Manhattan as a Character in Film

[jake_fink]

Next Stop Greenwich Village

A wonderful film. Also, a thoroughly convincing portrait of a specific place and time - Greenwich Village, 1950s. If you've never seen this film, then please do.

 

[jake_fink]

I second Sweet Smell of Success.

Also Godfather 2 and Once Upon a Time in America.

 

[Hawkcigar]

I've never been to New York but definitely hope to go someday. I especially like old movies in black and white that were set in New York. There is something about the way the city looks in black and white that really appeals to me.

Were "The Thin Man" and "Rear Window" New York movies? Another, later movie that I liked was Midnight Cowboy. And for TV shows, I Love Lucy and Seinfeld. I always get a kick out of the scene in I Love Lucy when the Ricardos and Mertzes are leaving for California and they are supposed to be driving across the bridge.

 

[K.D. Lightner]

I, too, like the older films that depict a New York I did not really know. I lived there from late 1969 to early 1983, so did not get to appreciate Times Square or the Great White Way as it was junky and mugger heaven when I lived there. Couldn't go to Harlem, either.

However, the romanticism persist: the opening sequence of West Side Story with the bird's eye view of that great city, finally zooming down to a set designed to look like an area being torn down to build Lincoln Center. The lovely city in at least a couple of Fred and Ginger movies, even if it was faked. Also My Man Godfrey, even in Dead End, which showed a gritty part of the city. So many Woody Allen movies.

When I moved there, one of the first things I did: I got a cup of coffee, a donut, and stood at 6 a.m. in front of Tiffany's. Alas, it did not make me look like Audrey Hepburn, but it made me feel like New York was my city.

karol

 

[Mr. Rover]

Spider-man does a good job of showing Queens and then transitioning into Manhattan. It's a comic-book fantasy of Manhattan That El-Train in the sequel wasn't very realistic, though...

 

[Feraud]

In addition to the exhibit at Grand Central Terminal, TCM is hosting a month long festival devoted to the NYC skyline.
http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article/?cid=159671

Based on the award-winning book by the architect and author James Sanders, and presented by Turner Classic Movies and Time Warner Cable in conjunction with a special on-air film festival, Celluloid Skyline: New York and the Movies will be an extraordinary celebration of the hundred year love affair between the film industry and one of the world's greatest cities.

Opening in Grand Central Terminal's Vanderbilt Hall on May 25, 2007, the month-long multimedia exhibit will bring to life the glittering cinematic metropolis –"movie New York"–that has mesmerized audiences around the world for decades. During the show's run, thousands of visitors will find themselves immersed in a magical environment: a luminous "dream city "built from some of the most spectacular movie-making artifacts and images ever created, including:

Gigantic "scenic backing "paintings produced at MGM during the golden age of Hollywood to recreate New York on the studio lot. The actual artifacts used in the making of such legendary films as Hitchcock's North by Northwest and Vincente Minnelli's The Clock, these awesome recreations of New York cityscapes and interiors (up to 27 feet high and 60 feet wide) have never been seen before –and will probably never be seen again –by the general public.

Hauntingly beautiful film footage from Paramount Studios, including images of New York streets, interiors, skylines, etc., from the mid-1930s to today. Used as evocative backgrounds behind actors in "process shots" on studio sound stages, or for "establishing shots" at the start of films, this footage will be presented continuously on two large rear projection screens. Standing in front of the screens, visitors will be able to "star" in their own classic New York films.

A projected montage of more than 80 rare and unusual production stills and location shots culled from the book, Celluloid Skyline: New York and the Movies by James Sanders. These will include views from films themselves, both celebrated and obscure, as well as dozens of "behind-the-scenes "views showing films being shot on stages as well as location.

Selection of forty "actuality" films shot in New York in the earliest days of the movie industry, projected on a 60"plasma monitor near the start of the exhibit. Photographed in and around New York from 1896 to 1906 by Edison and Biograph cameramen, these riveting short films movingly document the growing city's streets, skyline, construction projects, public events and spectacles.

Sequence of 22 handsomely designed display panels featuring over 200 dramatic enlargements of a spectacular array of production stills, location shots, art department drawings, models, renderings, etc., along with informative captions, introductory text, and "pull quotes "drawn from noted filmmakers, critics, as well as the fondly remembered dialogue of films themselves.