Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself is one of the best essay films ever made. Not only is it a moving investigation of the movies that are created there – told by the movies themselves – it’s a deep, insightful and entertaining love letter to the city itself. Despite Los Angeles being “the most photographed city in the world,” as Andersen puts it in the film’s first moments, movies rarely get L.A. right. As an Angelino as well as professor and film critic, Andersen is uniquely qualified to unpack cinema’s depictions of his longtime hometown: “Sometimes I think that gives me the right to criticize the way movies depict my city. I know it’s not easy. The city is big. The image is small. Movies are vertical, at least when they’re projected on a screen. The city is horizontal, except for what we call downtown.”
Andersen goes on to set the record straight with an ambitious, audacious movie made out of other movies, clocking in at a jaw-dropping 169 minutes and encompassing around 80 years of film to expound on sundry themes and topics, great and small. Even at nearly three hours long, Los Angeles Plays Itself never drags, clipping along with all the fizzy propulsive momentum of the L.A. freeway on a good day thanks to Andersen’s deft editing, encyclopedic knowledge of film history and engaging narration, voiced by Encke King.
Los Angeles Plays Itself is presented in three segments, made up of roughly 200 scenes from throughout film history and fleshed out with the occasional production footage and b-roll. The first segment examines the city as background, where it expounds on the surreal anonymity of a city designed to look like other cities. The second segment looks at the city as a character in and of itself, choosing more in-depth examinations of particular films – particularly film noir – instead of a broad scoping survey. The third sequence focuses on movies about the city itself, especially movies focusing on Los Angeles’ secret histories of corruption and conspiracies, as found in Chinatown or L.A. Confidential. Each of these segments is made up of numerous smaller themes, like depictions of transportation or architectural observations, that offer a realistic and often hilarious insight into life in Los Angeles, if you get the joke, such as when it’s said the secondary plot of Chinatown is the struggle of getting around L.A. without a car.
The film’s takes on Hollywood’s mind-bending attitude towards modern architecture is even more side-splitting, nitpicking and insightful. The director offers an extensive overview of the history of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House – which can be seen in everything from Blade Runner to 1987’s Timestalkers starring Klaus Kinski – as a criminal’s palatial headquarters. The film offers even more extensive commentary on architect John Lautner, whose Garcia House on Mulholland Dr. gets pulled down by Mel Gibson’s pickup truck in Lethal Weapon 2. The narrator drily observes that the film’s producer, Joel Silver, is a fan of modern architecture, owning not one but two Frank Lloyd Wright houses. And he points out Hollywood’s tendency to want things both ways, pandering to populist tastes instead of “clinging to personal convictions.”.
These observations could only come from someone with a deep knowledge of Los Angeles’ history and a deft touch with a handful of disciplines. The film talks about what it’s like to see your hometown on screen: “What was old has been destroyed. Images of things that aren’t there anymore mean a lot to those of us who live in Los Angeles, and practically nothing to everyone else, except perhaps when they represent things that have disappeared from urban centers everywhere, like drive-in restaurants or drive-in movies.” In some respects, L.A. is all of our collective memory – provided you watch movies, that is. It’s a time capsule of obsolete gas pumps and vintage signage, illustrating movies’ capacity as a moving museum of material culture as well as a way to tell stories. Even when Hollywood’s offering a simulacrum of a place and a time, period details will still seep through. Los Angeles Plays Itself is a strong argument why film studies need to be taken as seriously as any of the other humanities, despite being a much younger discipline.
The film also draws your attention to an L.A. that many don’t know, even if you’re a lifelong passionate fan of film. Seeing distinctive landmarks, like the neon clown outside of Circus Liquor at Burbank and Vineland, that can be seen in Clueless, or the Watts’ Towers, you get a taste of what it’s like to live in Los Angeles. You even get to see the city from a walker’s perspective, which is an experience that barely anyone gets – which is also talked about on numerous occasions throughout. Andersen discusses heavy, heady concepts like urban design, police corruption, racism, inequality and the role that Hollywood plays in its perpetuation white throwing sly digs at Woody Allen on the side. You’ll have a much deeper understanding and appreciation of L.A. at the end of its 169 minutes. It’s so interesting and engaging it could be twice as long and you’d still be craving more.
Los Angeles Plays Itself is worth watching simply for its references alone, which could keep you busy for years. There’s the neon-soaked glory of William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A.; the chilling psycho-noir of Sunset Blvd. (another film about losing your car); or the apocalyptic violence of Predator 2 or Escape from L.A.. Even the most hardened cinephile most likely hasn’t seen L.A. Crackdown II about two women police officers on the trail of some bank robbers and D.O.A, a gritty film noir with an early depiction of the Bradbury Building, later used to stunning effect in Blade Runner. Los Angeles Plays Itself would be worth watching solely for the ’80s cop dramas you’ll add to your watchlist, let alone its insightful contributions to film studies and Los Angeles history.
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