Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003) -- T. Anderson

I love the essay film.  Here, Thom Anderson stitches together three hours of film clips (and some footage he shot himself) to show how Los Angeles has been presented in Hollywood films.  Moving from the various views of L. A. in the background, often masquerading as other cities or just providing an anonymous urban (or suburban) context for action, to a more direct focus on the city as a milieu of interest on its own terms, the film, guided by voice-over narration (by deadpan Encke King), takes a meandering route through a variety of topics.  Anderson argues successfully that the portrayal of Los Angeles has tended toward cliches and a myopic vision of white upper middle class America rather than revealing the vibrant multicultural zones in which people walk rather than drive, shown in only a few independent films.  My only beef with the film, fun as it is, is that it relies too heavily on some unknown 1990s films to make its points (but of course, Chinatown, L. A. Confidential, and Killer of Sheep also get their due).