Paradise Lost (then Found, then Lost Again): San Francisco in Film

People will cry “bullshit!” if you don’t have a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge in a San Francisco film. This enormous incandescent structure represents the whole of the Bay Area. With its’ orange veneer the Golden Gate balances its’ industrial 30’s deco with a beautiful charismatic surface. For the past 150 years San Francisco has attempted to maintain its’ beauty against modernization. It’s this beauty that makes San Francisco a unique location for films of intrigue.

Gorgeous vistas decorate Vertigo’s interior scenes, whether it is a trip to the Palace of Fine Arts or merely down the sloped streets of San Francisco. Hitchcock uses the serene settings as contrast to enhance the drama of the later scenes. He loved to build tension in the audience’s unease over the idea that something big can happen at anytime. Director David Fincher does much the same affect in Zodiac. When two day-trippers on a picnic by a lake, gorgeous and serene, are brutally murdered, Fincher sends the message, “I don’t care how pretty it is, you are no longer safe in this movie.”

Darkness enshrouds San Francisco in both films. Not surprising though is Zodiac's serial killer tale takes place almost exclusively at night. A perfect device for suspense, darkness gives us the feeling of a character’s being vulnerable, anyone can be lurking in the shadows. Vertigo begins and ends just before sunrise, darkness is used sparingly. When it is used it’s a tool to illustrate Jimmy Stewart’s vulnerability; both its’ origin and when he must drastically overcome it.

The whole visage of Vertigo dims as the film progresses (even after restoration). The theme being as the film progresses the story becomes more glooming and depressing, as such the film’s color and look adapts with it. The same can be said for Zodiac, this time the director introduces rain and other natural elements as thematic cues for dread. The idea being when San Francisco stops being pretty, watch out!

San Francisco might be a beautiful place to live (especially if you're a cop since apparently 75% of the population in movies are cops), but an even better place to stage a drama. Peaceful and serene with wonderful weather and a magnificent view make San Fransisco the antithesis of "Murderville," and that's what makes it paradise for film.

Through the Window of the American Utopia: Filming the Extremities of Suburbia

There’s a heavy differentiation when talking about films based in cities and those based in suburbia. Quite frankly there are only two types of suburban films, happy-go-lucky family comedy or sordid morality tale. The family comedy embraces the concept of the suburbs as a utopia, while the morality tales work their hardest to dispel it. Films use that ideological backdrop and its contrast between seductively simple living and complex sometimes harsh life to dramatize the plot. What bearing does any of this have on reality?

Consumerism is the heart of every suburb. Perhaps it has something to do with higher number of home owners versus renters, or the ability to obtain a higher standard of living for a better price. Whatever the case, suburbanites have bought their way into the American dream, and at the center of the American dream is a shopping mall. The solution for life’s problems is spending money. As the main character of Disturbia wisecracks, “You know what, honey? Infidelity? Forget about it. Look at the storage space!” So the suburbs become this cycle where you automatically feel better when you buy into it, then to maintain that level you systematically continue to purchase new and better things. The teenagers of Disturbia have five of every toy on the market, and every suburb in film has green lawns with pools in their backyard and an SUV in the garage. What makes Fun with Dick and Jane a great satire is that it embraces this concept unabashedly. The main characters obsess over their need to fit in with the status quo, it drives the plot and drives them to commit crimes. In Dick and Jane's case they've even their crimes are crimes against the consumer culture, well beyond standard liquor store robbery they've turned to robbing a Starbucks.

Suburbia being free of crime is a total myth. I have no idea where it comes from. We’re all well aware that crime exists in the suburbs, but we’re still surprised when it happens. It seems rather cliché now but there will always be the news reports where the neighbor of a mass murderer is saying that the neighbor “seemed like a nice person” or, “I never thought something like this would happen in our neighborhood.” Of course they’ve all bought the nice house and the security that comes with owning your own property. They get the security of isolating themselves from whomever they choose. Unfortunately this also means nice mister serial killer across the way also gets the comfort of seclusion. No one in the suburbs completely knows what their neighbor is really doing, and this is where Disturbia takes over. It takes the idea that your neighbor could be a killer and runs with it for the duration of a movie. Fun with Dick and Jane uses the same theme (but definitely more light-hearted), this time your neighbors could very well be bank robbers. Even though they themselves are armed robbers Dick and Jane still find it shocking that their neighbors would be bank robbers.

People move to the suburbs to get away from the crime and busy life of the city, but is every other person in the ‘burbs an adulterous sociopath? Fortunately the truth is that it’s all just grand ideas that have no bearing on reality, the suburbs are just squalid and depraved as the city, and the city is just as bland and played out as suburbia. It’s not the perfect utopia of the family film genre, nor is it the twisted horror breeding ground seen in other films. Somewhere appropriately in between is the reality.