New York I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down (or: Der Himmel über Shea)

[This post is my weeks-overdue contribution to the Derelict's New York City blogathon. I was inspired to write it after reading the Self-Styled Siren's magnificent entry, the must-read New York City of the Mind.]

New York I Love You
But you're bringing me down
Like a death of the heart
Jesus, where do I start?
But you're still the one pool
Where I'd happily drown
And oh.. Take me off your mailing list
For kids who think it still exists
Yes, for those who think it still exists
— LCD Soundsystem

As many born-and-raised New Yorkers around my age will no doubt attest, the city we grew up in is no longer. Sure, it's perhaps safer and cleaner than it was in the 70s, but these superficial changes came with a tremendous cost — a significant chunk of the city's heart, soul, and moxie. The middle-class has all but been ejected from Manhattan, which has turned into a haven for the haves and have-mores, judging by the seemingly never-ending appearance of mile-high condos where once brownstones stood. It's a friendlier island to be sure, with establishments like Applebee's, Dave & Buster's, and Cold Stone Creamery making the millions of tourists from the heartland feel a bit more at home as they tool around the city in giant double-decker tour buses cum billboards that snake their way up and down every fucking street. 

I recently caught a documentary called New York 77, which brilliantly captured that tumultuous year. While it's true that the city was an economic disaster, crime was running rampant (it was the summer of Sam to boot), and the city almost destroyed itself during the blackout, there was a vibrancy and immediacy that even this precocious 12 year-old was able to pick up on. (Who can forget disco v. punk?) Today, more often than not, I feel a stranger in the place I've called home for all but about six years of my life. The malling/mauling of Manhattan has robbed the city of the primal essence that once permeated every nook and cranny. Travis Bickle may have prophesied the great rain that would wash the scum from the streets, but I'll take the junkies at Disco Donut over weekend DIY-ers at Home Depot any day.

Enough ranting.

When it comes to Gotham on film, naturally I melt for just about anything from the late 60s through the early 80s. In fact, over the past two years I've been tracking down as many forgotten films from that era that I can get my hands on, some of which I've actually written about. Even the worst of these films provide a certain layer of comfort, if just for the shots of buildings, stores, and neighborhoods that are long gone.   

There probably isn't a national cinema that doesn't have at least one film shot in NYC, and I don't think I'll ever tire of seeing the various ways the city has been portrayed. With American cinema, it's often easy to tell if the director is a denizen or merely passing through. Local directors avoid the clichés — specific locales, at times even unrecognizable to natives. (I'm thinking Hal Hartley's Amateur, or some of those wonderful restaurants/bars Woody Allen always manages to find.)

I've always felt that foreign films shot in NYC are the most revealing, as they tend to expose those elements of the city that made the greatest impression on the director. In many cases these are things that the average New Yorker wouldn't think twice about, and probably wouldn't bother to include in a film. A perfect example of this is Wim Wenders' Alice in den Städten (Alice in the Cities) from 1974. One of Wim's many road movies, the film's first third is set in NYC, and Wenders and cinematographer Robby Müller manage to find a few pockets of the city rarely depicted on film.

Wenders regular Rüdiger Vogler plays Phil Winter, a German journalist commissioned (but unable) to write a think piece on the US of A. Early in the film he arrives in NYC by car, in a scene that recalls Kerouac's The Town and the City, which describes the first appearance of the Manhattan skyline from New Jersey, and the journey into Manhattan via the Lincoln Tunnel.   

 

We then find ourselves amidst the chop shops of Queens, situated in a no-man's land between Shea Stadium and La Guardia Airport, where Phil has driven to sell his car. (Ramin Bahrani's recent Chop Shop is one of the few films since to be set in the same area.) As Phil attempts to negotiate the deal, organ music can be heard in the distance. "Sounds like an organ", he says. "Yeah, dats de organ from Shea Stadium." We then cut to a wide shot of the stadium (attendance is abysmal) and then pan over to the booth where a patterned paint-suited organist bangs out a rendition of The Candy Man. We then cut back to Phil, who is now waiting for the 7 train at the Willets Pt. station. He boards, and the image and music fade out together.

 

What's most interesting about the sequence is the shift in perspective, which up until this point had been exclusively that of Phil's. This sudden omniscient perspective is Wenders at his most indulgent, and one of the few (only?) scenes that have nothing to do with advancing plot or character. Was this interlude a happy accident? Was the music in the car selling scene unplanned? It certainly feels that way.Obviously Wenders had to get permission to film within the stadium, but I can't help wonder if this wasn't an afterthought.

This rather innocuous sequence is unlikely to be remembered in the annals of film history. However, it is nonetheless a distinctly unique NYC scene — a simple, poetic moment that has stayed with me all these years. That Wenders found inspiration from one of the least captivating corners of the city is quite an achievement. 

Comments

[Nicholas]

Thanks for this.

I just watched Herzog's Stroyzcek. Most of the film was set and shot in Wisconsin, where the German protagonist moves with his girlfriend, but they do have to pass through New York, and when they first arrive, and Herzog gives us this amazing shot of their boat (I love how they arrive in America by boat in 70s, who was still doing that?) arriving at the West End docks. Herzog decides to film their arrival from an extreme distance. In fact he films it from the top of the Empire State Building, and its enormous shadow overwhelms the shot and fore-shadows how American culture will overwhelm these immigrants. Instead of seeing the skyline from Stoyczek's perspective, Herzog brilliantly gives us the quasi- divine perspective of an American landmark.

[Tom Russell]

My favourite New York movie-- one from the seventies that has been forgotten-- is "Born to Win", the weird little comedy-drama by Ivan Passer starring George Segal and Karen Black. Maybe it'd be better to say "comedy and drama"; hyphenating the two seems to imply that they're somehow connected, and in this film they're never really combined-- rather it ping-pongs from one mood to the next.

There's still something immensely appealing about it for me, though-- an indescribable energy, a sense of life. Gritty and optimistic, characters who are blind to and yet at the same time totally aware of their flaws-- a very young Robert De Niro, songs by Miss Karen Black, and George Segal in a frilly pink dress. You can't really top that. (Well, you can, but you know what I mean.)

[c mason wells]

Tom, you're dead-on: BORN TO WIN is extraordinary.

FB, have you seen Akerman's NEWS FROM HOME? For me, it's THE portrait of 1977 NYC. It's all about the city's colors and rhythms and flavors. I've never seen a movie that better captures what it feels like to ride the subway or a car -- or simply walk -- through New York.

[Filmbrain]

Tom/Chris --

Agreed about Born to Win, which for some reason never found the respect that Panic in Needle Park has, even though I think it's a better film. (It was a NYFF selection in 71!)

As for News From Home, I agree that it is a tremendous visual portrait of the city, but I feel that there's too great a distance between Akerman and the subject...it feels too clinical in a way. NYC as a subject of study, rather than felt. Then again, it's been years since I've seen it.

[jay]

I'm a bit younger, but I still can remember watching the WPIX news in the late 80s as a kid in Vermont, in awe of the grittiness and horrific crime stories every night, along with shots of subway cars and building covered in gorgeous graffiti tags. The city just seems to have lost its grain and contrast, not just in films but in real life. Everything is just so bright and shiny and clean, which is everything NYC is not supposed to be.

[c mason wells]

Akerman's distance is precisely what I like about NEWS FROM HOME, because it's a perspective that's uniquely her own. But while though the film is visually quite distant, the (semi-?)autobiographical letters read aloud make the film one of Akerman's most poignant and personal. The whole film is about dislocation in NYC, something to which I can relate even as a native.

And FB, I completely agree with your feeling that "foreign films shot in NYC are the most revealing, as they tend to expose those elements of the city that made the greatest impression on the director." In fact, this is truly of most American directors filming anywhere in the US. It's one of my favorite sub-genres of film, actually: distinctly AMERICAN portraits made by foreign filmmakers, people who view our country from fresh angles. ALICE IN THE CITIES (along with Wenders's equally great Nick Ray portrait LIGHTNING OVER WATER) certainly qualifies. And there are so many others, too, from ZABRISKIE POINT right up to MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS...

[BStaughton]

I saw a great documentary that touches on some issues that the readers here might be interested in.

It's called "Passing Poston" and it's playing again in New York - next at Two Boots Pioneer Theater from August the 8th till the 14th. "Poston" is about the Japanese-American citizens forcibly placed in internment camps during WWII, and their ongoing search for a place to belong in a country that once labeled them the enemy.

Great movie! more info at http://www.passingposton.com/

[chris]

Wenders DID accidentally choose to film the stadium music (as stated in a book I own about him)
They began playing a song in rehearsals I believe as he was filming there and he decided to just film it, and later, in include it.

Very perceptive.