Sun, Jan 18, 7 pm: The City Is Big, The Image Is Small

[Pirate Cinema Bombay]

                                                             Pirate  
Cinema Bombay
                                              The City Is Big, The  
Image is Small
                                                               Sunday,  
January 18
                                                                     7  
pm - 10 pm
                                                             www.piratecinema.org

                                                         Los Angeles  
Plays Itself
                                                                     
Thom Andersen
                                                                         USA 
  2003
                                                                 169  
mins, 1.4 GB
                                                             www.0xdb.org/0379357

                                                                      
CAMP Rooftop
                                                              301 Alif  
Apartments
                                                                34A  
Chuim Village
                                                                        Khar 
  West
                                                                 www.camputer.org

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This is the city: Los Angeles, California. They make movies here. I  
live here.

Sometimes I think that gives me the right to criticize the way movies  
depict my
city.

I know it's not easy. The city is big. The image is small. Movies are  
vertical.
At least when they're projected on a screen. The city is horizontal,  
except for
what we call downtown. Maybe that's why the movies love downtown more  
than we
do. If it isn't the site of the action, they try to stick its high- 
rise towers
in the back of the shot.

But movies have some advantages over us.

They can fly through the air. We must travel by land.

They exist in space. We live and die in time.

So why should I be generous?

Of course, I know movies aren't about places, they're about stories.  
If we
notice the location, we are not really watching the movie. It's what's  
up front
that counts. Movies bury their traces, choosing for us what to watch,  
then
moving on to something else.

They do the work of our voluntary attention, and so we must suppress  
that
faculty as we watch. Our involuntary attention must come to the fore.

But what if we watch with our voluntary attention, instead of letting  
the movies
direct us?

If we can appreciate documentaries for their dramatic qualities,  
perhaps we can
appreciate fiction films for their documentary revelations.

And what if suspense is just another alienation effect. Isn't that what
Hitchcock taught? For him, suspense was a means of enlivening his  
touristy
travelogues. Then maybe I can find another way to animate this city  
symphony in
reverse. Maybe this effort to see how movies depict Los Angeles may  
seem more
than wrong-headed or mean-spirited.

Full script:
     http://newfilmkritik.de/archiv/2005-03/los-angeles-plays-itself/
List of references:
     http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379357/movieconnections
Review by Jonathan Rosenbaum:
     http://www.chicagoreader.com/movies/archives/2004/1004/041001.html

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                                                             pirate  
cinema bombay
                                                             sundays  
from 7 to 10
                                                             www.piratecinema.org