August 14, 2006

A summertime question for Michael Guillen.

As you may have guessed, I asked a lot more questions that I ever hoped to see replies to a few weeks ago. Again, I'm overwhelmed and deeply grateful for the responses. I leave it to Michael Guillen, whose Evening Class has, in a phenomenally short period of time, become an outstanding font of views, reviews and interviews, to wrap the series and, for GreenCine, to bring it all back home: "What film, more than any other, says, 'San Francisco'?"

Vertigo

There's a good reason why the Vertigo tour offered by the San Francisco International Film Festival to press and visiting filmmakers is so popular. That reason is San Francisco itself, which for my money is as central a character in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo as Scottie Ferguson and Madeleine Elster. It doesn't surprise me in the least that visitors and residents alike will pass on seeing some scheduled film at the festival in order to seek out this particular film - indisputably one of Hitchcock's finest - among the city's streets and avenues.

Vertigo

San Francisco is the perfect setting for Hitchcock's gem of suspense and identity intrigues and is quintessentially San Franciscan precisely for how identities are sought, constructed and forfeited, either for politics or for dreams, out of need or obsession, generation after generation. From its Pacific Heights locations, to its suicide attempt beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, to the cemetery at Mission Dolores, to the bouquets of Podesta Baldocchi, to the reflections of red-flocked wallpaper at Ernie's, to meditations upon a painting at the Legion of Honor, San Francisco reminds us that how we live in a city, how we move between its neighborhoods, how we find and lose love, is part and parcel of how we create and identify ourselves.

Like Jenni Olsen's paean to place, Joy of Life, Vertigo explores the fear of falling, not just from heights, but in love, aware that there is no greater threat to the subjectivity of identity than the vertigo of love, and no city that approximates love's ups and downs so succinctly as San Francisco... where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars.



Bookmark and Share

Posted by dwhudson at August 14, 2006 2:52 AM

Comments

Michael Guillen Rocks!

Thanks to the DotComs back in the day, I had to leave San Francisco because I didn't work for any dotcom and so couldn't afford it anymore.

I find myself watching San Francisco in films every so often and dreaming, like Brad Pitt's Louis de Pointe du Lac in "Interview With The Vampire" watching the sun in films because he can't see it anymore in life.

Just watched "Play it Again, Sam" yesterday and it's weird seeing Woody Allen in SF. Weirder than seeing him in London.

Posted by: Jerry Lentz at August 14, 2006 3:27 AM

Gosh, I sure do miss SF. I'm such a sucker, I'll probably even see that awful-looking PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS film, just because I want to watch Will Smith on BART.

But yes, VERTIGO wins hands-down, at least in the narrative category. For avant-garde, it would probably be Ernie Gehr's SIDE/WALK/SHUTTLE. They'd make quite the double-bill, actually.

Posted by: msic at August 14, 2006 7:14 AM

Thank you, Dave, for including me among your summertime questions. It's been fun and informative reading these profiles and familiarizing myself with the work of our online fraternity. The best film school of all has been this blessed interaction.

Posted by: Michael Guillen at August 14, 2006 10:20 AM

Play It Again Sam is one of my favorite SF movies, too - it is indeed odd seeing Woody in SF but he really (or director Herbert Ross really) utilized the locations well. There's nothing better than seeing Woody getting car sick on his way to Marin, and walking on Stinson Beach with Diane Keaton (where he gives her a skunk doll for her birthday). And there's Woody walking in Russian Hill, and in the park, and going to the movies, and so on. The city by the bay is the perfect setting for a film with Bogart hanging around and such an air of romance to it.

Ironically, it was only chosen because there was a garbage strike at the time in NYC and they had to move filming. I think it's all the better for it.

(Another favorite SF movie is one I'm almost embarrassed to admit, because it's commercial and a little cheesy and stars Chevy Chase - but Foul Play also used SF area locations to great advantage.)

C

Posted by: Craig P at August 14, 2006 11:14 AM

Vertigo is probably my favorite San Francisco film, but Maltese Falcon runs a close second for me, even if the San Fran setting is only somewhat relevant.

Posted by: Chuck at August 14, 2006 11:45 AM

Oh, I forgot one of my favorite SF films... "Time After Time!"

Posted by: Jerry Lentz at August 14, 2006 4:29 PM

Oh crap... What about... "THX:1138?"

Okay, I'm spent!

Posted by: Jerry Lentz at August 14, 2006 4:30 PM

David, what a perfect way to, as you say, bring it all back home. There really could be no other choice, now, could there? For me at least, [i]Vertigo[/i] is cinephilia is San Francisco is Greencine Daily and the film-blog-osphere (Michael's blog having become my most essential read in only a few short months).

I'm also glad he so snugly fit the [i]Joy of Life[/i] mention in there too.

Posted by: Brian at August 14, 2006 6:29 PM