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Celluloid Skyline: New York and the Movies,
by James Sanders.
Billed as a "tale of two cities
- both called 'New York'," James Sanders - a practicing
architect and a co-writer of Ric Burns's New
York: A Documentary Film - takes a look at the
real and the mythic city through the medium of movies. The
book begins at the beginning, when the movie camera was
invented and New York City was its star in 19th century
"actualities", scenes of daily life in the big
city. Moving on to Hollywood's constructed reality, where
the Big Apple was recreated and redefined in the eyes of
expatriate writers and other creatives, the book abandons
a chronological take in the second half, in favor of a typological
and place-based analysis. Sanders examination of movie New
York is extremely thorough and abundantly illustrated, be
it film stills, production sketches, behind-the-scenes photos,
and reference images of the real city. The author finds
meaning in a diverse range of films, from obvious classics
like Rear Window to popular entertainments like
Splash. A thirteen-page filmography illustrates
the wealth of features that use New York City as its setting
and the time-intensive research the author undertook. The
reader is that much better off for Sanders's perseverance
and obvious love of film, apparent not only in the amazing
book but the equally-impressive web
page, a visually delightful and educational online incarnation.
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