L.A. Plays Itself. 2003

 

I love this long documentary on L.A and it’s history with the movies and Hollywood. It’s long for sure over 3 hours and I watched it in two evenings. This is the beautiful achievement of  Thom Andersen who does the narration. Some complain about his droning voice but I liked it. He’s very opinioned and grouchy but I also liked that. There’s no map to the stars here, you just let it flow over you from the silent years to more recent times, with many many clips of movies flying by us. Anderson covers everything: crime, both real and fiction, heroes and villians, (lots of those) architecture, landscapes of the city, disappearing landmarks, the destruction of the city, racism and much more on top of the main focus of the documentary, how L.A. made and makes our movies. I was naturally interested in the black and white noirish years, with all those cop cars racing through the dark dank L.A. Streets and when Bunker Hill was still there. He starts the film with the great opening from Sammy Fuller’s “Crimson Kimono” where the stripper goes running down the scummy downtown streets trying to get away from her killer. Oh Sam we miss you. Not all of the films that I love are included, so I could have relished another hour of film if it existed. He spends a lot of time on “Chinatown” and “Blade Runner” and some of the directors who put the city down most notably Woody Allen. I’m torn. I’ve been to L.A. three times, too briefly although the first time was an all day outing there with art grad students from UCSD and Moira Roth the then chair of the art dept. We had a bus, and we had to go where Moira wanted us to go so my time on Hollywood Blvd. was brief. A lot of this city is ugly sorry but it is, but I loved the ruins of kitsch that I was still able to find in 1982. There I was in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre like every low tourist on the town.  I wish I had gone in, but the movie playing “Tootsie” did not interest me and thought to myself that it would be a big flop. Never listen to me on the hits and misses of movies.

The strip was tawdry but as a lover of Times Square and Coney Island in the 50’s and 60’s that didn’t bother me. On our trip we went to this kitschy cemetery whose name I’ve blocked. I didn’t want to go, a waste of my precious L.A. time, but I was outnumbered. I sat through this campy film in the cemetery’s auditorium, as the Grads went wild with yelling out rude remarks. I probably laughed. We were asked to leave. There is a photograph of me standing in front of the huge repro. of  David. We also went to one of the great L.A. Wright houses and the other place that stands out for me was Barney’s Beanery where I freaked when I saw they still had their vile Fagots stay out sign still up and this was 1982. It was also printed on matches  which I wish I had kept. I complained through the whole trip back to San Diego. The other quick trips were with students, and they gave me the choice of going to the L.A. County Museum with them or spending time by myself. Fuck art I told them, pick me up in front of Grauman’s in a couple of hours. There was dinner in “Little Tokyo” and a beautiful drive through Beverly Hills, and my jaw dropping over all the great movie palaces still standing. The traffic and the smog.