Notebook On Cities And Culture

Colin Marshall sits down in Silver Lake with Thom Andersen, professor at the California Institute of the Arts' School of Film/Video and director of films including Red Hollywood, the new Reconversion, and the well-known documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself, on the truth and falsity of the city's representation in motion pictures. They discuss The Fast and the Furious shooting on his street; the end of the current era of impressive car chases crafted by Nicolas Winding Refn and Quentin Tarantino; H.B. Halicki's original Gone in 60 Seconds, and the importance of its literalism regarding greater Los Angeles' South Bay; how rarely mainstream cinematic interest looks beyond white people of "immodest means," and what the films that do go beyond them achieve (such as the creation of detective films that actually involve detecting); Killer of Sheep, Boyz n the Hood, and the differences between garden-variety "gang movies" and those that truthfully deal with survival; the questions to do with the black population, ban