As the heat arrives, movie season commences in L.A., with the Academy Museum on Miracle Mile showcasing their “Summer in the City: Los Angeles Block by Block” series. These films show off various L.A. neighborhoods, offering perspectives from both natives and outsiders. The series is set to go until August 31.
The program was originally inspired by the epic 2003 documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself and has spurred its programming team to select 41 films each focusing on different neighborhoods or perspectives on L.A.
Categories and scopes of films can cover much creative ground, ranging from the dystopian Escape from L.A. to the bubbly 90s flick Clueless. Other categories, like contemporary films, screenplays from international directors, and black and white movies are also on the docket, leaving viewers plenty of options when it comes to style and L.A. neighborhoods.
Patrick Lowry, a manager in the film program department at the museum and life-long Angeleno, stated, “Oftentimes when people think about Los Angeles films, they think about the Hollywood sign or the Sunset Strip.”
Lowry and others in the museum’s programming team convened to discuss and decide what does and does not make a proper L.A. movie, forming a list of qualifying films and reasons for what makes those films stand out.
The program aims to educate people on obscure aspects of different locales and histories in L.A. “Thinking about Devil in a Blue Dress,” comments film programs coordinator Sari Navarro, “I had no idea until I saw that film that Central Avenue was like our jazz space.”
Since the programmers wanted to incorporate as much of L.A. as possible into the summer series, the team of five brainstormed, as director of film programs K.J. Relth-Miller notes “We must have had over a hundred titles that we were considering.” As such, only so many films could make the cut.
Movies that could accurately and precisely map out L.A. were prioritized over those that often air in the city or otherwise focus too much on L.A.’s film industry, such as The Player and Die Hard.
Relth-Miller commented, “It was really thinking about trying to get as granular in detail with the different neighborhoods that represent the whole of Los Angeles as we possibly could… It is a way to view my city through different eyes that I really appreciate.”
These “different eyes” not only include local filmmakers highlighting their neighborhoods, but also “outsiders,” such as French director Jaques Demy and Japanese director Takeshi Kitano, to see how others view L.A.
Programming team member Sari Navarro also sought to bring in other experiences, such as those offered by films like Quinceñera, which portrays the neighborhood Echo Park and the beginnings of its gentrification. Navarro, as an L.A. native, stated “I grew up within the areas of Silver Lake and Echo Park around the time that that film came out,” noting the film’s 2006 release date. “That really made it L.A to me.”
Persons coming in from outside L.A. have had to create their own spaces, as Hyesung ii, associate director of film programs and L.A. resident since 2009, says she needed to “build some kind of space and sense of belonging.” Films like Valley Girl, a retelling of Romeo and Juliet filmed in the 80s, have helped him feel more comfortable, explaining, “My very initial experience of L.A. was the valley. It has a very very distinctive culture to me as an outsider.”
Another programming team member, Patrick Lowry, also selected films based on personal reasons. “Having grown up around Hollywood and Miracle Mile area, I’ve just always loved seeing my local neighborhood on screen,” he admits in lieu of the upcoming 35mm screening of Miracle Mile. “I guess I had never seen a disaster movie filmed in L.A. before,” Lowry says.
The film was shot across the street from the Academy Museum and highlights more conspicuous locations like the La Brea Tar Pits and Johnie’s Coffee Shop.
40-year-long L.A. resident and specialist in the films program department Robert Reneau says his favorite spot in L.A., the Los Angeles Theatre in DTLA, is also his favorite one to see on screen. “It’s just extraordinary how many films and TV episodes this location shows up in,” Renau notes. “[The theater] is like a microcosm of Hollywood…it’s an amazing thing in and of itself, but it can substitute for places all around the world.”
For Relth-Miller, seeing neighborhoods on the silver screen prior to a major change makes for the most exciting films. “The perfect example of that is Bunker Hill,” says Relth-Miller, “this neighborhood that was historically kind of targeted as a location of blight and basically demolished.”
Screening in June, the movie The Exiles takes place in DTLA and portrays indigenous residents living and navigating through Bunker Hill. “That film in particular is just such a special view into not just a culture,” Relth-Miller explains, “but also a neighborhood that truly is unrecognizable from what it is today.”
Lowry also mentions the movie finishing out the series, Escape from L.A., a dystopian film which lets viewers glimpse a 50s and 90s L.A. which may be a “vision of what Los Angeles may end up looking like at some point.”
