Apparently he is the only tenant with a car." "16 , 00:22:20:16 , Blade Runner is easy to criticize." "16 , 00:22:22:16 , Pauline Kael noted 16 , 00:22:27:16 , that it lacks even the slightest curiosity about how the world got to this state" "16 , 00:22:29:16 , in just forty years." "04 , 00:22:34:16 , Harrison Ford diagnosed its narrative deficiencies in his complaint, 04 , 00:22:37:16 , "I played a detective who did no detecting."" "16 , 00:22:42:16 , No one seems to agree about what the film means, 16 , 00:22:44:16 , not even the film-makers themselves." "04 , 00:22:48:16 , Director Ridley Scott and his collaborators 04 , 00:22:52:04 , couldn't even agree on whether the protagonist is a human" "16 , 00:22:54:04 , or a replicant." "02 , 00:22:56:04 , "It's too bad she won't live. ... 16 , 00:22:59:04 , ..." "But then again, who does?"" "04 , 00:23:04:19 , Yet Blade Runner continues to fascinate." "04 , 00:23:09:04 , Perhaps it expresses a nostalgia 16 , 00:23:12:16 , for a dystopian vision of the future that has become outdated." "04 , 00:23:16:04 , This vision offered some consolation 16 , 00:23:18:16 , because it was at least sublime." "04 , 00:23:23:04 , Now the future looks brighter, 04 , 00:23:24:16 , hotter, and blander." "04 , 00:23:28:04 , Buffalo will become Miami, 16 , 00:23:30:16 , and Los Angeles will become Death Valley," "16 , 00:23:33:16 , at least until the rising ocean tides wash it away." "16 , 00:23:36:16 , Computers will get faster, 16 , 00:23:38:16 , and we will get slower." "21 , 00:23:40:21 , There will be plenty of progress, 21 , 00:23:44:04 , but few of us will be any better off or happier for it." "16 , 00:23:48:05 , Robots won't be sexy and dangerous." "16 , 00:23:50:16 , They'll be dull and efficient, 04 , 00:23:53:04 , and they'll take our jobs." "16 , 00:24:01:16 , As Blade Runner is the Los Angeles movie of the eighties, 16 , 00:24:04:16 , another period film," "16 , 00:24:06:16 , L.A. Confidential, 16 , 00:24:09:16 , is the Los Angeles movie of the nineties." "16 , 00:24:12:16 , The period is the early fifties, 16 , 00:24:14:04 , and it got it right," "04 , 00:24:17:16 , by not trying to make everything look up-to-date." "16 , 00:24:20:16 , In reality, we live in the past." "04 , 00:24:24:04 , That is the world that surrounds us is not new." "16 , 00:24:27:04 , The things in it, 04 , 00:24:28:04 , our houses," "04 , 00:24:29:16 , the places we work, 16 , 00:24:31:16 , even our clothes and our cars" "16 , 00:24:33:16 , aren't created anew everyday." "04 , 00:24:37:04 , So any particular period 04 , 00:24:39:16 , is an amalgam of many earlier times," "04 , 00:24:44:04 , and L.A. Confidential acknowledges the pastness of its present." "16 , 00:24:49:04 , Like Chinatown, 04 , 00:24:51:16 , L.A. Confidential evokes real events," "04 , 00:24:53:16 , real scandals." "04 , 00:24:56:16 , The scandal-mongering magazine Hush-Hush 16 , 00:25:03:04 , and the TV series Badge of Honor" "16 , 00:25:05:04 , is based on Dragnet." "16 , 00:25:07:16 , "Excuse me, ma'am." "Just the facts."" "04 , 00:25:11:04 , Dragnet made its debut on radio in 1949 16 , 00:25:14:04 , and moved to television in 1952." "16 , 00:25:17:16 , Some real historical figures 16 , 00:25:20:16 , appear in the cast of characters without fictional names." "04 , 00:25:22:16 , "Johnny Stompanato."" "04 , 00:25:26:16 , "A hooker cut to look like Lana Turner is sill a hooker."" "16 , 00:25:27:16 , "Hey!"" "16 , 00:25:29:04 , "She just looks like Lana Turner."" "04 , 00:25:30:16 , "She is Lana Turner."" "16 , 00:25:31:16 , "What?"" "16 , 00:25:33:16 , "She is Lana Turner."" "16 , 00:25:39:04 , A real scandal:" "04 , 00:25:42:16 , in the early morning hours of Christmas day 1951, 04 , 00:25:47:16 , drunken cops had beaten seven prisoners arrested after a bar fight," "16 , 00:25:50:04 , "This is for ours, Poncho."" "04 , 00:26:04:04 , And the Daily News came to call it 04 , 00:26:05:16 , "Bloody Christmas."" "16 , 00:26:11:04 , Other scandals were fictional." "04 , 00:26:23:04 , "It may surprise some that a man in public office would admit to making a mistake, ... 16 , 00:26:25:16 , ... but after due consideration, ... 04 , 00:26:29:16 , ..." "I'm changing my position on the matter before the council."" "04 , 00:26:35:16 , Blackmail wasn't necessary to build the freeways." "16 , 00:26:38:16 , "From downtown to the beach in twenty minutes."" "16 , 00:26:50:16 , And there was no conspiracy within the Los Angeles Police Department 16 , 00:26:52:16 , to take over the local rackets" "16 , 00:26:55:04 , from Mickey Cohen's gang in the early fifties." "16 , 00:26:57:09 , "What does Exley think of all this?"" "09 , 00:26:58:16 , "You know, I haven't told him yet. ... 16 , 00:27:00:04 , ..." "I just came straight from the Records Bureau."" "16 , 00:27:15:04 , L.A. Confidential suggests another secret history of the city." "16 , 00:27:21:04 , The police conspiracy is smashed and its mastermind is killed, 04 , 00:27:31:04 , but the good guys achieve a strictly private victory." "04 , 00:27:35:04 , "Beginning with the incarceration of Mickey Cohen, ... 04 , 00:27:39:04 , Captain Smith has been assuming control of organized crime ... 04 , 00:27:41:16 , in the city of Los Angeles." "04 , 00:27:45:04 , This includes the assassinations of an unknown number ... 04 , 00:27:47:04 , of Mickey Cohen lieutenants, ... 16 , 00:27:49:16 , the systematic blackmail of city officials. ... 16 , 00:27:55:16 , Captain Smith admitted as much to me ... 04 , 00:28:00:16 , before I shot him at the Victory Motel."" "04 , 00:28:02:16 , There is a coverup, 16 , 00:28:05:04 , and the public never gets the real story." "04 , 00:28:09:16 , "If we can get the kid to play ball, ... 16 , 00:28:12:16 , who's to say what happened?" "... 04 , 00:28:15:16 , Maybe Dudley Smith died a hero."" "16 , 00:28:20:04 , Cynicism has become the dominant myth of our times, 16 , 00:28:22:16 , and L.A. Confidential preaches it." "04 , 00:28:29:04 , "It is with great pleasure that I present this award ... 16 , 00:28:31:16 , to Detective-Lieutenant Edmund Exley, ... 04 , 00:28:34:04 , two time Medal of Valor recipient."" "16 , 00:28:37:16 , Cynicism tells us we are ignorant and powerless, 04 , 00:28:40:04 , and L.A. Confidential proves it." "16 , 00:28:45:04 , Actually the real scandal of the day 04 , 00:28:47:04 , was on the front pages of the newspapers" "04 , 00:28:50:04 , almost every day from December 1951 04 , 00:28:52:04 , to May 1953." "04 , 00:28:56:16 , It took a public battle to destroy public housing, 04 , 00:29:00:16 , a tragedy from which Los Angeles has yet to recover." "16 , 00:29:06:16 , The defeat of public housing doesn't demonstrate that the people are powerless." "16 , 00:29:09:04 , Just the opposite." "04 , 00:29:13:16 , After its opponents began to denounce public housing as "creeping socialism"" "04 , 00:29:16:04 , the people voted it down." "04 , 00:29:20:11 , The LAPD and its chief William Parker 16 , 00:29:23:04 , spearheaded the campaign against it." "16 , 00:29:26:04 , Parker leaked Intelligence Division files 04 , 00:29:28:16 , to discredit city housing authority spokesman" "16 , 00:29:31:04 , Frank Wilkinson as a Communist." "16 , 00:29:36:04 , Then just before the municipal elections of 1953, 04 , 00:29:39:11 , Parker helped smear incumbent mayor Fletcher Bowron," "11 , 00:29:41:11 , a public housing supporter, 11 , 00:29:43:16 , for being soft on Wilkinson." "16 , 00:29:47:04 , Bowron lost by 30,000 votes, 16 , 00:29:50:16 , and the new mayor killed public housing for good." "04 , 00:29:57:04 , The LAPD didn't control the rackets in the fifties;" "16 , 00:29:59:04 , it controlled the city." "16 , 00:30:02:16 , The police corruption in L.A. Confidential 16 , 00:30:04:16 , is quaint by comparison." "04 , 00:30:15:04 , What was really wrong with the police during the Parker years 16 , 00:30:17:04 , is revealed quite precisely" "04 , 00:30:19:04 , if unintentionally 04 , 00:30:20:16 , by Dragnet," "16 , 00:30:23:16 , the TV series parodied in L.A. Confidential." "16 , 00:30:30:16 , Parker introduced the paranoid style into American police work, 04 , 00:30:32:16 , striving to create a police force" "16 , 00:30:36:16 , that would be feared and hated by criminals and citizens alike, 04 , 00:30:38:16 , and Sgt. Joe Friday," "16 , 00:30:40:16 , the Organization Superman, 04 , 00:30:43:04 , embodied it perfectly." "16 , 00:30:47:04 ," " All right, hands up on the wall." " Not this time." "I've got friends with me." "04 , 00:30:49:16 ," " Would you rather do it downtown?" " Ah, get off my back." "You know I'm clean." "16 , 00:30:51:22 , " Are you?" "Hands up on the wall."" "04 , 00:31:02:16 , "All right, take everything out of your pockets."" "04 , 00:31:05:16 ," " Where am I gonna put it?" " The ground will hold it." "04 , 00:31:09:09 , Joe Friday thinks like a computer." "16 , 00:31:12:16 , He walks and talks like a robot." "04 , 00:31:23:03 , Actually, I love Dragnet, 04 , 00:31:26:16 , particularly its late sixties reincarnation" "01 , 00:31:30:04 , when Friday got a new partner and took on the youth culture." "16 , 00:31:33:04 ," " Will you be seeing my father after you leave?" " Sure." "04 , 00:31:34:16 , Ask him to read the Bible." "16 , 00:31:36:16 , The epistle of Paul to the Ephesians." "21 , 00:31:39:11 ," " Maybe he'll understand." " How's that?" "16 , 00:31:41:16 , Because of what it says about our generation. ... 04 , 00:31:44:00 , ..." "Tell him to read Chapter six. "" "16 , 00:31:46:16 , "'Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath. ... 04 , 00:31:49:13 , The old ways are not their ways. ... 16 , 00:31:52:16 , Your dusk is their dawn." "The future is theirs."" "01 , 00:31:54:16 , "Try chapter five, lady. ... 16 , 00:31:56:16 , ..." "The apostle Paul also said this:" "16 , 00:31:58:04 , "Yes, what is that?"" "04 , 00:32:03:04 , "See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise."" "04 , 00:32:05:16 , Its creator and star Jack Webb 16 , 00:32:10:04 , directed each episode with a rigor equaled only by Ozu and Bresson," "04 , 00:32:14:04 , the cinema's acknowledged masters of transcendental simplicity." "16 , 00:32:20:16 , Dragnet admirably expressed the contempt the LAPD had 24 , 00:32:25:04 , for the law-abiding citizens it was pledged "to protect and to serve."" "16 , 00:32:28:16 , It protected us from ourselves, 16 , 00:32:34:04 , and it served us despite our best efforts to make the job more difficult." "04 , 00:32:37:04 , "Quinn, we'd like you to come down for a show-up."" "04 , 00:32:41:16 , "Mr. Friday, you'd just as well know now, I'm not gonna do it."" "16 , 00:32:44:16 ," " You afraid to testify, Quinn?" " I just don't remember." "04 , 00:32:46:21 , "What is it?" "Your family, your wife and children?"" "21 , 00:32:50:16 , "I don't have no family." "I'm it, the whole kit and caboodle, ... 16 , 00:32:53:16 , but I don't want to go downtown and get all mixed up in something."" "16 , 00:32:56:04 , "You'll have to go before the grand jury; they'll subpoena you."" "04 , 00:32:57:16 , "Mr. Friday, ... 04 , 00:32:59:16 , I'd like to ask you a question: ... 01 , 00:33:03:16 , if you was me, wold you do it?"" "04 , 00:33:05:21 , "Can I wait awhile?"" "16 , 00:33:08:16 , "Before I'm you."" "16 , 00:33:12:16 , Friday's heavy-handed irony never lets up." "16 , 00:33:16:16 , None of the witnesses or suspects he questions 16 , 00:33:18:16 , penetrate his wall of condescension." "04 , 00:33:22:06 , "" " You don't believe anything I've said." " You make it a little difficult, lady." "06 , 00:33:24:04 , "Why?" "I've told you the truth."" "04 , 00:33:26:03 , "Sure you did, three different ways."" "04 , 00:33:30:16 , "As I've been saying, I deal in ideas, nothing more. ... 16 , 00:33:32:09 , I might even sell you a few." "09 , 00:33:34:16 , "You couldn't sell me directions to the men's room."" "19 , 00:33:39:04 , The grotesques and lunatics he encountered every week 04 , 00:33:43:04 , must have gone a long way to establish the city's reputation" "04 , 00:33:45:04 , as the world capital of the weird." "16 , 00:33:48:16 , "Ah, the powers of flowers draw you here."" "16 , 00:33:51:16 ," " No ma'am." "We're police officers." " Oh, how lovely." "16 , 00:33:52:16 , "Are you Miss Deleon?"" "16 , 00:33:56:16 , "Noradella DeLeone was my given name, my family name. ... 16 , 00:33:59:04 , But I changed it about an hour ago. ... 04 , 00:34:02:04 , It's so contrived, so out of it. ... 16 , 00:34:04:04 , Just call me Agnes Hickey."" "04 , 00:34:08:16 , "I'm not like some." "I dig the fuzz. ... 16 , 00:34:11:16 , After all, you're like the flowers yourselves;... 16 , 00:34:12:16 , you have to live, too." "16 , 00:34:15:16 , "Yes ma'am." "Did you report your purse stolen by a dog?"" "16 , 00:34:20:16 , Of course, Dragnet isn't a documentary portrait of the LAPD, 16 , 00:34:24:16 , and its detectives weren't really like Joe Friday." "04 , 00:34:30:16 , What's scary is that he represented the department's ideal." "04 , 00:34:37:16 , Sometimes I wonder if we are more obsessed with the police 16 , 00:34:39:16 , than people in other cities." "04 , 00:34:44:16 , Is there any other city where the police put their motto in quotation marks?" "04 , 00:34:47:04 , Are they trying to be ironic?" "16 , 00:34:54:16 , Can there be a movie about Los Angeles that isn't about its police?" "04 , 00:35:01:04 , Only if it's a movie about the film industry, 16 , 00:35:07:04 , although it's often a suburban police force," "04 , 00:35:09:16 , not the LAPD." "16 , 00:35:13:16 , "Mr. Mill, I'm detective DeLongpre, Pasadena Police."" "16 , 00:35:16:16 , "No, I..." "You're putting me in a terrible position here. ... 16 , 00:35:19:16 , I would..." "I would hate to get the wrong person arrested."" "16 , 00:35:23:04 , "Oh please, this is Pasadena." "We do not arrest the wrong person... 04 , 00:35:24:04 , That's L.A."" "16 , 00:35:26:16 , The Dragnet image gave way first 16 , 00:35:29:16 , to the existential realism of Joseph Wambaugh," "04 , 00:35:33:16 , LAPD sergeant turned novelist and screenwriter." "16 , 00:35:56:04 , In Wambaugh movies, 04 , 00:35:59:16 , police work makes cops alcoholic or neurotic" "04 , 00:36:04:16 , "We see things sometimes - cops - other people don't see,... 16 , 00:36:06:16 , leaves stains."" "16 , 00:36:10:04 , "When you're investigating and collecting clues?"" "16 , 00:36:12:04 , "We don't collect clues, ... 04 , 00:36:15:04 , we collect garbage and pray somebody confesses."" "04 , 00:36:17:04 , They behave badly, 04 , 00:36:20:16 , they lose fights," "04 , 00:36:24:16 , they are humiliated, 16 , 00:36:31:16 , they die." "16 , 00:36:51:16 , During the youth gang hysteria of the eighties, 16 , 00:36:54:16 , the stoically heroic cop made a comeback," "04 , 00:36:58:16 , and urban movie violence turned toward the apocalyptic." "16 , 00:37:19:16 , A cop killing machine emerged:" "04 , 00:37:22:16 , James Cameron's Terminator." "16 , 00:37:25:16 , "I'll be back."" "16 , 00:38:09:04 , Cameron enjoyed killing off cops, 16 , 00:38:14:16 , and all of us cop haters got a kick out of watching the massacres he staged." "04 , 00:38:29:16 , At the same time, 04 , 00:38:33:16 , the image of the Los Angeles policeman was splintering." "04 , 00:38:43:04 , Sylvester Stallone essayed two versions of the dandy cop." "16 , 00:39:01:16 , Mel Gibson played a suicidal cop, 16 , 00:39:10:04 , and Richard Gere a homicidal cop." "04 , 00:39:16:16 , Andy Garcia and Al Pacino played cops with arty wives 16 , 00:39:21:16 , who make them live in uncoplike designer houses." "16 , 00:39:28:16 , "This is my friend Ralph."" "04 , 00:39:31:16 , "You didn't tell me you were ..." "Sit down."" "04 , 00:39:34:16 , "Don't you even get angry?"" "04 , 00:39:36:16 , "I'm angry."" "04 , 00:39:40:04 , "I'm very angry, Ralph. ... 16 , 00:39:43:16 , You know, you can ball my wife if she wants you to. ... 04 , 00:39:48:16 , You can lounge around here on her sofa ... 16 , 00:39:56:16 , in her ex-husband's dead-tech, post-modernistic bullshit house if you want to. ... 04 , 00:40:00:16 , But you do not ... 16 , 00:40:02:16 , get to watch ... 16 , 00:40:05:04 , my fucking television set!" "04 , 00:40:06:16 , "For God's sake."" "16 , 00:40:15:16 , After the videotaped and then televised beating of Rodney King in 1991, 16 , 00:40:19:16 , Los Angeles movie cops got even weirder." "04 , 00:40:25:16 , There was a psycho cop... 04 , 00:40:37:04 , "Well." "I will be soon, baby."" "16 , 00:40:39:16 , a pussy-whipped cop... 16 , 00:40:43:01 , "Say it."" "04 , 00:40:46:04 ," " Okay." " Say it." "04 , 00:40:47:16 , "I'll be home soon."" "16 , 00:40:49:16 , "No, say it!"" "16 , 00:40:53:16 , "I'll be home soon...and I love you." "Okay?"" "16 , 00:40:59:04 , ...and an uncontrollably horny cop, 16 , 00:41:01:16 , a slave to his dick." "16 , 00:41:03:16 , "Are you a whore?"" "16 , 00:41:05:16 , "Maybe."" "16 , 00:41:08:16 , "Well, I wanna tell you something. ... 16 , 00:41:10:04 , I like whores."" " Yeah?" "04 , 00:41:12:04 , "Oh, I like 'em alot."" "04 , 00:41:15:04 ," " I bet you know a lot of 'em." " I do." "04 , 00:41:17:16 , "I'll fuck your brains out for fifty bucks."" "04 , 00:41:20:14 , "Forget about that burger."" "04 , 00:41:26:04 , "God, this exciting for me." "Is it exciting for you?"" "16 , 00:41:29:16 , There was even a New Age homicide detective, 04 , 00:41:33:04 , usually attired in a collarless jacket" "04 , 00:41:36:04 , with a string of Tibetan prayer beads around his neck." "04 , 00:41:41:09 , "So tell me, man, what's up with the beads?"" "16 , 00:41:45:16 , "These here?" "It's called a mhala, Tibetan prayer beads."" "16 , 00:41:47:04 , "What do you use them for?"" "04 , 00:41:49:16 , "I use them to calm my mind and purify my thoughts."" "16 , 00:41:52:16 , "Yeah?" "I use Jack Daniels."" "16 , 00:41:55:16 ," " Shut up!" " What's so threatening about it?" "16 , 00:42:01:16 , Then there's the dog-hating motorcycle cop in Robert Altman's gallery of beautiful, miserable people 16 , 00:42:04:16 , living lives of noisy desperation" "04 , 00:42:10:04 , transposed from Raymond Carver's Pacific northwest 04 , 00:42:12:16 , to southern California." "04 , 00:42:18:04 , "All right now." "You go run away; we don't want you anymore. ... 16 , 00:42:20:16 , Run away, we don't want you anymore. ... 04 , 00:42:25:16 , Look at this. ... 16 , 00:42:28:04 , It's a bone. ... 16 , 00:42:30:04 , All right, go get it."" "04 , 00:42:39:16 , Introducing a collection of the Carver stories he adapted, 16 , 00:42:41:04 , Altman wrote," "04 , 00:42:43:16 , "The setting is untapped Los Angeles, ... 16 , 00:42:45:16 , which is also Carver country, ... 04 , 00:42:49:16 , not Hollywood or Beverly Hills ... 16 , 00:42:51:16 , but Downey, Watts, ... 16 , 00:42:54:16 , Compton, Pomona, Glendale. ... 16 , 00:42:57:04 , American suburbia, ... 04 , 00:42:59:16 , the names you hear about on the freeway reports."" "16 , 00:43:03:04 , In other words, 04 , 00:43:05:16 , if you actually lived in one of those places," "16 , 00:43:09:04 , instead of just hearing their names on the radio traffic reports, 16 , 00:43:11:16 , you wouldn't be reading this book." "16 , 00:43:15:16 , But the cityscapes in his film don't look like Watts, 04 , 00:43:17:16 , or even Glendale," "16 , 00:43:19:16 , and they're not." "04 , 00:43:24:04 , Only one couple lives in the Hollywood Hills, 16 , 00:43:26:16 , but the others live closer to Hollywood" "16 , 00:43:28:16 , than to Downey." "16 , 00:43:33:16 , Altman's condescension toward the outer suburbs 16 , 00:43:36:16 , suggests the difficulties Hollywood directors face" "16 , 00:43:40:04 , in trying to make a contemporary film about Los Angeles." "04 , 00:43:43:16 , They know only a small part of the city, 16 , 00:43:46:16 , and that part has been tapped too often." "16 , 00:43:51:16 , A genre film or a literary adaptation is the safest bet." "16 , 00:43:55:16 , Altman's best film is both." "16 , 00:44:06:16 , His version of Philip Marlowe 16 , 00:44:09:16 , turns Raymond Chandler's Anglo-Saxon white knight" "16 , 00:44:11:16 , into a chain-smoking Jewish Don Quixote, 16 , 00:44:13:04 , into a chain-smoking Jewish Don Quixote," "04 , 00:44:14:21 , a noble saphead." "16 , 00:44:17:16 , "Hi, girls. ... 16 , 00:44:19:16 , Have you seen my cat?" "... 16 , 00:44:22:16 , Well, the other day he ran away, and ... 16 , 00:44:24:16 , I'm leaving town for a couple of days." "So ... 16 , 00:44:24:16 , I'd appreciate it, if he shows up, 16 , 00:44:26:16 , I'd appreciate it, if he shows up," "16 , 00:44:29:16 , if you could look after him, or give him a bowl of milk. ... 16 , 00:44:32:04 , They're not even there. ... 04 , 00:44:34:16 , It's okay with me."" "16 , 00:44:38:16 , "So, you murdered your wife, huh Terry?"" "04 , 00:44:41:16 , "Well, I killed her, but you can't call it murder... 04 , 00:44:43:04 , I hit her; ... 16 , 00:44:46:04 , I didn't try to kill her." "I hit her;" "I didn't mean it."" "04 , 00:44:49:04 , "I saw the photographs, boy, you bashed her face in."" "16 , 00:44:51:04 , "She didn't give me any choice."" "16 , 00:44:55:16 , "You didn't have much choice, huh?" "... 16 , 00:44:58:04 , So you used me."" "04 , 00:45:00:16 , "What the hell, that's what friends are for." "I was in a jam, ... 16 , 00:45:02:16 , what the hell, nobody cares."" "04 , 00:45:05:16 , "Yeah, nobody cares but me."" "16 , 00:45:08:04 , "That's why I got you, Marlowe. ... 09 , 00:45:10:16 , You'll never learn." "You're a born loser."" "16 , 00:45:12:16 , "Yeah, I even lost my cat."" "09 , 00:45:18:01 , There's no chance Marlowe will get the good-bad girl at the end." "04 , 00:45:21:04 , He won't even find his lost cat." "16 , 00:45:29:24 , How can I say this politely?" "16 , 00:45:32:16 , It's hard to make a personal film, 06 , 00:45:35:11 , based on your own experience," "11 , 00:45:37:16 , when you're absurdly overprivileged." "16 , 00:45:41:04 , You tend not to notice the less fortunate, 16 , 00:45:43:23 , and that's almost everybody." "04 , 00:45:47:16 , If you ridicule your circle of friends, 16 , 00:45:50:04 , your film will seem sour and petty." "16 , 00:45:53:04 , If you turn their problems into melodrama, 11 , 00:45:55:19 , your film will seem pathetic and self-pitying." "16 , 00:46:03:04 , In L.A. Story, 04 , 00:46:05:16 , Steve Martin followed the path of ridicule" "16 , 00:46:09:09 , and created an honorably failed romantic comedy." "16 , 00:46:24:16 , Of course, it's L.A., not Los Angeles." "16 , 00:46:30:16 , Martin's L.A. is almost as white as Woody Allen's Manhattan." "16 , 00:46:33:19 , There are two blacks with speaking parts... 21 , 00:46:36:11 , "Uh, yes, you're the first ones to arrive. ... 04 , 00:46:39:16 , ..." "Right this way, please."" "16 , 00:46:41:11 , Both restaurant employees." "11 , 00:46:43:11 , "I'm gonna tell you what we got to eat ... 11 , 00:46:45:16 , ..." "We got primavera pasta, six diifferent kinds of meat." "16 , 00:46:47:16 , You could call these racist stereotypes, 16 , 00:46:50:23 , but the whole film is nothing but stereotypes." "21 , 00:46:54:12 , "Gee, I'm done already, and I don't remember eating."" "09 , 00:47:00:16 , The comedies of John Cassavetes cut deeper 16 , 00:47:03:24 , because he had an eye and an ear for ordinary madness" "19 , 00:47:07:04 , "Hey, what time is it?"" "04 , 00:47:10:16 , those flickers of lunacy that can separate us from our fellows." "16 , 00:47:12:16 , "Hey, listen." "I'm waiting for my kids at school. ... 16 , 00:47:14:16 , You mind giving me the time, do you?" "04 , 00:47:18:16 , What's the matter with you, what the...?"" "04 , 00:48:01:04 , His comedies face up to tragedy and reject it." "04 , 00:48:09:04 , Suffering is self-evident, 04 , 00:48:12:04 , and its promise of wisdom is illusory." "01 , 00:48:20:04 , For Cassavetes, happiness is the only truth." "24 , 00:48:24:01 , So he drank himself to death." "16 , 00:48:46:16 , Diane Keaton's Hanging Up takes the path of melodrama." "16 , 00:48:49:01 , An absent mother 06 , 00:48:51:16 , and a prematurely grumpy and old father" "24 , 00:48:55:11 , produce an intense rivalry among three sisters." "11 , 00:49:01:11 , "Eve, are you not going to speak to me?" "Is that what this is all about?"" "16 , 00:49:04:16 , "And why aren't you talking to me?" "I didn't even do anything."" "04 , 00:49:15:16 , But the father's death restores harmony, 16 , 00:49:18:04 , at least long enough to allow for a happy ending." "01 , 00:49:30:21 , The three drama queens babble hysterically on three-way cell phone hookups, 24 , 00:49:35:06 , transforming any space they occupy into a pajama party den." "04 , 00:49:42:04 , Keaton insists Hanging Up is a film about Los Angeles, 16 , 00:49:45:16 , but public space is reduced almost entirely" "16 , 00:49:50:16 , to a tunnel and a bridge allowing passage through a city stripped of its population." "01 , 00:49:55:13 , In Hanging Up, the people are missing." "04 , 00:50:04:16 , Lawrence Kasdan tried to find a middle way in Grand Canyon, 04 , 00:50:07:16 , a liberal version of the urban nightmare." "06 , 00:51:01:16 , Bad things happen to good people, 16 , 00:51:04:04 , and they start to wonder about what it all means." "14 , 00:51:07:06 , "The world doesn't make any sense to me anymore. ... 06 , 00:51:08:16 , I mean, what's going on?" "... 16 , 00:51:12:11 , There are babies lying around in the streets. ... 11 , 00:51:14:06 , There are people living in boxes. ... 06 , 00:51:18:06 , There are people ready to shoot you if you look at them. ... 06 , 00:51:20:03 , And we are getting used to it."" "24 , 00:51:24:14 , But this metaphysical turn feels complacent, 11 , 00:51:28:16 , and Kasdan's movie wallows in its own incomprehension." "16 , 00:51:33:14 , A mugging is as inexplicable as a miracle." "06 , 00:51:36:16 , "Why bother trying?" "Keep the baby. ... 24 , 00:51:39:06 , You need her as much as she needs you." "04 , 00:51:45:12 , If the social fabric has disintegrated, 07 , 00:51:49:11 , can't we at least try to understand how it happened?" "04 , 00:51:57:04 , Instead, 06 , 00:51:59:11 , Kasdan finds solace in the little triumphs" "14 , 00:52:01:16 , and epiphanies of everyday life, 16 , 00:52:03:16 , like a driving lesson." "21 , 00:52:47:06 , "Sorry, dad."" "21 , 00:52:49:05 , "Hey, this is difficult stuff. ... 16 , 00:52:54:11 , Making a left turn in L.A. is one of the harder things you're gonna learn in life."" "01 , 00:53:01:16 , There's a certain ironic wisdom here, 04 , 00:53:06:11 , but it's impossible to forget that this particular challenge is a privilege." "04 , 00:53:09:11 , But there is another city." "16 , 00:53:11:08 , The real downtown, 16 , 00:53:14:04 , full of people who are appparently invisible" "04 , 00:53:17:04 , to those who say it's deserted after working hours." "16 , 00:53:43:16 , And another cinema." "16 , 00:53:46:16 , A city of walkers, 04 , 00:53:49:04 , a cinema of walking." "24 , 00:53:54:21 , It begins with The Exiles by Kent MacKenzie." "16 , 00:53:57:16 , You could call it neorealist." "04 , 00:54:01:16 , Since it comes from outside the Hollywood studios, 16 , 00:54:04:16 , you could call it independent," "04 , 00:54:07:16 , but it's not exactly Pulp Fiction." "04 , 00:54:12:04 , "I used to pray every night and fall into bed ... 04 , 00:54:16:04 , and ask for something that I wanted ... 09 , 00:54:18:12 , and I never got it or ... 11 , 00:54:20:21 , it seemed like my prayers were never answered. ... 01 , 00:54:22:24 , So I just gave up." "01 , 00:54:24:24 , And now I don't hardly go to church or ... 24 , 00:54:27:16 , don't say my prayers sometimes."" "21 , 00:54:37:21 , MacKenzie, 06 , 00:54:42:16 , was the pioneer." "04 , 00:54:50:16 , Fifteen years later, 04 , 00:54:54:13 , there was finally a neorealist movement in Los Angeles" "01 , 00:54:57:16 , led by young black film-makers from the south:" "04 , 00:55:01:14 , Haile Gerima from Ethiopia, 04 , 00:55:04:09 , Charles Burnett from Mississippi," "01 , 00:55:07:04 , Billy Woodberry from Texas." "21 , 00:55:10:21 , Haile Gerima's Bush Mama 21 , 00:55:13:04 , is another movie about the police," "09 , 00:55:15:21 , but it is one of the first to show cops 21 , 00:55:17:16 , entirely from the other side," "21 , 00:55:19:16 , from the viewpoint of the brutalized, 04 , 00:55:22:04 , the black people of south Los Angeles," "06 , 00:55:25:16 , who are made to feel they live in an occupied territory." "16 , 00:55:42:04 , Neorealism describes another reality, 16 , 00:55:45:16 , and it creates a new kind of protagonist:" "11 , 00:55:48:04 , Dorothy, the bush mama, 16 , 00:55:50:21 , is a seer, not an actor." "21 , 00:55:56:11 , There is a crack in the world of appearances, 04 , 00:56:00:16 , and she is defenseless before a vision of everyday reality" "04 , 00:56:02:21 , that is unbearable." "09 , 00:56:07:24 , Who knows the city?" "16 , 00:56:11:04 , Only those who walk, 06 , 00:56:14:01 , only those who ride the bus." "16 , 00:56:19:16 , Forget the mystical blatherings of Joan Didion and company 16 , 00:56:21:16 , about the automobile and the freeways." "04 , 00:56:26:04 , They say, nobody walks;" "16 , 00:56:29:06 , they mean no rich white people like us walk." "04 , 00:56:35:04 , They claimed nobody takes the bus, 11 , 00:56:36:16 , until one day" "16 , 00:56:38:16 , we all discovered that Los Angeles 16 , 00:56:41:16 , has the most crowded buses in the United States." "16 , 00:56:44:19 , The white men who run the transit authority 19 , 00:56:48:04 , responded to the news not by improving service," "16 , 00:56:50:21 , but by discouraging ridership." "16 , 00:56:53:14 , They raised fares." "16 , 00:56:56:04 , They stopped printing maps of the bus system." "16 , 00:57:00:16 , They refused to post route maps or schedules at bus stops." "24 , 00:57:04:24 , They put their money into more glamourous subway and light rail projects." "16 , 00:57:07:16 , Sued for discrimination, 04 , 00:57:10:04 , they accepted a consent decree" "04 , 00:57:13:11 , and then rejected its provisions." "01 , 00:57:27:11 , Neorealism also posits another kind of time, 04 , 00:57:34:16 , a spatialized, nonchronological time of meditation and memory." "16 , 00:57:35:16 , "The baby's dead. ... 16 , 00:57:37:16 , You understand what I'm saying?" "The baby's dead. ... 04 , 00:57:39:04 , She's dead."" "04 , 00:57:39:16 , She's dead."" "16 , 00:57:41:16 , "What you doin' up there, woman?"" "16 , 00:57:46:01 , In Bush Mama, everything is filtered through Dorothy's consciousness, 16 , 00:57:48:09 , and the film follows it" "09 , 00:57:52:04 , as it slides freely from perception to memory." "04 , 00:58:04:21 , Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep 21 , 00:58:07:16 , seems suspended outside of time." "16 , 00:58:12:04 , Burnett blended together the decades of his childhood, 11 , 00:58:14:16 , his youth, and his adulthood," "04 , 00:58:17:16 , and added an idiosyncratic panorama 04 , 00:58:20:04 , of classic black music," "16 , 00:58:23:16 , from Paul Robeson to Lowell Fulsom." "16 , 00:58:34:16 , So a portrait of one family and their neighborhood 16 , 00:58:38:04 , became an epic of black endurance and heroism." "09 , 00:58:46:16 , The police are absent in Killer of Sheep, 16 , 00:58:50:04 , and everyone has a car or a truck," "16 , 00:58:53:04 , although they're often more trouble than they're worth." "16 , 00:59:00:16 , The protagonist has a job." "16 , 00:59:03:16 , He is the killer of sheep." "04 , 00:59:06:19 , But a job can break your heart, too." "16 , 00:59:47:04 , White America had declared a crisis of the black family 04 , 00:59:50:16 , as a cover for its campaign of incremental genocide" "01 , 00:59:54:16 , against its expendable ex-slave population, 04 , 00:59:57:24 , rendered superfluous by immigrant labor power," "04 , 01:00:03:16 , so black film-makers responded by emphasizing families and children." "16 , 01:00:11:16 , Although Hollywood would lend credence to the assault 16 , 01:00:15:04 , by imagining ?" "south Central" as a dystopian theme park 04 , 01:00:17:16 , of crack whores and drive-by shootings, 04 , 01:00:22:16 , independent black film-makers showed that the real crisis of the black family" "04 , 01:00:25:16 , is simply the crisis of the working class family, 04 , 01:00:27:16 , white or black," "04 , 01:00:30:16 , where family values are always at risk 16 , 01:00:34:04 , because the threat of unemployment is always present." "04 , 01:00:59:01 , So many men unneeded, unwanted, 01 , 01:01:01:16 , in a world where there is so much to be done." "16 , 01:01:34:04 , Billy Woodberry's Bless Their Little Hearts 04 , 01:01:36:16 , takes a drive by a reverse landmark," "16 , 01:01:39:16 , one of the closed industrial plants 16 , 01:01:41:11 , that had once provided jobs" "11 , 01:01:43:17 , for the black working class of Los Angeles." "04 , 01:02:07:04 , Built in 1919 11 , 01:02:09:04 , and closed in 1980," "16 , 01:02:17:04 , was the first and largest of the four major tire manufacturing plants 16 , 01:02:20:04 , once located in the Los Angeles area." "21 , 01:02:42:02 , Once upon a time, 14 , 01:02:46:16 , visitors could take a guided tour and see how tires were made" "16 , 01:02:49:04 , just as today 06 , 01:02:51:16 , they can take a studio tour" "16 , 01:02:53:16 , and see how movies are made."