Thorough out the course of the film we learn that Perry is a third generation Los Angelo, from a family of gunslingers a direct metaphor for the Wild West. He believes in vigilantism and poetic justice, similar to the posses which roamed the frontier rounding up outlaws by whatever means possible. His belief in rough justice has been influenced not only by the environment he inhabits, but also from the conditioning and mentality passed down by his grandfather and father, also Los Angeles police officers. His slide into corruption doesn’t seem to be premeditated or out of personal gain, but more out of a desperate attempt to counteract the increasing levels of crime within the city. The fact that he has to cut corners, fabricate evidence and lie to get a conviction becomes the lesser of two evils. The city, over the years, has played an important part in shaping Perry’s morality. the fact that corruption is so rife within the department operating at different levels thorough out the ranks, offers certain normality to the immoral ethics. ‘Sheltons movie is about police corruption-corruption that becomes so routine on such a daily basis that it is no longer recognized as that’ Baltake, 2003.
It is only at the end of film that Perry truly realises that his and his fellow officer’s conduct and abuse of their authority has been responsible for the vicious circle of hate, prejudice and destruction that now threatens L.A. The final scene shows a sweeping long shot of a burning, chaotic city skyline, accompanied by the line from the Deputy Chief of Police, “Its gong to get uglier before it gets better”, a metaphor not only for the on going rioting, but to the socio-political infrastructure of the L.A itself and perhaps a warning of the impending self destruction if race relations within the city are not addressed. It is a scene that is almost reminiscent of the Sc-Fi genre, films such as The Running Man (Glaser, 1987), Demolition Man (Brambilla, 1993) and Predator 2 (Hopkins 1990) where scenarios of urban street violence and ethnic turf wars are part of everyday life within a future dystopian society.
‘The movie chronicles how Perry’s investigation into the bloody heist of a Korean grocery store become an orgy of cover up, compromise and growing self-awareness that gradually brings him to the edge and becomes a metaphor for the cities larger awakening and an epic vision of the American apocalyptic’-
William Arnold on Dark Blue (Seattle Post, 2003)
In Dark Blue, the streets of south central, play an important function in the narrative, they are instantly visible, by the urban decay of the area, juxtaposed by the visual contrast and representation of the rest of the city. The poverty portrayed in the South Central area, helps to define the frustration and anti authoritarian attitude many of the residents hold. We can see the ethnic community form into gangs, every time the Police enter the neighbourhood, clearly invading their space and creating a tense segregation between the two camps. Classic 1990’s gangster rap is heard, almost as an audio cue each time we as an audience are taken into the South Central streets, which coupled with the visuals not only helps us establish a sense of place, but with reference to the anti police themes in the lyrics of the music, allows us to understand the mindset of the community. Aesthetically the handheld nature of the camerawork during many of the street scenes, works to enhance the raw, gritty feel of the character of South Central, the fact director Sheldon chose to shoot these scenes in the real life area using residents as extras adds to the authenticity. Stylistically much of the street footage feels similar to the late 60’s early 70’s New York cop thrillers, notably The French Connection (Friedkin 1971).
‘In the late 60’s early 70’s filmmakers burst free from the confines of the studio back lots and invaded New York to vividly document the city in a series of raw street films about cops and their disreputable counterparts in the underbelly of society. It was impossible to separate the subject matter from the city itself’-
Joe Baltake (The Sacramento Bee, 2003)
From the previous example we can begin to see how a place can have significant functions to the narrative of cinema other than just being a ‘stage’ for the action to evolve.
Place as ‘Backdrop’, its least sophisticated function, surely has to be present in most narratives, since the story has to take place somewhere, even if the characters do not interact or are influenced by their urban environment. Planet of the Apes (Schaffner 1968) is arguably an example of a ‘City’ film, in which the place or city doesn’t function as a backdrop, at least within the main part of the narrative. The anonymous rural space we are first presented with, which thorough out the film becomes a place we perceive to be a distant planet, ruled by apes. It is only at the climax of the narrative that we as an audience experience a catharsis along with the character of Taylor, that he is and always has been (during the course of the film) on earth or more specifically in New York City, or at least the space where New York city once stood. It is certainly a debatable point, whether or not the one shot of the Statue of Liberty is significant enough to classify this film a ‘City film’. Regardless of whether this film can be strictly classified as such, the icon does create a specific place. The fallen Icon acts as a metaphor for our social anxieties about the future, as in Dark Blue, the loss of freedom, the realisation of the apocalyptic nightmare and more specifically here the downfall of the human race. In terms of narrative the place the statue signifies serves a metonymyic function. It is a code that locates us not just in New York, but more specifically in the near vicinity of Liberty Island. On a more significant level the metonymyic function of the statue represents the Plant Earth as a whole and instantly places us in an apocalyptic future time, we or the character were not previously aware of.
The function of metonymy and place are not always present in all city narratives, as with other functions of place, although it does seem that as a function the metonymic place does represent some cinematic cities more easily and with a certain expectation of narrative than others. Cinematically the city or place of Las Vegas is often represented within the confines of the Casino. Snake Eyes (De Palma, 1988), 3000 miles to Graceland (Lichtenstein 2001) and Oceans 11 ( Soderbergh, 2001), are but a few examples where the Casino’s themselves house the crime, entertainment, drink, gambling, greed and showmanship the ‘City of Sin’ is infamous for. Even though the narratives do not explore much of the Las Vegas exterior geography, the interior place of the casino creates the suggestion of location and the types of characters we will encounter, notably corrupt cops, mob bosses, bank robbers and so forth.
Michael Mann’s Collateral (Mann, 2004) is also set in L.A but presents a very different L.A than what Sheldon’s does in Dark Blue. Collateral is a more stylistic representation of the City. Shot purposely on high definition video, to take advantage of the vivid neon glow of the sodium vapor street lights, it succeeds in capturing the backdrop and the loneliness of the city at night. The city in this instance seems to be represented through the narrative as a never ending series of tangled freeways, their function simply to connect different areas of the city, to make a whole. The character of Vincent tells, us, that he hates L.A and that every time he visits he can’t wait to leave. He describes the city as sprawled out and disconnected, this is exactly the L.A we are presented with in Collateral, Vincent’s L.A. The opening sequence is a montage of undecipherable roads, streets and arial shots of continuous traffic. Emphasis is placed on the fact that L.A is the city of the car. Even though the narrative doesn’t specifically arise out of L.A (the original script was set in New York), the city goes a long way in metaphorically representing the central characters ideologies. An early introduction to the character of Max shows him, cleaning the interior of his taxi, and attaching a photograph of a getaway holiday island to the sun visor, almost as an indication that that it is his home, when he shuts the door of the cab, the soundtrack of the noisy city streets, dies, indicating that the taxi itself is some kind of escapism for Max. The interior of the taxi signifies Max’s safe space, within the city. The character of Max, a native African American, seems in many ways to be a product of the anti myth. L.A was falsely sold on, a land of opportunity and work. His ambition to own is own limo company has never taken off, his reasoning for driving a taxi, is that it is a temporary job, even though he has been doing it for 12 years. A sweeping pan of the Taxi station shows many other members of ethnic minority groups doing the same menial task.
The narrative of the film takes us on what can be described as a virtual night tour of L.A the freeway connecting us, like tree branches to different areas of the city, Korean town, South Central, Pico Rivera and the forgotten industrial areas of the south. These are the locations in which Vincent needs to visit, in order to carry out his business, as a hit man. The time spent traveling between the different areas is stretched out, the freeway scenes are places which arguably cut against the descriptive meaning and narrative flow of the piece, how ever they crucial elements, as this time and place, the car/the roads are used to develop the two central characters and their relationship. ‘Mann uses the location to frame the fragmentation of the forced relationship between Vincent and Max’ Glaister, (The Guardian 2004). Because of this the Taxi and Freeway debatably become characters within there own right. The Infrastructure and limitations of the necessary use of the Freeway in order to move between place, has a certain control over the tempo of the narrative and action of the characters. It takes us away from the more traditional sights of the City, The skyscrapers, the HOLLYWOOD icon and we as an audience become geographical lost at times, as a result we juxtapose our identification back and forth between Vincent and Max. During the film we encounter a lone coyote passing through the streets. The scene serves place functionality in two ways, firstly it is a reminder of the geographical location, and reminds us of the bleak dessert that surrounds the city. Secondly and more importantly this is the moment when Vincent realizes his own vulnerability, He has the self realization that he is not completely in control and is reliant on Max, or Max’s knowledge of the city, to navigate him safely around L.A. Just like the coyote, Vincent himself is a lone predator lost and out of place, in an unknown territory.
From the examples illustrated, we can see that the city and various places within the ‘city walls’ play an important part within a film. The locations and spaces are more times than not Characters themselves, often allowing us to identify and sympathize with the key players through previous knowledge of the environment, whether this is from a real life experience or from other cinematic representations of the same city. The places from which the narrative arises from is a critical part of the story telling process, and can provide an audience with an invaluable subtext when reading a visual narrative.
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Bibliography
Clarke. D. B. (ed) (1997) The Cinematic City, Routledge
Donald. J, Squires. J (ed) (1993) Space and Place, Theories of identity and Location, London: Lawrence and Wishart.
James. N, (2002) Heat; BFI Modern Classic, BFI Publishing
Shiel. M, Fitzmaurice.T (ed) (2003) Screening The City, London, Verso
*Fox K (2002) Space and Place In a critical Dictionary of Film and Television Theory (eds) Pearson and Simpson, London Routledge
Filmography
By The Book (Williamson, 2003)
Code Blue (Williamson, 2003)
Collateral (Mann, 2004)
Dark Blue (Sheldon, 2002)
Heat (Mann, 1995)
Planet of the Apes (Schaffner 1968)
Snake Eyes (De Palma, 1988)
Web Addresses
Dark Blue by Nigel Watson
by Joe Baltake-The Sacromento Bee
By William Arnold
