Series Site
The world’s great cities are often the source of inspiration for filmmakers—a tradition that began in the silent era as city symphonies and continues through to the contemporary period. This series considers a selection of films that foreground the history, architecture, and neighborhoods of Los Angeles, as seen through the eyes of international directors and lifelong Angelino filmmakers. Roman Polanski’s Chinatown is a story of water rights and power in the 1930s; Jacques Demy’s melancholic Model Shop transports us along the sunset strip and edges of the sprawling metropolis. Agnès Varda’s Lions Love ( . . . and Lies) is a refreshing critique of the movie business, politics, and American culture. Damien Chazelle’s La La Land showcases the city’s landmarks in full color and hearkens back to Demy’s musicals.
The recent restoration of the long-unseen Smog, directed by Italian filmmaker Franco Rossi, was the impetus for this thematic series. We welcome May HaDuong, Director of the UCLA Film & Television Archive, and Los Angeles–based journalist Luca Celada to speak about Smog’s depiction of mid-century architecture in Los Angeles. HaDuong also shares two other UCLA restorations: Kent Mackenzie’s The Exiles, a brilliant depiction of the plight of Native American Angelinos circa 1961; and Larry Clark’s exceptional Passing Through, which captures LA’s jazz scene.
Charles Burnett’s poetic Killer of Sheep, set in Watts, is considered one of the great works of American independent cinema. Robert A. Nakamura and Duane Kubo’s tale of Little Tokyo, Hito Hata: Raise the Banner, is a landmark of Asian American cinema. Patricia Cardosa is the first Latina director to be named to the National Film Registry for her heartwarming drama set in East Los Angeles, Real Women Have Curves. Artist-filmmaker Pat O’Neill’s Water and Power and Horizontal Boundaries use collage and composite image making to explore themes of industrialization and loss of the natural world.
—Susan Oxtoby, Director of Film and Senior Film Curator