LOS ANGELES, BETWEEN DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES

It is 4,000 kilometers or so to New York and the city is usually depicted as the opposite of "The Big Apple". Most known by this nickname "L.A", it is the the horizontal city, with cars (no pedestrians), sun (not rain), cool attitude (not intellectual) and Hollywood. Here it’s the Pacific coast, the end of the frontier, terminus of dreams. Welcome to the land of Terminator 2, 24, Collateral, Sunset Boulevard, Larry Flint, Barton Fink, NCIS Los Angeles, The Player, True Romance, Magnolia, They live, Baywatch, Newport Beach, Strange Days, Training Day, King Street, Rebel Without a Cause, Transformers, Last Action hero or Pretty Woman. In American Dreams you will become an actress and a star, in American Nightmares you will be drugged and lost. David Lynch understands this tension and created a movie about: Mulholland Drive.

An urban desert

If your first step is in LA,  you seem unlucky! Do you remember the Terminator ? Everybody he's lost in the city of dreams because it's a giant city without a heart (the financial district doesn't have any soul). Horizontal City, heroes are moving by car on unlimited speedways in Chinatown, 24, Face Off or Leathal Weapon. Roads and crossroads are strangely an identity in Collateral, Speed or Mulholland Drive. It's the place where heroes will have to face the situation by driving or chatting. Actually, the city isn't one and L.A doesn't exist, it's a lot of cities in the city (or close): Bel Air, Melrose Place, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Financial District, Observatory, Hollywood, Anaheim, Watts etc.  L.A is the lands of contrast, but in the vision of the cinema it's also a place with a high standard of living. 

A Pacific cocktail: sea, sun, sex and violence

To make the audience  aware that L.A is funny, filmakers are filming specific lands of pleasures. At first: The sea and sun in Baywatch,  Point Break, Fast and Furious, heroes are cool and live on the beach (remember Mel Gibson's house in Leathal Weapon). Secondly, sex activities are debatable points in Pretty Woman, Larry Flint, Mulholland Drive or Strange days. L.A is a city of the vices and violence and catastrophes appeared in Volcano, The day after tomorrow, 2012, Heat, Collateral or, the well name, To live and to die in LA. Really, Los Angeles is said to be plagued by many problems!

Cinema city

At last, filmakers notice it's the movie factory! From Sunset Boulevard to The Player or Scream 3, American studios are part of the plots and that's why the city is full of actors in restaurants (remember the waiter in Garden States played by Zach Braff). It's a "mise en abime", where cinema is dealing with itself: with dreams and nightmares, with reality and myth, with fun and money, with Los Angeles and L.A. 

FOREIGN, JUST EXOTIC LANDSCAPES ?

I want to spotlight today, how what's foreign in American Cinema could be, at the same time, funny, realistic and a true stereotype! This remark is to the point to movies like Indiana Jones, Slumdog Millionaire, Kung Fu Panda or Lawrence of Arabia. Sometimes associated with imperalism, the fun in foreign visions by American movies could arouse diplomatical polemics in Kazakstan with Borat or in India with Slumdog millionaire. Actually, I think abroad is a trick in the screenplay: it always deals with the USA

Not really foreign? The historical Fictions

Except for Mel Gibson's films (Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto), the American Fictions deals with foreign lands as well as it was American Landscapes. In  300, Kingdom of Heaven, Cleopatra, Gladiator, Flesh and Blood, Troy or Alexander, everyone speaks English! Foreign means powerful old European Countries and heroes are naturally like Americans today! The geographic stereotypes are erased and replaced by universal objects and passions: love and vengeance.  Finally,  the war fiction depicts American in devastated countries bringing their own civilisation: Saving Private Ryan, Path of Glory, Apocalypse Now, Jarhead.

Mainly postcards? The spy and adventures movies
In spy and adventure movies, what foreign boils down to a list of the world's main famous monuments.

1/ The foreign lands deal with American or English Diplomacy, threats or allies. The most famous places are depicted: Venice, Nassau, Eiffel tower, Niagara Fall, Honk Kong Towers in movies like James Bond or Alias. 

2/ The foreign lands own some special items that Americans want to preserve in the name of World Culture for museums in Indiana Jones. Here, the nature is wilder: recognazable jungles, deserts, Pacific islands...We can infer from that statement that foreign lands could be a postcard in catastrophe movies as Armaggeddon, Tranformers or Independance Day.

3/ More than postcards? American filmakers wants, sometimes want to depict precise culture in Lawrence of Arabia, Chalie Wilson's War, The Bourne Identity or Seven Year in Tibet but the hero is, still, a white man...

Very different? The Eastern case
Over time the treatment of Asia is becoming real conundrum, presented the countries differently since China, Japan or India are getting international recognition.

Slumdog millionaire, Kung fu Panda, Lost in Translation, Borat, Book of the jungle, Memoirs of Geisha, Kundum, Empire of the sun are some of them. This cinema underlined wisdom figures, the beauty of Asian mythology and the legacy of colonialism.

All in all foreign landscapes in cinema are still dealing with stereotypes of the noble savage. 

HOME - BETWEEN PLEASURES AND DEPRESSION

Really, the residential areas set up the best connection between heroes and the landscape: suburb, city and country life are taken for granted that they are the places where American way of life comes to life! From Road to Madisson to Desperate Houswifes or Friends it's the landscape of intimacy.

Suburban rut 

In the suburbs, the hero endorses a common opinion with family life: breakfast, lunch, sleeping, TV, reading, hobbies, garden party, kids education, church or shopping activities. The suburbs are America and that's why they are the stars:  American Beauty, The sopranos, Beverly Hills, Six Feet Under, Malcolm, 7th heaven, Desperate housewives and many others. It's the land of two places separate and connected at the same time (an that's the whole interest): The house land (the rooms, the pool and the garden) and the house area (life with the other families). For screenwriters it's the place of the common problems: educational (Lisa and Bart in The Simpsons), couple (Revolutionary Road) or professional (Six feet Under). 

Country house: calm and surprises

On the contrary, the country emphasizes American quietness and these surprising moments. Identical to the suburbs in appearance, it's the people who change everything:  farmers in Superman or The Grapes of Wrath; outcasts of the city in Out of the past, Days of heaven or The Village; vacationer in horror films as Deliverance or Funny Games; amazing rich people in citizen Kane or Giant but also lower-middle class people in Road to Madison, Frozen River, No Country for old men, Sleepy Hollow, Bagdad Café or Fargo. For filmakers it's seems like the true America with  unformatted characters, a place of freedom and beauty. It's the American secret of the cinema: when a filmaker rediscovers the American countryside he always falls in love with it, the last great example was Cars from John Lassester about the Road 66 (he rediscovers the country during family vacations and writes the story about it). 

FANTASTIC LANDSCAPES: ANOTHER AMERICA BEYOND THE FRONTIER?

Fantastic landscapes are successful in the American Cinema, from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in 1907 to Avatar in 2009, the fantasy world creates dreams and makes money! Walt Disney, Terry Gilliam, George Lucas, Tim Burton, Steven Spielberg or Peter Jackson have created our favorites places: an another American beyond the frontier (of time). We'll see today how these filmmakers are building worlds by mixing elements : another New York City is called "Gotham City" or "Coruscant Planet", a large jungle is called "Pandora Planet" and an unlimited desert "Tatouine Planet" or "Dune. 

USUAL PLACES, UNUSUAL ASPECTS

I would like to begin with movies adapted from comics books, you know: Gotham City as the darkest New York as possible and Metropolis as the golden city! Heroes and superheroes are usually living in gigantic places from our world but just a little different, it is also: Men In Black, Hellboy, X Men, Matrix or even Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean.

The city is designed as a graphic place to aggravate  human beings sins or desires. That's why there is always crimes in the streets of Sin City or Gotham. In X-Men or Hellboy there is a different world where aliens are considered as a threat but the place is the same. And in Harry Potter and Pirates of the caribbean there is magic and different laws.

What is different is mainly the headquarters (Daily Planet, Wayne Building or Ministry of Magic) and the aspects of the superhero. Concerning rules, we can how politicians involve heroes in city life after public debates about their difference: they are accepted until a problem appears. In other words, the superhero city is a joke about the American Life:  a 7 differences game.

CITIES OF THE FUTURE

The point between Blade Runner, Star Wars, Starship Troopers, Dark City, Brazil, Immortel, Cowboy Beebop or the 5th element is a crowded, dark and cross cultural metropolitan way of life. One level above than the comics city, every aspect of life is increasing: traffic, building size, inhabitants and melting pot. 

The artistic department is in love with the night, lights and spaceships between buildings. There is glass, large surfaces and automatisations everywhere (remember the elevator in Star Wars Episode 2 or the robots in iRobot). The city as a planet is a stressful place for The 5th Element's cab driver or the Blade Runner's detective and movies are predicted a very apocalyptic future. 

CREATING ANOTHER WORLD
But everything isn't so bad, and science fiction offers also gigantic natural experience in Avatar, Star Wars, Dune, Waterworld, Riddick or lord of the ring movies. The landscape in science fiction is founded on a simple elemental concept: one element for a universe. The jungle for Pandora (Avatar), the desert for Tatooine (Star Wars), water for Warterworld, Fire for Aliens 3 or Chronicle of Riddick, the air for Cloud City in the Empire Strikes back etc. 
In fantasy's stories the concept is coupled with historical mixing: Medieval time in lord of the ring or Willow, Ancient time in Star Wars, Modern time in The Muchhausen Baron or mythologic time in Clash of the titans. 

By way of conclusion, fantastic landscapes are mixing elements from our reality to underline some aspects of it: violence in Sin City, Medieval Time in Lord of the ring, Blue Planet in Waterworld. American cinema is a place of dreaming when the landscape amplies our imagination. 

WILDNERNESS, "FRONTIER" NEVER ENDS

With the advent of globalisation, standardisation, the progress of science, information technology or genetic engineering, the world is becoming frightened. Heroes want to be back in Wilderness! There really a better place; and if there is high danger in nature there is also real male values. Oh yes, the lonely hero in the wild land is, most of the time, a man alone: remember Dances With Wolves, Cable Hogue, Dead Man, Croc Blanc, Into the wild, The Thin Red Line or Avatar!

Usually, the landscape is linked to the American frontier concept: frontier as a limit to go, to conquer and to leave. In the epic land, heroes are living without laws and police but they must get accustomed to life in nature, the inhabitants and even themselves. Maybe the American Way of Life is irrelevant in wilderness, but not the American Dream.

THE FRONTIER MYTH: AMERICANS BRING CIVILISATION

The frontier was the term applied to the zone of unsettled land outside the region of existing settlements of Americans. Everything begins with Western films like John Ford's movies. In legendary Monument Valley, Deadwood or Dodge City, the American hero is haunted by the frontier spirit: hero brings civilisation with other pioneers, irony, money, shovels and guns. It's the Gold Rush in 1927, My Darling Clementine in 1946, Forty Guns in 1957, Once Upon a time in West in 1968, Little Big Man in 1970 or Deadwood in 2004. In most of the Western movies, dispositions of the characters are violent, women are strong or hookers, the houses are in construction and everywhere the environment is very perilous. There are 5 steps to domesticate a wild land:

1/ Have "the spirit". From The Seachers (John Ford - 1956) to Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean - 1962) or Deadwood (TV series in HBO - 2004), the hero is strong, smart, manual and very independent.

2/ Buy a gun. Despite a world with a federal government, it's obviously a place of violence (see Dead Man or Unforgiven)

3/ Find new employment. The protection area is the favorite employment of the cowboy: a sheriff, an hitman, a robber. With a gun and a frontier spirit: wilderness is a place of hope. Secondly he could become bartender or shop dealer.

4/ Build your house. In Appaloosa as well as The Gold Rush, the hero wants an house, it's civilisation.

5/ Wait for the law. In The man who shot Liberty Valance: lawmen, politicians and businessmen arrived in the end and the wildness is gone

TO GET AWAY FROM CIVILISATION

In the 20th century, Americans get very civilized and all of them want to get out of the American Way of Life. Actually, there are two way of escaping: just an intermission for exotic purposes or a complete space from consumerism.

In the one hand, heroes in Adventure films are out of the frontiers for a limited experience in The lost world, King Kong, Indiana Jones, Book of the jungle, Cast Away or Lost. The storyline deals with 4 themes:

1/ Search of exoticism or a misfortune

2/ Live with nature and others

3/ Live against the wilderness

4/ To escape

When the purpose is to denounce Way of life in the Thin Red Line or Mosquito Coast, heroes want to ignore the world and the themes are very different:

1/ To drop everything

2/ To discover a new world

3/ The disillusionment

LAS VEGAS, THE REAL SIN CITY ?

No, Las Vegas isn't a place with tremendous political power: "Vegas" is the entertainment capital of the world! Connected to gambling and freedom, the landscape means active nightlife, attractions, casinos, mortgages, fine dining or wedding chapels. In the middle of the desert, is the artificial city a "Disneyland" for adults?

It's possible! And for American Cinema, Vegas is this kind of schizophrenic place: land of pleasures and land of vices, which is the classical American entertainment cocktail with friendship, love, games and violence!

ENTERTAINMENT

On the one hand, Vegas appeared in movies as The Hangover, Friends, Rain Man, Austin Powers, Viva Las Vegas, Swingers, Very Bad Things or What happens in Vegas as a place of freedom for heroes. In this land of pleasures, the heroes are going to the city during a short period but they live crazy nights with the same four ingredients:

1/ Money

2/ Party

3/ Friendship

4/ Love

SIN

On the other hand, the entertainment city has a dark side with excess, alcohol, drugs, mafia and violence. This part of the town is spotlighted in movies or TV shows as CSI, Showgirls, Las Vegas Parano, Casino or even The Godfather. In this "sin city", pleasure goes faster and faster until a decadent moment.

I can identify, again, four types of ingredients:

1/ Excess

2/ The exploitation of dreams

3/ Robbery

4/ Violence

THE ROAD, AN AMERICAN LEGEND

Everywhere in America, there is a car outside the house and, by way of consequence, the Road is a strong cultural element as a link between human beings and landscapes, a perfect place of transition, pleasures and fear. For road movies, Duel or Mulholland Drive, all the roads are places to nowhere and unknown: here's to the land where heroes are looking to get lost, to find a new star or a rebirth.

ESCAPING THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE

First, I must say Road Movies is a genre which follows specifics rules. Look at Thelma and Louise, Badlands, Bonnie and Clyde, Sugartland Express, Boxcar Bertha, Two-lane Blacktop, Zabriskie Point, Into the Wild or even Dumb and Dumber and Cars. All these movies are exploring American landscapes through the inhabitants and their "Way of Life", following all the time the same schema, which is, I think, this one :

- The main character is leaving the stereotypical way of life because 1/ he wants to escape from annoying habits (Thelma and Louise) 2/ because of laws or enemies (Badlands) 3/ because of an unexpected quest (Lord of the Rings) 4/ because of destiny (Cars).

- On the road and across the country he discovers many aspects of human beings through unusual people living with simplicity. In touch with a landscape, silence and simple emotions he learns to like nature and love the life. At last, the hero is really himself, he's free.

- He has discover truth, love, freedom but a dramatic event makes the character reconnect with reality and he finally dies (even if it's metaphorical). Finally the law, past and civilisation always catch up the hero in an unpredictable final landscape.

SURVIVING MONSTERS

But the road isn't only a journey, it's also could be a way to survive in movies like The Road, 28 Days Later, From Dusk till Dawn, Zodiac, Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway, No Country for Old Men, Duel, War of the Worlds and many others. Here, the landscape is a path of fear with predictable monsters, killers or even aliens. Heroes are looking to survice against enemies and, again, the genre follows some rules:

- Of course, on the one hand, everything begins with a normal hero, with a little story: a father dock worker in War of the World, a middle age businessman in Duel, two bank robbers in From Dusk Till Dawn and no one is expecting the monster's challenge.

- On the other hand, a fantastic monster (and potential killer) appeared: a truck in Duel, a very strange man in Lost Highway, a free T-Rex in Jurassic Park or vampires in Near Dark and vehicles are becoming havens and, at the same time, targets capable of being identified. If the hero is confronting the killer with imagination, most of the time he is just a runaway. At last, the monster, or the main character, stalked the other during a sequence with high suspense where the face-off is creating a descent into hell.

- Finally the heroes survive and kill the monster. The action stops abruptly and moviegoer thinks the hero is going back to the same life as before. But it's never indisputable...and sequels are always possible!

CHASING AN ENEMY

At last, the road is the favorite place for the most famous chases in cinema : Bullit, James Bond films, Speed, French Connexion, The Rock, The fast and the furious, Die Hard with a vengeance and many others !!

Here, the road element isn't the main landscape, it's just one location for chasing someone else. Usually, filmakers use a lot of close-ups alternating with skidding or inserts and editing uses a lot of cuts. The car has a funny shape and the driving is very fast. The high danger is increased because of the traffic and because the enemy creates obstacles. If there are always a lot of people following the chase, only the hero is better and that's why the final ride is always impossible without adventurousness and a smart trick: remember John McLane following an Ambulance in Die Hard with a vengeance!

NEW YORK, CITY OF EXCESS

If New York is one of the biggest cities in the world, it's because the American cinema has played a central role in the construction of an iconic image. The release of New York I love you today reminds us that New York is a cinema creation through films and filmmakers as Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Spike Lee, Stanley Kubrick or James Gray. At the start a place for urban thrillers in the film noir (Mark Dixon), the city became part of the drama because of its vitality: crowd, skyscrapers, yellow cabs, cultural (Broadway), historical (Ellis Island), economic (downtown) and political places (the UN building). Movements are everywhere in Manhattan (Bringing out the Dead), and that's why it's a city of dreams (Once Upon in America), power (Wall Street) and disillusionment (Eyes Wide Shut).

Connected with the past, Ellis Island is the symbol of American immigration for young Italians from Corleone in The Godfather Part two. Consequently, the harbour is the link between Europe and America in many films such as Titanic, Golden Door, Gangs of New York, Fievel or, in a different way, the TV show Band of Brothers (the soldiers are going to Europe for World War 2).

In After Hours, Martin Scorsese deals with the New Yorker way of life: always in a hurry. That's why so many chases take place in Manhattan: French Connection, Die Hard with a vengeance, We own the night and many more.

When people slow-down, they are always in a bad mood: recently Edward Norton in 25th Hour, Tom Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut, or Joaquin Phoenix in Two Lovers who had made the same experience. Depression is pretty close in the neighborhood of the Land of Plenty, loneliness and dependance are very common : Robert de Niro is crazy (Taxi Driver), Bruce Willis became an alcoholic in Die Hard With a vengeance, Jared Leto is drugged in Requiem for a Dream, Tom Cruise is sick in Vanilla Sky, Will Smith runs alone in I am Legend. New Yorkers are really tired and nervous, that's why they visit therapists a lot: Woody Allen of course but also Robert De Niro (Mafia Blues), Tony Soprano (in New Jersey), Thomas Crown and many more.

But everyone has a good reason to be depressed because the metropolis is a land of working people (Mad Men, The Hudsucker proxy, Good Night and Good Luck, Raging Bull, Men In Black) and everyone wants success (New York, New York ; Superman ; Wall Street). The main plot in New York stories are always connected to power from Family Man to Fame or Malcolm X to Spiderman, every hero wants success. Skyscrapers, Stock Exchange, Banks, Entertainment companies or UN building are struggle for power. And power attracts dreamers, workers and...bad guys!

So, New York is the favorite place for bandits and robberies: Inside Man, Catch me if you can, Dog Day Afternoon, Die Hard with a vengeance, Batman... and some enemies want to destroy everything: Godzilla, Cloverfield, Independance Day, X-Men etc.

But New York is also a city of funny people in Friends. In New York there isn't one kind of inhabitants but a lot of communities and villages: Chinese (Year of the dragon), Italian (Mean Street), Jewish (Little Odessa), Black (Cotton Club), Artistic (All that Jazz), Gay (Serpico), Rich (Sex and the city or Vanilla Sky) even animal (the zoo from Madagascar)

In other words, in the American cinema New York is the perfect landscape to illustrate the American Success and limits: it's the place of huge dreams and little emotions.