New York is the symbol city of the 20th century . Modern, frenetic, multi-ethnic and technological, it is probably the place that more than any other one gets the impression of having visited even without having had the opportunity to see it live. Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, the Bronx, what were once the Twin Towers, Central Park: just close your eyes to have these places in front of you.
New York is therefore part of our collective imagination , an imaginary that was formed above all thanks to the cinema that for over a century has chosen the Big Apple as its privileged set. The first film set in New York, in fact, dates back to 1896, only to be followed by hundreds of films. From Martin Scorsese to Oliver Stone to Spike Lee , some of the greatest directors of all time have chosen the city as the location of their masterpieces, which later became iconic representations of life in the metropolis par excellence.
Jason Bailey , in his "Fun City Cinema" (Jimenez Edizioni, pp. 352) has selected some of the best known films made in New York from the 1920s to today, showing how they could only be set there and nowhere else, and at at the same time revealing which images of New York they offer, which atmospheres, which realities.
The result is an evocative and exciting book, equipped with a rich photographic apparatus (vintage photographs of the city, stills and behind the scenes), completed by exclusive interviews with actors and directors. A book in which Bailey tells the story and the evolution of society, politics and urban planning of the city of New York through the films that have been shot in the Big Apple in the last hundred years.
The volume , in fact, is divided into decades and for each the author has explored a milestone of the cinema of that period: The jazz singer (1927), King Kong (1933), The naked city (1948), Piombo scorente ( 1957), A Man from the Sidewalk (1969), Taxi Driver (1976), Wall Street (1987), Kids (1995), The 25th Hour (2002) and Frances Ha (2012).
These films are thus the starting point to broaden the discussion to the many other films set in New York and to tell the story of a city in constant change . A story that shows how these classics - and their directors - were inspired by the splendor and audacity of New York, turning into "involuntary documentaries" of the fashions and moods of the city, of its birth as a metropolis, of its decline in the second half of the twentieth century until the resurrection of the last decades.
And if at the end of the book you feel like taking a plane to find yourself in the Big Apple, don't be surprised. It is the minimum after reading "Fun City Cinema".