The heart of Hollywood’s star-studded film industry for more than a century, Los Angeles and its abundant and ever-changing locales—from the Santa Monica Pier to the infamous and now-defunct Ambassador Hotel—have set the scene for a wide variety of cinematic treasures, from Chinatown to Forrest Gump, Falling Down to the coming-of-age classic Boyz n The Hood. Here are some of my favorite films shot on location in this birthplace of cinema. Some notable omissions: Postcards from the Edge (1990), Clueless (1995), and L.A. Confidential (1997).
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Billy Wilder’s film noir masterpiece is a reflection of Hollywood through a glass, darkly. It pulls back the curtain on the business of show-business – the false smiles and threadbare adoration that operate to keep Norma Desmond living in exile at the edge of insanity. Like many of the post World War II classics, Sunset Boulevard is covered with a thick sheen of cynicism. For Wilder, Paramount symbolizes the shimmering Janus-faced dream-maker that continues to beckon hopefuls to the boulevard of broken dreams. Desmond (Gloria Swanson) epitomizes yesterday’s glamor queen, a forgotten star with a limping, sagging and fading career. And yet still she captivates. With Sunset Boulevard, Swanson, a real-life silent-screen star who once lived in a mansion on Sunset Boulevard, actually made a comeback, something her character is unable to achieve.
Chinatown (1974)
Roman Polanski’s neo-noir classic is a veritable tour of Los Angeles landmarks. Capturing the hidden sacrifices and backroom dealings behind the emergence of LA as one of the world’s great cities, Chinatown revels equally in Los Angeles’s classic Spanish Colonial architecture, the glamor of iconic Hollywood restaurants like The Brown Derby, and the urban backwash of the city’s aqueducts, bridges and barren riverbeds. Much like the city itself, there are more layers to this movie than possible to comprehend in one screening, but what we have is a glimpse beneath the surface to expose the squalor behind LA’s veneer of sophistication and charm.
Blade Runner (1984)
Ridley Scott's cyberpunk vision of the future is set in the Los Angeles of 2019, a perpetually rainy city permeated by smog where loneliness prevails. Featuring a run-down version of an iconic downtown location, The Bradbury Building, the dark, dank and dusty interior creates a dream-like quality where reality is lost and boundaries between human and replicant become blurred. Indeed, the film’s use of architectural treasures from the city’s “real past” that appear in the movie, including the Bradbury Building, Union Station, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House, is what makes this dystopian masterpiece so arrestingly beautiful and might explain why Blade Runner continues to fascinate. "Perhaps it expresses a nostalgia for a dystopian vision of the future that has become outdated. This vision offered some consolation, because it was at least sublime. Now the future looks brighter, hotter, and blander. Buffalo will become Miami, and Los Angeles will become Death Valley, at least until the rising ocean tides wash it away," said Thom Andersen in Los Angeles Plays Itself. "Computers will get faster, and we will get slower. There will be plenty of progress, but few of us will be any better off or happier for it. Robots won’t be sexy and dangerous, they’ll be dull and efficient, and they’ll take our jobs."
Mulholland Drive (2001)
Like Sunset Boulevard, Mulholland Drive is a long east-west street in Los Angeles. They run roughly parallel, while Mulholland Dr. is at the top of the Hollywood Hills and Sunset Blvd. at the bottom. The similarity of the movie titles (Sunset Blvd. and Mulholland Dr.) right down to the use of the abbreviation of the titles, is another parallel. Not only do both films offer a critique of people who are ultimately destroyed by the film industry, but also the action starts with an incident involving a car accident. Released twenty years ago, David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive has come to be regarded as perhaps the most important film of the century so far. Essentially, it is a mystery film that never settles its own mystery. Even its greatest admirers are loathe to explain it or endure it being explained.
Crash (2005)
In 2005, there were many reasons to be excited about Crash. Don Cheadle is just one part of a remarkably talented cast including Thandie Newton, Ludacris, Matt Dillon, Terrence Howard, Sandra Bullock, and Brendan Fraser. And with Americans still lingering in some semblance of post-9/11 national solidarity, it seemed like everyone was ready to have a serious conversation about cultural harmony. Back then, an exploration of L.A.’s hyperspecific cultural enclaves felt relevant, brave even. Fifteen years on, the film gets criticized for being a white redemption story. Can a movie be retroactively chastised for not being woke enough? Critics and award committees adored Dillon's portrayal of a flawed cop at the time: things look different today through the filters of MeToo and Black Lives Matter. Director Paul Haggis said his ensemble drama, which also won him the best director Oscar, did not deserve to win best film. What do you think?
Drive (2011)
Mr. Winding Refn is a Danish-born director, some of whose earlier films have inspired ardent, almost cultish devotion in cinephile circles. Carey Mulligan plays the girl who lives down the hall from Ryan Gosling, the guy with no name, and a lack of dialogue. Her innocence is axiomatic and part of the reason the driver goes to such messianic lengths to protect her. The Driver, on the other hand, is characteristically clad in his now-iconic silver scorpion jacket, a modern version of shining armor. The car replaces the steed, while the nocturnal Los Angeles skyline creates a somber backdrop for this neo-noir thriller with an obvious stylistic nod to the 1980s. Making fine use of Los Angeles locations, particularly the lonely downtown streets around the L.A. River, Refn transforms Los Angeles into a modern-day fairytale world of chivalric romance.
Nightcrawler (2014)
Nightcrawler offers a fascinating look at a part of journalism that is rarely, if ever, explored in the media. With each crime scene that cameraman Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) encounters, he continues to crave better material. He has a good eye for framing, and is even willing to contaminate a crime scene in order to get the best pieces of journalism for both the money and the reputation. He's cunning, creepy, and bold. Los Angeles is his cradle and his hunting ground. The whole thing is dangerously beautiful, set in the nocturnal underbelly of Los Angeles. Dan Gilroy successfully delivers a media satire in the spirit of "Network" and "To Die For" that critiques the way cable news can distort or misrepresent the truth by spraying its viewers with agitprop to boost ratings. Inaccurate coverage of protests, for example, has highlighted the problem of media bias. The fabrication and omitting of information to frame a narrative feeds the perception that news coverage is tainted and cannot be trusted. Indeed, a deeper understanding of what people read, listen to, and watch, could not be more poignant as it becomes increasingly difficult to agree on what just happened.
La La Land (2016)
Few movies have represented LA with such fawning reverence as La La Land. The filmmakers depict a clean, spare, elegant city, sluiced in midcentury technicolor, consisting almost exclusively of jazz clubs and studio backlots, dreamy piers and sodium lamps, starlight and cappuccinos. That a movie as guileless and nostalgic as La La Land – which draws as its inspiration from the classic musicals Singin’ in the Rain and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg – has provoked such ire, is perhaps not surprising given the cultural context of the time. April Reign’s hashtag #OscarsSoWhite had erupted like a big bang at the 2015 Oscars, causing a commotion by challenging the multicultural image the industry aspired to. When La La Land, the story of the rather easily attained success of two white seekers and strivers, played by Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, was thrust into the spotlight, public opinion had begun to tilt in favor of increased diversity in front of and behind the camera. Damien Chazelle’s tribute to the golden age of musicals walked away with six wins at the 2017 Oscars. Moonlight won best picture. Here’s to the ones who dream.