Los Angeles Plays Itself review

May 30…checked out Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself. I made the mistake of not checking the running time before going, and so found myself fidgeting a lot after a time, as I’d no idea I was going to see a documentary that ended up being three hours long!

The subject is a good one; how LA (a diminutive the director dislikes intensely) has been represented cinematically. This means lots of film clips through the ages, and it is, as my friend/fellow writer Tom Kipp pointed out, an inexhaustible subject. Andersen points out how much of LA’s terrain is undistinguished, unlike the sharpness of NYC (might as well keep the diminutive thing going here), which perhaps helps in trying to pass it off as another locale (I never would’ve thought it could serve as China, for example). He also looks at notable LA landmarks and how they’ve been used in films (such as the beautiful, now sadly-demolished Pan Pacific Auditorium, which took its final bow in the classic Xanadu). And there’s a fascinating look at LA films by independent black filmmakers. Plus tons more trivia and info, with incredibly laconic narration from Encke King

In the SIFF catalogue, if I’d bothered to read it, I would’ve found the comment “this film actually seems too short.” Uh, no, not unless it was a series of, say, four hour long episodes that could be digested at one’s leisure. No idea when/if this film will reappear again, but if you’re a film buff, it’s worth checking out.