[Top Of The Park]

I just saw the traveling version of the Broadway show "Rent". I had seen the movie about two years ago and found the show pretty topical, not that you usually catch people singing songs out in public, but the urban "bohemian" lifestyle, homelessness, community centers, aids and whatnot. Many people are turned off by the 90's Rent version of urban life as much as Archie Bunker's version of the early 70's or 80's many city life sitcoms. I just saw the movie "Street Kings" recently and wondered how the LA Police could even colaborate with such a negative version of their city and police force.

So what do you think? Are the shows just for entertainment and laughs, or have you found a few gems of reality and truth in them? Do they represent urban living as you know it??

[donybrx]

^^^^ Interesting to note that "RENT" is based on the opera La Boheme which similarly characterizes life, love, disease (tuberculosis) in 19th century Paris among starving artists/boehmians......

[PA Pride]

Something that movies never seem to capture well is the happiness and goodness of most people in the city. City people seem to always be portrayed as jaded and ineffectual, IMO. But MOST of the people I've ever met in cities are super friendly, and interesting, often times well educated and down to earth.

[Double L]

Quentin Tarintino's "Death Proof" from The Gridhouse is a remarkably good portrayal of life in Austin, Texas, albeit in a mostly suburban environment.

Another good example would be Grand Theft Auto, IMO.

[krudmonk]

Yeah, people commute by cable car in San Francisco.

[rs913]

Don't forget about the other extreme: movies that portray cities (usually NYC) as perfectly scrubbed-clean Disneylands where everyone's nice and well-dressed and rich and happy. It's typically a romantic-comedy thing, i.e. reason #99 why I stay far away from those.

[donybrx]

The films Philadelphia and Sixth Sense very much captured some of Philadelphia's atmosphere.....

[quobobo]

I always love the hugely exaggerated apartment sizes in movies. I watched No Reservations a few months ago, and it made me laugh to see that one of the characters (a sous-chef) lived in an absolutely massive Manhattan apartment that's probably in executive salary range.

[MayorOfChicago]

I've found most movies in large cities, like Chicago, kinda tend to center on the gritty and poverty, crime aspects. This is probably because in sterotypical hollywood movies, where location creates an imagine, cities = urban/crowds, and suburban = comedies, relaxed areas, quietness.

I don't see a lot of movies in Chicago that are focused on the cheerful, happy and middle class/upper middle class that embodies a great deal of the city.

[MayorOfChicago]

I always love the hugely exaggerated apartment sizes in movies. I watched No Reservations a few months ago, and it made me laugh to see that one of the characters (a sous-chef) lived in an absolutely massive Manhattan apartment that's probably in executive salary range.

I love that as well, especially in New York. I've seen some "apartments" in Chicago movies where the people live in a VERY nice huge house or condo, yet they do some stupid job that probably pays $15 an hour.

New York is funny with the starving artists and entry level characters living in a huge loft together near Central Park, etc. As if.

[urbanactivistTX]

This is such a cool topic:tup:

From my own experience, movies have done the lion's share of influencing how I think of urbanity (at least in stereotype).

For example a show like Sex in the City portrays New York as the center of the world... the trendiest, coolest place around. Basically, "Manhattan is where LIFE happens."

While at the same time a movie like Jungle Fever paints the harshest realities of the city... drugs, gangs, racism... and paints it as a place where no decent person would ever want to live. Both are quite anchored in reality though.

I think a really good movie for looking at urban life and rural life is Spike Lee's Crooklyn... great contrast between the two that seems rather factual.

Same can be said for Houston. Two movies shaped my opinion of the city early on...

Reality Bites- the city appears pretty urban and trendy, but in a laid-back gen-X sort of way.

Jason't Lyric- makes Houston seem like the absolute edge of poverty (especially for African Americans).

[Vancity4life]

Movies are one person's (ie "The Director's") perception or take on things. So no one movie can completley capture an entire city's atmosphere. It has a lot to do with personal experiences. For example when I went through detroit I got lost in a particularly run down empty section of the city...if I were to make a movie set in a run down neighborhood...I'd do it in detroit...only because that was my personal experience there...in summation every city has many different settings, atmospheres, and overall moods but which ones you experience there vary...

[urbanactivistTX]

Yeah, people commute by cable car in San Francisco.

LOL TOTALLY... watching a movie, you'd never even know that BART exists.

[rs913]

Nobody's mentioned L.A. yet. Some people say a big reason why "Crash" won the Oscar in 2006 was because it portrayed L.A. really insightfully...

Movies are one person's (ie "The Director's") perception or take on things. So no one movie can completley capture an entire city's atmosphere. It has a lot to do with personal experiences.

To be fair, it also has a lot to do with the mood the director is trying to set for the story that uses the city as a backdrop. So I can't really blame the crime dramas for portraying NYC as a seedy wasteland, or the romantic comedies for making everything about NYC overly cheery and bright, like in the god-awful "You've Got Mail". As much as I would have liked to see Meg Ryan's character get shanked by a gang of escapees from a woman's prison, just to balance things out, it really wouldn't have made sense from the director's point of view.

[BnaBreaker]

Quentin Tarintino's "Death Proof" from The Gridhouse is a remarkably good portrayal of life in Austin, Texas, albeit in a mostly suburban environment.

Another good example would be Grand Theft Auto, IMO.

Grand Theft Auto? Yikes, I do NOT want to live where you live! lol

In any case, it seems to me that most TV shows over exaggerate the extremes of urban life. If you were to base your opinion of urban living on fictional sitcoms alone you'd probably assume that they were all populated by gangs, the mob, and millionaire super models.

Some notable exceptions that I can think of off hand would be Good Times, King of Queens, and The Cosby Show.

[Fugacious]

I tend to find movies to portray urban lifestyle as very nice and comfortable
(Music&lyrics, Baby Mama, Hitch, the invasion)
the people usually live in large modern condos or townhouses and have a very comfortable lifestyle
the problem is, almost all of those movies take place in Manhattan or display a very small center part of the city =\

[Top Of The Park]

One of the more realistic city life movies I've seen is "About Schmidt" with Jack Nicholson. So many movies like "Crash" involve people getting killed which I guess is pretty realistic in a big city, yet so many movies and novels use death or murder as a magnet.

The biggest thing I fault movies with is the portrayal that people all get along and have all the time in the world to socialize. In reality most of us are working and when we get home, we don't want to go out and socialize most nights. I find Spike Lee movies to give a good view or slice of life.

[sprtsluvr8]

"Rent" and other musicals are really not trying to be realistic...hence the characters bursting into song throughout the show. I'm sure there is an attempt to make the setting somewhat realistic, especially in a movie musical, but it's really secondary to - the music.

[Ronin]

I think David Ayers' movies (Harsh Times, Street Kings, Dark Blue) capture a good part of the grittiness of the mean streets of LA. Although obviously exaggerated, you become fully engulfed in the harsh reality, and get a good idea of how life really is there.

Also, older classics such as Menace II Society portray this vividly as well.

[strongbad635]

There is less of an issue about how cities are portrayed in movies, IMHO. Yes, there are a large number of movies that portray urban areas as hopeless centers of crime, fear and filth where the living envy the dead. And there are some movies and shows that portray urban life as perfect, cleanly scrubbed sterile utopia. Both are wrong, I'd wager.

What annoys me more is how movies portray the suburbs. They are always portrayed as picturesque, clean perfect places full of friendly people who are happy and healthy. We rarely ever see the reality of the suburbs that many Americans experience: isolation, antisocial behavior, lack of exercise due to driving everywhere, large traffic jams that clog collector roads, soulless strip malls and office towers that make people feel like anonymous drones when they are inhabited.

It always seems that in movies and TV, a move from the city to the suburbs is universally accepted as a positive change, while a move from the 'burbs to the city is almost always shown as a failure.

[Steely Dan]

^ check out "edward scissor hands" and "american beauty". they're both pretty scathing cinematic indictments of american suburbia.

[Ronin]

How about "The Burbs" starring Tom Hanks? :haha:

[POLA]

re: GTA
I'll just get this up front: I enormously enjoyed Grand Theft Auto IV.

But here's the thing: It's kind of hard to explain why.

There's no single thing to point to -- no must-see scene, no gotta-do moment of gameplay, no deliriously fun weapon. No, the game's pleasures come in weird, subtle, unexpected moments.

Let me give you an example. At one point, I was having a typically thuggish day: I'd killed a few drug dealers with a semiautomatic, and while trying to flee, whoops -- I accidentally rear-ended a cop car. Then it was a car chase, all wailing sirens and shrieking pedestrians diving out of the way, before totaling my SUV in a brutal collision and escaping on foot. A total Hillary Clinton nightmare, in other words.

I finally escaped by ducking into a subway station, and while catching my breath, I decided to explore a bit. That's when I stumbled upon a lovely piece of artwork: A huge mosaic of a subway train on the second level. It looked precisely like the mosaics you see in the New York City subway, except even more ambitious and gorgeous. And I was thinking, "Man, who put this thing here? Who thinks of this stuff?"

Well, Rockstar Games did. The Rockstar developers are utterly in love with the idea of the American city: the riot of decay and grandeur, the garish commercialism, the violence and beauty, the architectural delights hidden in every corner. With GTA IV, Rockstar has produced an ode to urban life. Which is to say, they're not really giving you a game to play with -- they're giving you a city.
Rockstar invented the sandbox game, and with this GTA, it has pretty much perfected it. As with previous games in the series, you play as a minor thug climbing the crime ladder by fulfilling missions. But you can totally ignore the missions and simply go exploring, eavesdropping or conducting physics experiments by jumping motorcycles off rooftops.

Since this version of Liberty City is modeled loosely on New York City, the game is satisfying merely as a driving sim -- you can spend hours cruising around and admiring the garish fluorescence of Times Square, the corroded projects of the Bronx, the Russian mob scene flourishing beneath the rattling subway tracks of lower Brooklyn (neighborhoods that in the game are dubbed, respectively, Algonquin, Bohan and Broker).

The attention to street-culture detail is obsessive, practically Sistine. Each street corner is a piece of randomly generated theater: Primly dressed art students wander around with portfolio cases, homeless crack addicts mutter to themselves as they brush past hipster dudes toting Starbuckian sleeves of coffee. Like all the in-game voice acting, the ambient dialogue is both superbly acted and super weird. ("I forgot to tell you, I need more socks. They are all fucked!" brayed a Russian émigré into his mobile phone as I wandered by.)

This is the same self-regulating anarchy that inspired Jane Jacobs, author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

So you could just street-watch. But once you engage the main "story," the plot line is so appealing that it's hard to stop. In GTA IV you play as Niko Bellic, a just-off-the-boat Serbian immigrant who is scarred by his experience in the Balkan wars. You're nursing some secrets, yet trying to start new. Starting new isn't easy, because you're immediately trying to pay off your ne'er-do-well cousin's debts, which means doing the bidding of various low-fi gangsters. Soon you're hip-deep in intrigue -- whacking drug dealers, stealing contraband and generally breaking the hell out of the law.

The game isn't a celebration of gangster life. GTA never was; for all their bad-boy reputation, Rockstar's designers are adept satirists of American excess. Indeed, they pretty much share Charles Dickens' moral view, wherein those in the big city who gain power are inevitably corrupted by it. (I nearly drove off the road several times while shaking with laughter at the parodies of right-wing talk radio -- complete with incoherent, anti-immigrant nativists, slavishly pro-government commentators on the Weasel News network and ads for "baby buying" services.)

GTA IV's men are filled with sexist bluster -- particularly when women aren't around -- and the Russian and Balkan gangsters are sloppy psychological messes, often because they spent time in war prisons abroad. (Rockstar's choice of Eastern European mobsters for this game, actually, adds a nice frisson, because this is the one criminal class left in America that hasn't been glamorized: They're simply scary as shit, in real life as in the game.)

Interestingly, Niko is the most likable hero in the GTA series. He's a curiously cordial dating partner -- and you'll go on a lot of dates. Indeed, in a Hollywood-like cellphone irony, your girlfriend will often call to chat while you're in the middle of a gunfight or car chase.

The game also lets you exercise a bit of your own moral code when you're given a few key opportunities to disobey your gangster bosses. (I chose to set free someone I'd been given a contract to kill, on the promise that he leave town -- though I'm wondering if that decision will come back to haunt me as I continue to play.)

As for the game's controls? Very little is new, but it's all improved. Executing your missions is more fun than in any GTA game before, because Rockstar has neatly tweaked some of the mechanics that annoyed many lightweight players like me in the past. You're much more accurate with your gun early on (a fact cleverly explained by Niko's status as a war veteran), and each time you fail a mission, you're given an option to immediately replay it, which speeds up the game immeasurably.

In previous games, the complexity of GTA's cities often left you maddeningly lost during time-sensitive missions. This time, an in-game GPS service highlights the fastest route to drive -- a trick that Rockstar copied from Saints Row, a game that itself was a copy of Grand Theft Auto. My one serious quibble with the gameplay is that the cars still control like tanks, and the camera hovers far too low on the hood, frequently obstructing your view unless you constantly fiddle with it.

Perhaps the best improvement of all, though, is that Rockstar has reined itself in. Those who played the most recent title in the series -- San Andreas -- confronted a game so sprawling that no normal earthling could finish it (not even a friend of mine who was confined to bed with a broken leg for three weeks could go all the way). But judging by my progress, you could get through GTA IV in about 50 hours, doable for an adult who goes to a job and occasionally showers.

Yet I may never finish the game. In a city this vibrant, it's hard to stop getting distracted. At one point, I finished a mission on the top floor of a decrepit apartment filled with crack-addled occupants. I started to head back downstairs to my car, then wondered: "Hey, what's up on the roof?"

So I headed up and, sure enough, it was a spectacular view: corroded water towers dotting the rooftops, bits of weather-beaten graffiti on the masonry, the distant hum and honk of pissed-off drivers below. Broken and beaten yet flailing onward: That's the world of Grand Theft Auto.

What a wonderfully seedy world it is.

http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/commentary/games/2008/05/gamesfrontiers_0502

re: realistic movies about urban life
http://www.apple.com/trailers/thinkfilm/noise/

[Cirrus]

most TV shows over exaggerate the extremes of urban life. Agreed.

As for Washington specifically, you'd think there was no city beyond the Mall, White House, Capitol, and maybe 3 or 4 federal office buildings.

[Capsule F]

Yes

[sprtsluvr8]

Some people in this forum might appreciate a section of this website titled "Suburban Hell":
http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue08/features/suburbia/

There is a synopsis of 3 movies that, according to the author, more accurately portray suburban life..."These three films suggest that beneath the ritualized lives of suburbanites lies an emotional vacuum."

Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990)
The Ice Storm (1997)
Welcome to the Dollhouse (19960

[fflint]

I think movies usually portray exaggerated aspects of urban life, especially those that are supposedly out of the ordinary for an average American film-goer (e.g. cities as hip, sexy, rough, edgy, artsy, exotic, etc.). What movies almost never do is capture the ordinary workday-type rhythm of urban life.

If you watch a national or cable news program, oftentimes when the anchor cuts to a reporter on the street in a big city, you'll hear all the ambient noise of the city by day coming on in an instant. Bam--there it is. The drone, the dull roar punctuated by horns or squeaking breaks, or faraway sirens. Behind the reporter, blurred but visible, is a tableau--countless smaller parts are moving in all directions, while massive edifaces hulk above. There's a reason why Manhattan buzzes and DC hums and all that--because millions of people are busy all in one place.

Most adult urbanites--who have lives outside work, to be sure--spend the better part of every workday downtown, busying themselves in an office or store, moving between those places and home, eating in restaurants, running errands. The effect is unique and unmistakable.

In my years living in Boston, LA, and San Francisco, I've come to think the most distinguishing aspect of urban life is the way the city throbs with people and business (as in, busy-ness) during the workday. When I squeeze into the last available square foot on an overcrowded subway train heading for the Financial District in the morning, man--it's on. And it stays on until I'm back in the neighborhoods, nine hours later, enjoying a cocktail or whatever.

In urban cities you get people coming from all corners of the metro into one or two compact central business districts to spend the day. The place in which that happens is a crush, a constant motion, a controlled chaos, a dull roar. This is what distinguishes urban life from all other ways of living, IMO, this environment in which most adult urbanites spend their workdays, and movies don't capture that (well, I suppose Koyannisqatsi did, haha), because it isn't really entertaining unless you're a part of it.

[hymalaia]

um, there are lots of films that portray suburbia as glossy on the outside, ugly beneath the surface ("Blue Velvet" for one). It's practically a cliche. Of course in general the suburbs are considered kind of a cultural "norm", if you are a family (also normal). If you are a young single person (20's), you live in a loft in a cool city. More or less this is reflected in our TV shows and movies. I don't think you can make big judgments like "all people in suburbs are like this, all people in cities are like this". As far as I can tell there is plenty of ugliness and politeness in both cities, suburbs, and rural areas.

Ultimately I don't think movies do a good job portraying reality anywhere. Popular ones anyway. Smaller independent films (I mean real small, not these 7 million $ budget oscar winners like "Juno") sometimes do a good job but one needs to seek them out.

[mcfinley]

An excerpt from a Time article regarding GTA IV that I thought was appropriate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/nyregion/thecity/04gran.html?_r=1%26sq=grand%20theft%20auto%20%26st=nyt%26oref=slogin%26scp=9%26pagewanted=all

Eventually I touched down in a Times Square that was appropriately cluttered with hypnotic neon advertisements for things I could not really buy, and populated, sparsely, with pedestrians who carried on cellphone conversations, sketched portraits of passers-by and played the saxophone in return for loose change. When I walked into a greasy all-night burger joint, a cashier greeted me with an appropriately indifferent “What?” But when I crossed the street against the light upon exiting, cars actually stopped for me (though they honked their horns).

Having been lulled into believing that I really was in New York, I made the mistake of trying to find my own Alphabet City apartment within the game. I walked down to Chinatown — that took only a few seconds — found what I thought was Houston Street, and made my way to where Avenue A (and my apartment) should have been. But after traversing only a block or two of bodegas and backward-hatted hipsters bobbing their heads to the beats of miniature iPods, I somehow found myself at the southern entrance to Grand Central Terminal.

It was as if some unknown natural disaster had recently touched down and attacked only the portions of New York that I cared for most deeply. My city — at least, the parts of it that I thought of as my city — no longer existed.

So I regrouped and tried to find the high-rise apartment building on East 40th Street where I grew up in the ’70s and ’80s. I started at the United Nations, made my way west through a perfect simulacrum of Tudor City (with another saxophone player performing in the park) and within a few short steps had gone all the way to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Foiled again!

It seemed a perfectly logical and human impulse, to prove to myself that I was somewhere recognizable by finding the one place in it that was most recognizable to me. Yet there was no way that the game could satisfy this impulse: like a comic-book superhero drawn by the legendary artist Jack Kirby, whose characters’ fists grew larger and feet grew smaller as they flew up out of their panels, the proportions of this version of Manhattan were an optical illusion. The parts that everybody would notice were blown up larger than life; the parts that virtually no one would care about were shrunk to nothingness.

Faced with this catastrophic revelation, I turned to a life of crime. I hijacked cars and crashed them into traffic poles; I raced a motorcycle through Central Park and dismounted just before the bike plunged into the lake (my way of letting the boathouse know I won’t be holding my wedding reception there). I jumped off the observation deck of the Empire State Building, just because I could, though I took no pleasure from the sickening scream my character let out, nor the sound of his jacket flapping in the wind, 86 stories to the ground.

At the urging of my human confederates, I even attempted one of Grand Theft Auto’s missions — tasks I was supposed to be completing to progress through the game properly — that required me to shoot my way through a gang of drug smugglers and steal their truckload of contraband. I did as I was instructed, but my heart just wasn’t in it. If I truly believed in Liberty City as a functioning community, how could I open fire on my fellow simulated citizens (even if they shot at me first)? How could I tread all over the social contract in a ripped-off truck full of bootleg prescription medication?

THE answer, of course, is that I couldn’t, and here is where the paradoxical nature of Grand Theft Auto once again rears its head. Unlike the missions, objectives and narrative elements of a traditional video game, which constitute the game itself — the things you’re supposed to be participating in and following along with in order to actually play — these same aspects of G.T.A. are more like sophisticated distractions to keep you from immersing yourself too deeply in its fictional city environment.

Except that the problem with G.T.A. — one that will in no way dissuade me from playing the game until my digits are raw and aching — is that the more fully you are pulled into Liberty City and the more closely you inspect it, the more you are reminded that it isn’t a city at all.

The neighborhoods do not blend into one another so much as sit next to one another. The traffic varies just enough from one area to the next to convince you that a place is inhabited, but eavesdrop on a pedestrian long enough, and you’ll find that he doesn’t eventually go home to his wife and kids — he just keeps walking and talking in a continuous loop.

It’s not the game’s fault that it can’t perfectly replicate the infinite variety of New York. But it sometimes comes so close to pulling off the illusion that it invites you to look for the imperfections.

When my two hours of game time were over, I left the Rockstar Games offices and stepped out into SoHo at midafternoon on one of warmest spring days of the year. The sun worshipers were out in full force, each of them as distinct as snowflakes: guys wearing oversized earphones and baseball caps tilted at every angle, women wearing minimalist skirts and shorts that gave them only the illusion of being clothed. An amorous couple making their way north hardly noticed me as they nearly crosschecked me into a streetside table of $6 sunglasses.

There was so much uniqueness and so much variety that there was no room to move, and I knew I was home.

[Marcu]

What annoys me more is how movies portray the suburbs. They are always portrayed as picturesque, clean perfect places full of friendly people who are happy and healthy. We rarely ever see the reality of the suburbs that many Americans experience: isolation, antisocial behavior, lack of exercise due to driving everywhere, large traffic jams that clog collector roads, soulless strip malls and office towers that make people feel like anonymous drones when they are inhabited.

It always seems that in movies and TV, a move from the city to the suburbs is universally accepted as a positive change, while a move from the 'burbs to the city is almost always shown as a failure.

Have you been to the movies in the last 10 years? The trend in Hollywood has been to portray the suburbs as anything but idyllic for quite some time now. If anything, it's the Sex and the City type shows that create a false impression of what urban living is all about. ($15 martinis ans non-stop clubbing are quite rare for your average urban dweller).

[10023]

Yes, I love my 3,000 square foot Greenwich Village apartment.

[PhillyRising]

Yes, I love my 3,000 square foot Greenwich Village apartment.

:haha:

If they portrayed reality all the time, we would be bored watching it.

[jodelli]

I thought 'Do the Right Thing' had the atmosphere, except for Sal's, which was appropriate since it was actually a stage set on a vacant lot. And that was 20 years ago.

But mostly, no, I don't think the business captures what cities are actually like.
It's kind of like going to a major league ballpark. Where's the Fox or ESPN soundtrack? Where's Joe Mogan or Jeanie Zelasco? Why do I actually have to pay attention to what is going on? What are these smells? Who are all these people?

Same with the city in general. Even HDTV can't reproduce the total surround of sensory input.
You have to be there.

[Double L]

:haha:

If they portrayed reality all the time, we would be bored watching it.

My experience of reality is that it is a whole lot more interesting than the movies.

[muppet]

I think foreign cities strike me as utterly unreal on screen. In London it always rains, everyone talks Cockney or posh, drinks in old pubs and is White English (thus eliminating 50-60 percent of the city). Paris isn't better, its racial mix is also deleted, every shot has the Eiffel Tower in it and Parisians do nothing more than slum round in elegant clothing smoking in cafes and being rude. You wouldn't cut to 'Paris, France', or 'London, England' and see a backdrop of Shanghainese delicatessen or the white kids talking Jamaican patois (which is the new south, east and north London accent).

I think everything in Hollywood is sensationalist, like a tabloid newspaper. Every 'scene setting' comes with the shimmering aerial shot, every beach is populated by the young and beautiful and skimpily dressed, every club full of cyberpunks with attitude and rock music???, every student dorms is JUST ONE BIG PARTY DUDE, like ALL the time.

I swear, just watch the trailers, there will always be one circling shot of the LA/ Manhattan skyline (tick), with rock music (tick), shot of the wavering stars and stripes (tick), and a woman in a bikini getting out of a pool (tick).

[TexasBoi]

Jason't Lyric- makes Houston seem like the absolute edge of poverty (especially for African Americans).

Yet it continues to be one of my all time favorite movies as well.:tup:

[TexasBoi]

Agreed.

As for Washington specifically, you'd think there was no city beyond the Mall, White House, Capitol, and maybe 3 or 4 federal office buildings.
I think Enemy of the State did a good job showcasing Georgetown and the areas in and around DC.

[Trae]

COLORS...colors...COLORS...colors (if you don't understand the up and down of Colors, then oh well).

[Top Of The Park]

One of the most effective uses of a skyline opening shot is in "New Jack City" with the money song in the background. Kind of sets the tone.

[holladay]

I think everything in Hollywood is sensationalist, like a tabloid newspaper. Every 'scene setting' comes with the shimmering aerial shot, every beach is populated by the young and beautiful and skimpily dressed, every club full of cyberpunks with attitude and rock music???, every student dorms is JUST ONE BIG PARTY DUDE, like ALL the time.

I swear, just watch the trailers, there will always be one circling shot of the LA/ Manhattan skyline (tick), with rock music (tick), shot of the wavering stars and stripes (tick), and a woman in a bikini getting out of a pool (tick).

Pretty much dead on. That's why I gave up on American film several years ago. It's utterly useless as an artistic medium that tries to explain or present modern reality. It asks no deep questions, it probes no psychology. It's basically just flashy entertainment.

[Echo Park]

I think foreign cities strike me as utterly unreal on screen. In London it always rains, everyone talks Cockney or posh, drinks in old pubs and is White English (thus eliminating 50-60 percent of the city). Paris isn't better, its racial mix is also deleted, every shot has the Eiffel Tower in it and Parisians do nothing more than slum round in elegant clothing smoking in cafes and being rude. You wouldn't cut to 'Paris, France', or 'London, England' and see a backdrop of Shanghainese delicatessen or the white kids talking Jamaican patois (which is the new south, east and north London accent).


Hollywood does this even when it comes to its own backyard. The OC for example, all attractive white people. Not a single Mexican or Asian to be seen despite Orange County's huge Mexican and Asian populations.

[Boris2k7]

Most media about cities can probably fall into three main categories: utopian, dystopian, and neutral. By exaggerating different elements of the city, certain messages can be enforced. This is possible because cities themselves are the embodiment of human civilization, they have the ability therefore to personify different aspects of human life.

Also, the portrayal of a city depends on the era the film was meant to portray, and the time period the film itself was made in. For example, films about industrial cities are almost always negative, focusing on impoverishment, greed, crime, and waste. Movies about old western cities focus on courage and independence. Old movies about future cities (made during the turn of the twentieth century) focused on power, prosperity, and discovery. New movies about the future (say, the last 30 years or so) are cynical and rather jaded outlooks. Current portrayals seem to fall into the neutral category... where the city seems to be what you make of it. You could almost say that cities are seen as existential.

[Evergrey]

Pretty much dead on. That's why I gave up on American film several years ago. It's utterly useless as an artistic medium that tries to explain or present modern reality. It asks no deep questions, it probes no psychology. It's basically just flashy entertainment.

talk about your sweeping generalizations

[Mr Roboto]

One of the most effective uses of a skyline opening shot is in "New Jack City" with the money song in the background. Kind of sets the tone.

As wierd as this might sound to some, New Jack City is definitely one of my all-time favorite movies.

They set the tone with that shot youre talking about - then zooming in on the bridge with that guy being hung by his legs, the shot before Ice T is buying dope from Chris Rock in that junkie area, and the shots of the Carter with central park in the background.

[Top Of The Park]

As wierd as this might sound to some, New Jack City is definitely one of my all-time favorite movies.

They set the tone with that shot youre talking about - then zooming in on the bridge with that guy being hung by his legs, the shot before Ice T is buying dope from Chris Rock in that junkie area, and the shots of the Carter with central park in the background.


What I like about the movie is...it gets right to the point and stays with it. Although it can be harsh....isn't that how life can be at times? Perhaps it has a few scenes that are a little beyond spectacular and probability. But......

[holladay]

talk about your sweeping generalizations

Watch what you want to watch, but man, I'm for real. It's a real shock when an American film strikes me as poignant. I got tired of being disappointed.

My hypothesis on this matter is that as Americans we're too literal in our thinking. Maybe we just don't attend to subtlety and nuance very well. I haven't really figured it out.

[Evergrey]

Watch what you want to watch, but man, I'm for real. It's a real shock when an American film strikes me as poignant. I got tired of being disappointed.

My hypothesis on this matter is that as Americans we're too literal in our thinking. Maybe we just don't attend to subtlety and nuance very well. I haven't really figured it out.

perhaps you're not looking hard enough

[holladay]

perhaps you're not looking hard enough

Perhaps. But in the meantime I'll stick to movies I enjoy.

[Evergrey]

Perhaps. But in the meantime I'll stick to movies I enjoy.

such as...?

[donybrx]

Where is Pauline Kael when you need her?

[holladay]

such as...?

Ten Movies I Recently Enjoyed Viewing (in no particular order) :

Le Scaphandre et le Papillon (France) dir. Julian Schnabel, 2007
Elling (Norway) dir. Peter Naess, 2001
Shower (China) dir. Zhang Yang, 1999
I am an S&M Writer (Japan) dir. Ryuichi Hiroki, 2000
Vibrator (Japan) dir. Ryuichi Hiroki, 2003
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring (Korea) dir. Kim Ki-duk, 2003
After Life (Japan) dir. Koreeda Hirokazu, 1998
2046 (Hong Kong) dir. Wang Kar Wai, 2004
In this World (U.K.) dir. Michael Winterbottom, 2002
My Brother is an Only Child (Italy) dir. Daniele Luchetti, 2007

[sprtsluvr8]

Watch what you want to watch, but man, I'm for real. It's a real shock when an American film strikes me as poignant. I got tired of being disappointed.

My hypothesis on this matter is that as Americans we're too literal in our thinking. Maybe we just don't attend to subtlety and nuance very well. I haven't really figured it out.

As Americans, we are all individuals with individual thoughts and ideas...some are very perceptive and sensitive to nuance. Apparently you have seen some American films that you thought were disappointing, and your conclusion is that all American films are alike and therefore a waste of your time. Maybe you are being so overly critical to the extent that it is causing you to miss the nuances and subtleties in some of those films?

I'm kidding, but I was actually wondering if you've attended any of the film festivals in cities around the U.S....there all kinds of films by Americans who have a wide range of personality types as well as various levels of talent and creativity. You present a very narrow view of Americans and American film, when they are no different than movies and filmakers from anywhere in the world. You'll love some, you'll hate some...as long as your mind is open to the possibility of either.

[holladay]

Well if my view of American films is narrow in your eyes, then so be it. I like to watch movies that enrich my understanding of culture, relationships, and life. I also want movies to change my perspective and deepen my thinking. While I don't think all American films are incapable of providing these things, by-and-large I think enough of them are that I don't mind generalizing so negatively about them. At any rate, it's only my opinion and it has absolutely no bearing on any other person so like I said, I'll continue to watch what I enjoy.

[skylife]

I think everything in Hollywood is sensationalist, like a tabloid newspaper. Every 'scene setting' comes with the shimmering aerial shot, every beach is populated by the young and beautiful and skimpily dressed, every club full of cyberpunks with attitude and rock music???, every student dorms is JUST ONE BIG PARTY DUDE, like ALL the time.

I swear, just watch the trailers, there will always be one circling shot of the LA/ Manhattan skyline (tick), with rock music (tick), shot of the wavering stars and stripes (tick), and a woman in a bikini getting out of a pool (tick).

Eh, no more so than every British film is 1) a quick-cut-fast-talking-crime-caper; or 2) quirky-loner-or-group-of-misfits-goes-against-the-grain-and-stuffy-community-eventually-embraces-him/her-and-becomes-a-better-place. I can see what you are saying but you probably go see crap movies in order to ALWAYS see crap trailers.

Pretty much dead on. That's why I gave up on American film several years ago. It's utterly useless as an artistic medium that tries to explain or present modern reality. It asks no deep questions, it probes no psychology. It's basically just flashy entertainment.

You obviously don't know much about American film if you think it's all Hollywood. The US has a very sophisticated modern film culture if you bother to actually educate yourself about it - and historically it's unrivaled. You sound like one of those guys who has never even seen a beautiful little film like "Undertow" but then compares the artistry of "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" to "Transformers" to make a point about artistic and emotional quality in a country's cinema. It's kinda silly.

With regards to more mainstream, sort of "semi-Hollywood" films, only a total cultural Philistine would argue that recent and well-regarded films like "No Country for Old Men" or "There Will be Blood" or "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" are "utterly useless as an artistic medium that tries to explain or present modern reality" and if your number one criteria is "poignancy" and films that probe psychology, how could you not be moved by "Into the Wild"? These are beautifully shot, VERY well written and acted films rich with symbolism, commentary on contemporary culture and are in NO WAY "just flashy entertainment." Then of course there are sharp and dazzling films like "Ratatouille" which are just perfect. I'm just saying that it's a mistake to allow misguided snobbery to cloud your judgement about quality and your openness to art. Our friend muppet might be stunned to learn none of them have a circling shot of the LA/ Manhattan skyline (tick), with rock music (tick), shot of the wavering stars and stripes (tick), and a woman in a bikini getting out of a pool (tick) in the trailers. Isn't that AMAZING (though actually there might be a Stars & Stripes shot in the bunch to represent decline and unfulfilled promise, not patriotic glory)? I think saying things like, "...I gave up on American film several years ago..." makes you sound goofy and of course very pretentious. Anyway, your loss I guess.

Though re: the question...mainstream movies, tv shows and commercials tend to more often make urban living fairytale-like than show it as pits of despair, which as has been said are both innacurate.

[Mr Roboto]

What I like about the movie is...it gets right to the point and stays with it. Although it can be harsh....isn't that how life can be at times? Perhaps it has a few scenes that are a little beyond spectacular and probability. But......

Yeah, but it doesnt sound like some of the people on this thread would appreciate the bluntness of a movie like this though, lol. Still, I dont know how subtle you can be about an issue like crack and gangs in late 80's NYC, so I like how straight up the message was. There's even that one scene where they pan out, and it says "Crack Kills" on the playground.

[tech12]

The funny thing about RENT is that it was filmed in San Francisco.

As for movies I've seen portraying urban life in San Francisco in a relatively correct way, I would say the list goes:

1. Chan Is Missing

Low-budget independet noirish film set mostly in Chinatown, and filmed in 1981. This one felt really real. Despite it being over 25 years old, I felt like I could jump through the screen and be completely at home in the same city.

2. Bullitt

We know this one, SF in the 60's, cool car chases, portrays SF quite well (Aside from the obvious, such as driving on Potrero Hill and then suddenly appearing in the Marina)

3. Vertigo

Showed SF in the 1950's, pretty cool.

4. Sucker Free City

This one was a TV movie by Spike Lee, and was interesting as it showed the housing projects in Hunters Point, and showed the interaction between Black and Asian gangs, as well as gentrification. The facts regarding gangs and such weren't really accurate, but it was a refreshing angle on a city that's usually filmed in a happy light, showing cable cars and stuff.

4. Quality of Life

This was another independent movie showing more gritty aspects of the city. It focuses on two graffiti artists, and is mostly shot in the Mission District. It captured the "vibe" of the city pretty well.

5. The Pursuit of Happyness

This was a hollywood one, but did a suprisingly good job of not going into cliches and such. It showed different parts of the city. The main problem was the BART station at Duboce park, but whatever.

6. Fearless

This movie was good in the sense that it too avoided those SF cliches. SF wasn't a character like so many films try to make it, but simply a backdrop, which I liked.

[urbanactivistTX]

Most media about cities can probably fall into three main categories: utopian, dystopian, and neutral. By exaggerating different elements of the city, certain messages can be enforced. This is possible because cities themselves are the embodiment of human civilization, they have the ability therefore to personify different aspects of human life.

Also, the portrayal of a city depends on the era the film was meant to portray, and the time period the film itself was made in. For example, films about industrial cities are almost always negative, focusing on impoverishment, greed, crime, and waste. Movies about old western cities focus on courage and independence. Old movies about future cities (made during the turn of the twentieth century) focused on power, prosperity, and discovery. New movies about the future (say, the last 30 years or so) are cynical and rather jaded outlooks. Current portrayals seem to fall into the neutral category... where the city seems to be what you make of it. You could almost say that cities are seen as existential.

Agreed 100 percent:notacrook: :notacrook:

Just like our photo threads here, we make the city out to be whatever we see. As far as eras are concerned, I would have been very scared to visit LA in the 1990s with all of the gang wars, riots and east vs. west going on. Any hood movie or Rap video protrayed South Central as the end of the earth.

[rs913]

As for movies I've seen portraying urban life in San Francisco in a relatively correct way, I would say the list goes:

You're right that there are quite a few movies out there that have portrayed SF realistically. I wish that could extend to TV as well. "Full House" really needed the occasional episode where the gang encountered a cracked-out drifter sleeping on their front steps. :D

[Top Of The Park]

You're right that there are quite a few movies out there that have portrayed SF realistically. I wish that could extend to TV as well. "Full House" really needed the occasional episode where the gang encountered a cracked-out drifter sleeping on their front steps. :D


The old tv series "The Streets Of San Francisco" captured some good street scenes. Watching it now, the phone booths and the older cars really date it.

[tech12]

You're right that there are quite a few movies out there that have portrayed SF realistically. I wish that could extend to TV as well. "Full House" really needed the occasional episode where the gang encountered a cracked-out drifter sleeping on their front steps. :D

Hehe, or how about an occasional shooting? The house IS just 2 blocks away from the projects ;)

[dchan]

You're right that there are quite a few movies out there that have portrayed SF realistically. I wish that could extend to TV as well. "Full House" really needed the occasional episode where the gang encountered a cracked-out drifter sleeping on their front steps. :D

They did go to the grittier side of SF on Full House once. They were 'forced' to take the the gritty and graffitied subway to go to something I don't remember. Of course, the interior of the subway train looked more like the standard NYC TV show subway rather than the interior of the cleaner BART system trains.

[emathias]

Yes, I love my 3,000 square foot Greenwich Village apartment.

yeah, but do you like all 29 of your roommates? ;-)

[emathias]

Watch what you want to watch, but man, I'm for real. It's a real shock when an American film strikes me as poignant. I got tired of being disappointed.

My hypothesis on this matter is that as Americans we're too literal in our thinking. Maybe we just don't attend to subtlety and nuance very well. I haven't really figured it out.

Has it occurred to you that you find American films lacking in sublety and nuance not because foreign films are any more subtle or nuanced, but because you live in and best understand American culture so you understand the cues used intuitively, whereas with foreign films cues that may be obvious to people from the cultures that spawned the films seem nuanced or subtle to you because they aren't immediately obvious to your cultural understanding?

I'm not saying you're uncultured or xenocentric or anything with that comment, I'm simply pointing out the obvious fact that anyone is more in tune with the culture they live in (or grew up in) than they are with a foreign culture.

Personally, I think that probably plays a larger role in your experience than occurred to you. If, on reflection, you agree, then perhaps you can simply start saying you prefer foreign films instead of bashing American films simply because you know them better.

An ancillary contributing factor is that when in America you can see almost any American film, including many that won't make it to wide distribution in other countries. Likewise, there are hundreds of, for example, Chinese and Japanese films you've probably never even heard of because no one thinks they're good enough to be distributed internationally.

[emathias]

I think Enemy of the State did a good job showcasing Georgetown and the areas in and around DC.

While it also had plenty of "tourist shots," In the Line of Fire had some good neighorhoody shots, too.

Also, the beginning 30 minutes or so of Being There may or may not be accurate, but it is pretty funny in its depiction of D.C.

[skylife]

I'm not saying you're uncultured or xenocentric or anything with that comment, I'm simply pointing out the obvious fact that anyone is more in tune with the culture they live in (or grew up in) than they are with a foreign culture.

I am. No serious film viewer would ever say "I don't watch American films" because some of the best work has and continues to come from the US.

[MolsonExport]

Taxi Driver epitomized disfunctional, decaying NYC of the mid 70's.

[muppet]

on the cultural nuance thing, what I can't stand is the Americanisation of Brit flicks. Look at the schmaltzy romances like 'Love Actually' portraying London like its Paris in moonlit blue, and everyone getting kissed in the rain, the kids being little angels, the buildings old yadayadayada. Absolutely dire, Jonathan Ross told the director: 'If my visiting mates ever get mugged in London they got you to blame'. Other repeat offendors being Notting Hill, Match Point etc. Its an absolute laughing stock to anyone who actually lives the reality of the city - unless of course you are the typical floppy haired Londoner who owns a second hand travel bookshop that can somehow afford the rents of Portobello Road and what can only be a multi millionaire flatshare with the local weirdout.

Compare that with Room with a View from the Eighties, and the whole film is about the struggle and falling in love of the two protagonists. Literally the only way you realise they even get together (no kiss, no rain, no running) is with the last one second long shot, literally fading out just before the credits : the two of them arm in arm on the balcony. Its gone form awfully Merchant Ivory my dear chap, to like, Clueless within the decade. Compare two Britflicks Truly Madly Deeply and Bridget Jones's Diary (and btw it hardly ever snows in London, and definitely not at Christmas) and you'll see the difference.

[skylife]

^ You really have a chip on your shoulder. Don't blame us for the dumbing-down of your culture because we actually still make meaningful films. In fact, we make better British films than the British sometimes - like Gosford Park, Closer, V for Vendetta or Sweeney Todd. Regarding Paris, you should check out Paris, je t'aime which is a collection of short films by international filmmakers, including stupid Americans like the Coen Brothers and Gus van Sant.

By the way I liked Match Point and whether it is a perfect representation of your London is not actually important. I think it's an odd critique of a Woody Allen movie who often represents urban life and class through hyperbole.

Re: the topic, Good Will Hunting, Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone are considered good representations of working-class Boston.

[muppet]

ok I'm not intending to blame you the American people, collectively 300 million individuals, for the crapiness and inaccuracies of the British film industry and its pink arsed directors of late, or how it's sold its soul to make up generic recipes on the same themes. Perhaps I should say Hollywoodisation.

Thats not exactly the point anyway, the point being the film industry is as out of touch with reality and as in touch with commercial fantasy as people are now willing to pay for, in UK anyway, when before it used to be the other way round. If anything the paying public are just as guilty, fools that we are.

[urbanactivistTX]

Where the hell did this come from... I would have never thought that this topic could turn into "country vs. country" but alas, here we go :(

AND BTW Sweeney Todd is a musical by Stephen Sondheim, so that has absolutely nothing to do with the British, except for maybe the setting.

We can be proud of the fact that great films are made in practically every country of the world, but there are of course some "big-screen superpowers" like England, Spain, France, Brazil and the US. Eventhough the industry originated in the US, we are not the single definition of film anymore.

Again, the US is a country composed of over-promotion and propoganda. That's what we are best at, and I'm sorry for other parts of the world that always have to hear about our crap.

[skylife]

Where the hell did this come from... I would have never thought that this topic could turn into "country vs. country" but alas, here we go

It came from some clown arrogantly proclaiming that ALL American cinema is just "flashy entertainment", which is obviously not true to an educated film viewer. People called bullsh*t. That's all.

AND BTW Sweeney Todd is a musical by Stephen Sondheim, so that has absolutely nothing to do with the British, except for maybe the setting.

The film is a gorgeous representation of a fantasy Victorian London.

Re: the topic, I thought KIDS was a fantastic and realistic snapshot of a certain demographic of young New Yorkers, and Lost in Translation was an observant meditation on modern Tokyo from an outsider's perspective. Love that one - it's just beautiful.

[muppet]

actually that pissed alot of Tokyoites off as much as pleased them. It was meant to be Sophia de Coppola's ode to the city she loved but people picked up on, despite its awesome shots of the cityscape, that its 'take' on the place was one of alienation, and underhand piss takes (Lip my stockings!), without any Japanese characters (or at least the kind who aren't 5 foot tall or constantly bowing) to relieve that. I don't think that was Sophia's intention but it was the outcome.

If anyone's seen Babel, that's just as innaccurate a portrayal of the city Tokyo (all booze, drugs and neon), but it rubs off better as the character's are far more human, the story of a deaf girl and her outlandish, provocative behaviour that you find out at the end is guilt manifested from the suicide of her mother. Her actions are bizarre and alienating, but she's dealt with respect from the eye's of the camera.

[skylife]

Of course the point of view was from lonely outsiders' perspectives - hence the title - which naturally wouldn't please all Tokyoites as it's not surprising that it didn't capture their own personal perspective of a gigantic city in a 2-hour film. The 'take' on the place as one of alienation and underhand piss takes (Lip my stockings!) without any Japanese characters was spot on considering they were alienated, brought their own cultural arrogance and didn't know any or many Japanese people. Sometimes being surrounded by millions of people can be the lonliest feeling in the world. How might the characters see Tokyo when they are all alone there? I think you missed something.

You're kinda a downer, aren't you? Yeesh.

[donybrx]

AND BTW Sweeney Todd is a musical by Stephen Sondheim, so that has absolutely nothing to do with the British, except for maybe the setting.



Actually, to set the record straight, Sweeney Todd emerged in 19th C. British literature in various published items & stories.....

Sondheim got his hands on it and sent us either reeling in disgust or knocked out & delighted (as was I, having seen the (best) original product with Cariou and Lansbury).....

[muppet]

Of course the point of view was from lonely outsiders' perspectives - hence the title - which naturally wouldn't please all Tokyoites as it's not surprising that it didn't capture their own personal perspective of a gigantic city in a 2-hour film. The 'take' on the place as one of alienation and underhand piss takes (Lip my stockings!) without any Japanese characters was spot on considering they were alienated, brought their own cultural arrogance and didn't know any or many Japanese people. Sometimes being surrounded by millions of people can be the lonliest feeling in the world. How might the characters see Tokyo when they are all alone there? I think you missed something.

You're kinda a downer, aren't you? Yeesh.

Yep, that's true the way you put it, they bought their cultural arrogance over and were alienated. The saving grace of the film was exactly that, it is rumoured to have been Coppola's own experience (that dumb blonde film star is meant to be Britney Spears if Im not mistaken btw), and wasn't meant to have specific meaning or message, merely a fly on the wall. However I don't think Sophia had such a time as Japanese call girls falling over her hotel room floor or standing in a lift with minute sararimen, although Im sure she did have problems with her Japanese photographers, PR people and translators in inscrutable form and stereotype. I doubt very much this would be Coppolas view of the Japanese despite, and their portrayal as such intended in all innocence as humourous relief from a slow paced film.

The film is great, it's a shame the accusations of racism that dogged it (in America not Japan funnily enough) detract from what is in essence a quiet love story to what is merely a backdrop of cultural isolation. Im just picking up on the controversy of the film you mention as an accurate portrayal, don't get het up, and its a great conversation - not an attack.

You're kinda defensive, aren't you?

[skylife]

I'm not remotely het up, but thanks for the reassurance. And I'm glad we agree Lost in Translation was a good film. Yeah, I think Sophia must know Tokyo a lot better than her characters.

[muppet]

Have you seen Babel? Its urban shots are to die for, literally. It follows a bit of a fruitcake teenager in one of its 3 different stories from round the world, interspersed, and she goes about pretty much flashing her er, chastity, to get a rise. But man what a backdrop, all colours and people, and a creepy sense of danger (that thankfully is unrealised - I thought her reckless behaviour was leading up to assault or humiliation, but rather... ok I won't spoil it).

The other film for backdrop that was amazing since a kid, was Q The Winged Serpent. A shlock B-movie horror about a giant winged bird thingy carrying off 70s New Yorkers to its roost in the Chrysler building. What was special imo was that something so big and flying could be conceivably hidden from the crowd. The animal had a knack of flying against the sun, flying high over the skyscrapers and occasionally swooping down to snatch sunbathers off penthouse roof terraces, followed by scenes of people looking up at a passing shadow then seeing nothing, and raining blood on the traffic. The other thing, for a cave it had the concrete tip of a skyscraper that was off limits. It dies on a ziggurat shaped skraper (echoing the Mayan temples to Quetzalcoatl, the winged god), and at the end an egg hatches out of an abandoned French style mansion. Its one laughable but secretly creepy film.

[skylife]

I loved Babel and thought Rinko Kikuchi should certainly have won an Oscar over that Jennifer Hudson screaming in my face. She was great. And yeah, the Tokyo segment was just gorgeously filmed and was almost a character itself.

I haven't heard of Q The Winged Serpent but that sounds interesting.

The sort of apocolyptic London shown in both Children of Men and 28 Days Later are amazing.

[muppet]

Ah they don't makem like they used to:

v/UtYzhAtlfws&hl

[staff]

Chinese film 苹果/Ping Guo (litterally "Apple" - the name of the main character. I can't remember its English title but it's something corny and irrelevant such as "Lost in Beijing") portrayed urban life in modern China (Beijing) quite well. There are some cool cityscape shots to be seen as well.
I recommend it!

[Haworthia]

In response to the original question, "Do Movies and Plays Portray Urban Life Correctly..??", there is one consistent problem that constantly irks me, and that is demographics. Unless the movie is portraying crime or drugs in an urban setting or was made by Spike Lee, most people depicted are overwhelmingly White. I'll use worst offender I can think of, "The Crow". Although the setting is never declared to be Detroit, the cultural references in it suggest that it almost certainly is (e.g., Motor City and Devil's Night). Now, Detroit is something like 85% Black, but I most of the cast if I recall correctly is White. I know the Detroit they were representing doesn't exist, but it still bugs me.

I find romantic comedies are pretty bad offenders too, an example being the movie I was coerced into viewing this weekend, "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days". Occasionally I would catch a glimpse of a non-White person. I don't have statistics of what fraction of the people depicted in the movie were White, but finding the statistics for New York City is pretty easy. According to Wikipedia, as of 2000, New York City was:
26% Black
27% Hispanic
49% White
Obviously demographics vary greatly neighborhood to neighborhood, but I have to say, the movie was pretty far off. That kind of bugs me because the demographics of big urban centers is part of what makes the place. Leave that out, and your not really showing the city, just some buildings.

[zaphod]

So, where in Southern California is that neighborhood where all the houses are two-story traditional style with dormer windows and detached garages, and sit on huge tree-shaded lots? I swear every family show and movie from leave it to beaver to daddy day care has been filmed on the same street.

To me, Office Space and King of the Hill do an okay job potraying life in largely suburban Texas and middle america. I guess it makes sense that both were made by the same guy.

[strongbad635]

So, where in Southern California is that neighborhood where all the houses are two-story traditional style with dormer windows and detached garages, and sit on huge tree-shaded lots? I swear every family show and movie from leave it to beaver to daddy day care has been filmed on the same street.

Not a movie, but perhaps a good potrayal of real life suburbia would be King of the Hill....

A lot of those scenes are from Pasadena, Burbank, Huntington Park, and older parts of LA that were built before World War II. There are actually many older neighborhoods in LA that have quite a bit of charm. they were mostly built before sprawl ate up our souls.

[Top Of The Park]

In response to the original question, "Do Movies and Plays Portray Urban Life Correctly..??", there is one consistent problem that constantly irks me, and that is demographics. Unless the movie is portraying crime or drugs in an urban setting or was made by Spike Lee, most people depicted are overwhelmingly White. I'll use worst offender I can think of, "The Crow". Although the setting is never declared to be Detroit, the cultural references in it suggest that it almost certainly is (e.g., Motor City and Devil's Night). Now, Detroit is something like 85% Black, but I most of the cast if I recall correctly is White. I know the Detroit they were representing doesn't exist, but it still bugs me.

I find romantic comedies are pretty bad offenders too, an example being the movie I was coerced into viewing this weekend, "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days". Occasionally I would catch a glimpse of a non-White person. I don't have statistics of what fraction of the people depicted in the movie were White, but finding the statistics for New York City is pretty easy. According to Wikipedia, as of 2000, New York City was:
26% Black
27% Hispanic
49% White
Obviously demographics vary greatly neighborhood to neighborhood, but I have to say, the movie was pretty far off. That kind of bugs me because the demographics of big urban centers is part of what makes the place. Leave that out, and your not really showing the city, just some buildings.

The head bad guys girlfriend is asian, his main assistant is black, the good cop is black, isn't the guy who gets killed by knives by the crow character black...??

[holladay]

Has it occurred to you that you find American films lacking in sublety and nuance not because foreign films are any more subtle or nuanced, but because you live in and best understand American culture so you understand the cues used intuitively, whereas with foreign films cues that may be obvious to people from the cultures that spawned the films seem nuanced or subtle to you because they aren't immediately obvious to your cultural understanding?

I'm not saying you're uncultured or xenocentric or anything with that comment, I'm simply pointing out the obvious fact that anyone is more in tune with the culture they live in (or grew up in) than they are with a foreign culture.

Personally, I think that probably plays a larger role in your experience than occurred to you. If, on reflection, you agree, then perhaps you can simply start saying you prefer foreign films instead of bashing American films simply because you know them better.

An ancillary contributing factor is that when in America you can see almost any American film, including many that won't make it to wide distribution in other countries. Likewise, there are hundreds of, for example, Chinese and Japanese films you've probably never even heard of because no one thinks they're good enough to be distributed internationally.

Yes, that thought has occurred to me. And yes, you're right to a big extent that my understanding of American culture probably lessens my enjoyment level of domestic films for these reasons.

And yes, in fact, I probably am xenocentric at this point in my life. It's a personal choice and perhaps in time I will lessen my resistance to American culture - in fact, in the last few years I have done so considerably. Americans are, meanwhile, a notoriously ethnocentric population and much of the outside world counts that as a criticism of us (it's even frequently a problem on this forum.) For a number of reasons it frankly serves me better to hold on my xenocentrism than to let go of it.

That said, I don't see why it matters what I think about American movies. Or why my comment even warranted replies.

[Thundertubs]

Hollywood's portrayal of small town life. Ha. That's all I'm gonna say.

[emathias]

...
That said, I don't see why it matters what I think about American movies. Or why my comment even warranted replies.

It confuses you that you insult a part of American culture and people want to defend it and challenge your insult? :-)

[holladay]

Yeah, pretty much... it was just an off-hand comment. It seems that when I take the time to write a coherent argument about an issue almost no one replies. Yet when I say something outlandish in two sentences people get all fired up. The forum is funny that way.

[sprtsluvr8]

Yeah, pretty much... it was just an off-hand comment. It seems that when I take the time to write a coherent argument about an issue almost no one replies. Yet when I say something outlandish in two sentences people get all fired up. The forum is funny that way.


So...everyone else is the problem? That makes sense.

[Shawn]

Regarding "Lost In Translation", there are two real reasons why this movie pissed off so many Tokyoites. Firstly, people got mad because of its unflatteringly accurate portrayal what it's actually like to be a foreigner newly in Tokyo, and lots of people here weren't ready to acknowledge how inward-looking and intensely naval-gazing Japanese society is.

But more importantly, people here were extremely uncomfortable with how readily they - as in, Tokyo natives - could identify with the sense of isolation and loneliness the main characters felt, despite their being gaijin. Japanese society sweeps all negatives under the bed and is quite reluctant to discuss its less-than-flattering aspects in public. One of these negatives acutely felt by millions of urban Japanese is the "urban desert" effect: the disconnect, loneliness and isolation that paradoxically can come with living in the largest urban complex on Earth. And to have a foreigner place this unsettling, non-harmonious facet of Japanese society directly in the Hollywood spotlight was more than a lot of Japanese Baby Boomers could stomach.

Conversely, the movie was wildly popular with the 20-something crowd who most readily identified with the characters and who aren't carrying the same amount of nationalistic/ethnocentric baggage as their parents are.

Anyways, I can attest to how accurately the movie depicts the total and complete disconnect felt by most foreigners after the initial excitement, adrenaline and jet lag wear off.

[Pinion]

nm

[muppet]

It wasn't the theme of Lost in Translation that caused the controversy, but the portrayal of Japanese as ticking off the every stereotype. Sure Tokyites may have been annoyed by such a reality of the theme as you convey, but the accusations of racism (rightly or wrongly) that stemmed mostly in America came not from the theme or story persay, but specific scenes included as light relief. In almost every one not only is the butt of the joke on the Japanese character but the culture too (not laughing with but at), eg accents and demeaning stereotype ad nauseam - inscrutability (tick), shortness (tick), sexism (tick), aping of Western society (tick), and just plain bizarro behaviour (tick), with few other Japanese walk-ons as anything but. Alot of Japanese shrugged it off but alot of Japanese Americans felt cut, it reminded them of the historical prejudice and media portrayal they have to put up with living outside Japan.

I'm sure that was completely missed by others - watch the film again with a Japanese present and you'll find it suddenly embarrassing. Watch on your own and you'd not notice it at all.
If perhaps it had been isolated white people entering a Black neighbourhood in LA with such comedic and stereotypical portrayals of the local background 'characters' it would have been easily detected or labelled as such, but race relations among E Asians really isn't such an issue as they are overlooked and deemed unimportant (another whole bag of worms there), moreover having the gall to complain about their own media portrayals.

[Shawn]

Sorry man, but the sexism (so well-documented I don't even need to go over it here), the aping of Western society and culture (I'm a brand manager for a Tokyo marketing and consulting firm, I have volumes of industry studies on Japanese consumer behavior and social trends) and just plain bizarre behavior (ever seen a Japanese game show?;)) as shown in the movie are about as realistic portrayals as they come. The inscrutability is something a large number of native Japanese (not hyper-sensitive Americans) are actually proud of: you can find entire sections of bookstores dedicated to the uniqueness of Wa and why non-Japanese can never truly understand what it means to be Japanese. The shortness was exaggerated, I'll give you that.

Most Japanese-Americans are sansei and even yonsei now (3rd and 4th generation) and have little to no experience with living in contemporary Japan, much in the same way that all those proud Irish-Americans don't really know a damn thing about Ireland. I'm not surprised that Japanese-Americans would take offense to the movie, but that in no way illegitimatizes Lost In Translation's portrayal of Japanese society. And I say this as someone who truly loves this country - I'm just pragmatic enough to recognize and accept the bads with the many goods.

[muppet]

you truly think they are realistic portrayals?

Anyway, I think the point is that these portrayals (realistic or not), act as the butt of a joke throughout the film. Sure you can portray a Japanese as inscrutable, or with an accent, but the way you repeatedly do it can be suspect - Lip my stockings! Saying thankyou to a Japanese woman's private parts - not something I'm sure Bill Murray's character would dare do in the West. There's no doubt about it that Sophia Coppola absolutely loves! Tokyo, Japan, the Japanese (and the yen they pay for her clothing line), but the affect on a foreign audience may not be as 'personalised' a reaction as she now claims hers was. Instead of making someone fall in love with a place or culture, rather - with no intention of her own - it highlights the difference between East and West, and how ridiculed/ ridiculous one side can be to another, especially to a viewer who has never been.

I did some research and here are some extracts from reviews, this one from Kiku Day in the Guardian, Jan 2004:

"...The film is billed as exploring their disconnection from the country they are visiting and from their spouses, and how they find some comfort in one another through a series of restrained encounters.

But it's the way Japanese characters are represented that gives the game away. There is no scene where the Japanese are afforded a shred of dignity. The viewer is sledgehammered into laughing at these small, yellow people and their funny ways, desperately aping the western lifestyle without knowledge of its real meaning. It is telling that the longest vocal contribution any Japanese character makes is at a karaoke party, singing a few lines of the Sex Pistols' God Save the Queen.

The Japanese half of me is disturbed; the American half is too. The Japanese are one-dimensional and dehumanised in the movie, serving as an exotic background for Bob and Charlotte's story, like dirty wallpaper in a cheap hotel. How funny is it to put the 6ft-plus Bill Murray in an elevator with a number of overly small Japanese? To manufacture a joke, the film has Murray contorting himself to have a shower because its head isn't high enough for him - although he is supposed to be staying in a five-star hotel. It's made up simply to give western audiences another stereotype to laugh at. And haven't we had enough about the Japanese confusing rs and ls when they speak English?

While shoe-horning every possible caricature of modern Japan into her movie, Coppola is respectful of ancient Japan. It is depicted approvingly, though ancient traditions have very little to do with the contemporary Japanese. The good Japan, according to this director, is Buddhist monks chanting, ancient temples, flower arrangement; meanwhile she portrays the contemporary Japanese as ridiculous people who have lost contact with their own culture "


I think its rather telling how people overlook these issues / don't even recognise them so long as it's an E Asian involved. Different races can tend to suffer different forms of prejudice in the West (eg Blacks institutionalised racism, Whites inverse racism, South Asians/ muslims hate crimes), it's notable that E Asians suffer from two important aspects - 1. Casual racism eg. being ridiculed for their race but noone (else) thinking it offensive or racist (ah its just a laugh!) 2. Dehumanisation/ caricaturisation. Of the racist incidents reported among E Asians, eg being beaten up by a gang, verbally insulted etc, the offendors do not hurt them through racial hatred or competition, but through 'having a laugh' and ridiculing them (and hence how common these offences are compared to other races). This aspect of disrespect can be seen in the film, intentional or not. Its ok to laugh at another race for their race, provided they are E Asian. One doesn't suffer it let alone see it unless E Asian themselves.

To even complain about that would be either pretentious or making a fuss over nothing eh?


I say again, if a film came out with two White protagonists set in a backdrop of ridiculous characters, one after another as Black Americans, say Deep South, with the joke being on their Black American accents / culture I think we wouldn't even be having this debate. Getting a Black hooker into a hotel room and repeating 'hole mah hose, man!' to a mystified White guy would not be as all round funny to an American audience. I definitely don't think it would have been Oscar nominated either (rightly or wrongly, because its still a great film).

I'm sure Sophia Coppola could have a whale of a time exploring the exoticism of cotton field Georgia, but I'm sure she'd think twice to portray it so 'light heartedly' shall we say.

[thoraudio]

oh crap.... I walked in this thread and got some pretension on my shoes.... :D

Generalities aren't just limited to urban areas. Films that have anything to do with the deep south generally have:

1. Incest - either overt, implied, or a source of a joke.
2. Confederate war re-enactments
3. Hot 'southern' babe, who bounces around with an 'aw shucks, did my *** just fall out of my shirt.... how clumsy of me."
4. Everyone white is either a racist or a crusader against racism.
5. Everyone who is black is poor and the subject of oppression.
6. Only small towns.... no big cities.


(waits for replies of "but all of that is true.... I saw it on the tvs..."