Paul Goes Hollywood
Go West, through the heartland, through hardship, to stand beneath that perpetually blue sky and gaze out at the endless Pacific. And Go West they did, each for their own reasons. The first sought to map the continent, and they were followed by those looking for land of their own. Over the decades others followed, looking for gold, jobs, and fame. The same thing has always lead people out into the West, the promise of prosperity. California represents the real American dream, upward social mobility for every good capitalist. If you make it in New York, you can make it anywhere, but make it in California and you’ll be a star.
At the heart of this American holy land lies Los Angeles, the city of Angels. A great beast (and it is a beast, make no mistake about that) that is an infant even by American history standards, swallowing everything into the sprawl as it grows. In its heyday, the glitz and glamour of a Hollywood Golden Age, beautiful people, Sunset Boulevard Mansions were all juxtaposed against Bunker Hill slums, wide-scale city corruption, and the plight of city’s immigrant population. Today, the movie business is still booming, as is the porn industry, and the blessed beautiful ones (now blissfully egalitarian if you have the money, thanks to the wonders of modern science and plastic surgery) can clothe themselves in the decadence of Rodeo, but the city still has its fair share of problems: gridlock, gangs, and pollution to name a few. If LA is the City of Angels, it always has had (and still has) its share of demons.
I’ve never been to LA, and I’m relatively sure that if I did, I’d probably hate it (although to be fair, these days I hate going outside in general), but there is something about the city that has always fascinated me. There are contradictory elements in all places, but it seems to me that in LA they are more pronounced, almost to a cartoony level. Over the next couples of months, I’ll be writing a lot about the history and the portrayal of California (with a focus on LA) across different mediums. From non-fiction classics like Carey McWilliams The Island on the Land and Norman Klein’s A History of Forgetting, to novels like Farewell My Lovely, Play it as it Lays, and The Big Nowhere, as well as some seminal films like Greed, Chinatown and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? If there is anything you’d particularly like to see, feel free to comment, but bear in mind I’ve probably thought of the more obvious stuff. I’d be particularly interested in lesser known work by African American and Chicano authors, as well as those by women.
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Comments
Hmmm, how about Day of the Locust by Nathanel West and The Crying of Lot 49 or Vineland by Thomas Pynchon? And some more recent movies like Barton Fink or Mulholland Drive? I suppose a project like this could keep you busy for a considerable time… In any case, I’m very curious to read what you will come up with.
Posted by: Heloise | January 30th, 2012 14:53
Howdy Paul. What a fine adventure you are about to embark upon.
In reality, LA can be amongst the best places in the world to exist (that’s why wealthy people with infinite choice choose to live there, usually in the Hollywood Hills) or the worst place in the world (anyone without fiscal affluence, who doesn’t work in the entertainment / hospitality / fashion business or frankly, is simply devoid of a car).
However, as an idea, in fiction and in film, LA always delivers. It can be everywhere, anywhere and it can be nowhere, it just depends on how you angle the camera, where the writer dictates emphasis should fall.
I know you’re well read on LA, and have waded through many a film, but here’s a few nods that are worth exploring. I’ll list stuff you probably know as well just in case you don’t.
LA Films: Crucially these are films specifically about LA, not simply films shot in LA. It is an important distinction, and peculiar to LA. Films set in London or New York are always defined by their geographic location. LA is different (this point is developed brilliantly in Thom Anderson’s essential ‘Los Angeles Plays Itself’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SNc41zyLJ0). Anderson’s follow-up, Get Out Of The Car (http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/thom-andersen-in-los-angeles-and-more-goings-on) is also worth a mention, it’s Ed Ruscha obsession with LA’s signs indicative of the City landscape (just as cranes define Post-War Berlin or lights define Paris).
Anyway, the following films stand out for me as very LA.
LA Films:
Heat
IvanXTC
The Outside Man (Jacque Deray’s thriller)
Short Cuts
Paris, Texas
A Single Man
Night Moves
Shampoo
Chinatown
Somewhere
Terminator
Collateral
Wonderland (the Wonderland murders as now as crucial to LA folklore as the Manson murders)
Mulholland Drive
Boyz In The Hood
The Exiles (1963)
The Cool School (doc about the Ferus Gallery and LA’s art 60′s scene – Ruscha, Kienholtz etc)
Reyner Banham Loves LA – (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlZ0NbC-YDo
A Bigger Splash (about David Hockney)
RE books:
Mike Davis is the LA guru (City Of Quartz and Ecology Of Fear his key texts).
The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory – Norman M. Klein (another textbook worth reading).
Fiction, the usual suspects you seem to have covered – Chandler, Ellroy, Bukowski (especially his later ‘Hollywood’), Fitzgerald’s ‘The Last Tycoon’, West ‘Day Of The Locusts’, Easton Ellis (including his latest ‘Imperial Bedrooms’)
But I’d also recommend James Frey’s ‘Bright Shiny Morning’, James Brown’s ‘LA Diaries’ and Bugliosi’s ‘Helter Skelter’ about the Manson murders. LA being quite a paranoid town and a City that has made its mark on the world exploiting an international fascination with both sex and violence, the Manson Murders chase to its nervous system like nothing else. Even now, upon visiting the ghosts of Manson’s killing spree linger (in the same way Jack The Ripper still haunts London’s East End). Similarly, should you want to stay in this murky terrain, a consideration of LA’s crime history is worth a look. At one end, the LAPD’s photo archives are worth a trawl. At the other consider both the high profile crimes of celebrity murders, OD’s and scandals (Kenneth Anger, John Gilmore’s ‘Laid Bare’ and most recently this extraordinary site http://youllneverspainthistownagain.com/ all good resources), to the outsider culture that enabled individuals such as The Night Stalker.
Any other stuff that I think of I’ll post later. Looking forward to see what themes you locate.
Have a nice day….
RK
Posted by: Richard Kovitch | February 3rd, 2012 19:18
Thanks, Richard, for mentioning my Los Angeles Diaries along with such good writers and books.
Posted by: Jim Brown | October 6th, 2012 04:25