City In Cameo Essay

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City in Cameo: The Many Faces of Los Angeles in Cinema
Ameta Bal
New York might have Woody Allen, but Los Angeles has its own champions. While there are certain directors, namely Michael Mann, Paul Thomas Anderson, Robert Altman and Quentin Tarantino, who’ve proven themselves to be LA specialists, they aren’t the only ones who have implanted the city of Los Angeles as a supplementary character in their films. Following is a selection of movies that celebrate, scrutinize, criticize, romanticize and fictionalize this city of angels, delving into its various moods and personalities.
1. DARK
Chinatown
One film that inspired many films, Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown” stands out in Hollywood’s brimming coffers as a masterpiece. Considered by many to be one of the best films ever made, “Chinatown” is as much a stylish neo-noir film as it is a film about the city of Los Angeles. Written by Los Angeles native Robert Towne, this film uses actual events from the history of the city and subsequent allegorical references to the same, to deliver a story that is a sharp comment on the politics of the region. Towne wrote in the preface to the screenplay, “The great crimes in California have been committed against the land – and against the people who own it and future generations. It was only natural that the script should evolve into the …show more content…

And the name on a sign post in the night and partially for a moment illuminated by the headlights of a car. Mulholland Drive is a road in Los Angeles that goes along the crest of the Santa Monica mountains and it’s a beautiful road in the daytime but also a beautiful road at night giving vistas out to the valley on one side and Hollywood on the other. And at night it’s a road that is mysterious. It’s kind of dark, the road has remained the same through the years. It’s a mysterious

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