NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU
From the production team that brought us Paris, Je t’aime, comes the next installment in the great cities in the eyes of many directors tour. Emmanuel Benbihy’s concept is to present some of his favorite places (next up Rio, Shanghai, Jerusalem, Mumbai) with an emphasis on emotion, as he puts it “My idea was always to make a collection of movies that would illustrate the universal idea of love around the world.” So we have two concepts: multi-director movie and the love of the mythic city. This time, obviously, the bulls eye lands on my city: New York.
Warning! I am one of those annoying people who truly believes that New York is, hands down, the greatest city on earth, constantly rhapsodizing about it nostalgically (ah the 80s) when I’m not there and both loving it and being annoyed by it when I’m living there. No matter that I wasn’t born there, nor have I even lived most of my life there, it will always be my home, the place where I belong, despite my lack of wealth and because I’m just weird. All of that is to say that the audacity of present a holistic view of a city with 8 million people, and attempting to communicate what keeps them coming was something I envisioned as pure folly. Part of the problem was the Paris attempt. That being said, and despite the producer’s stated goals, it sort of succeeds. It wasn’t overly emotional, not at all maudlin, more lovingly cynical than in wide-eyed: all in all pretty spot on New York. From Maggie Q’s high class hooker to James Caan’s nosy pharmacist there’s mostly a knowing acceptance of the chaos, energy, beauty and intelligence that makes it a city like no other.
In general, I am not a fan of the multi-director format: it is always, inevitably uneven. Perhaps if one could have wrangled the best directors of a particular era like say Ford, Hitchcock, Wilder, Kurosawa, Bresson...oh but that’s just ridiculous, isn’t it. Usually, and this is what I felt happened with the Paris version, some director’s phoned their segment in, while others fully invested themselves and ran with it. Since there were no connections between the episodes the effect was jarring, very much un-Paris, another place I feel very connected to, having lived there for a short while. This time the production seems more well constructed, less haphazardly slammed together, there is a flow and overlap, again, very New York given the space limits of the place. The transitions between segments are smooth, characters and locations overlap. The result is that the strongest (or your personal favorite bits) smooth over the ones you might find less interesting. For me, the standouts were by Shekhar Kapur with Julie Christie, John Hurt and Shia LeBeouf; Fatih Akin’s portrayal of a painter’s inspiration; Brett Rattner’s take on a prom date dilemma and Maggie Q sparring with Ethan Hawke as a rambling, procrastinating writer directed by Yvan Attal. On the other hand, a waste of the phenomenal talent of ballet star, Carlos Acosta.
It is all lovely and loving if a little too precious. The current rap on my city is that it has become a bit to antiseptic: tourists all neatly cordoned off in Times Square and the meatpacking district while the international jet set turns the rest of it (Manhattan, that is) into their own private island. That’s one way of looking at it, and this film, unfortunately doesn’t challenge that perspective too strenuously. I guess nobody wanted to venture into Harlem or Washington Heights. But those people are still there (if fewer), and that gritty edge, the struggle, that true clash of cultures are all what also makes us love New York. I guess it was a snapshot of a New York: I found somethings that I recognized but, in the end it wasn’t the New York, I love.
New York, I Love You opens October 16, 2009.
Produced by Emanuel Benbihy and Marina Grasic; directed by Jiang Wen, Mira Nair, Shunji Iwai, Yvan Attal, Brett Ratner, Allen Hughes, Shekhar Kapur, Natalie Portman, Fatih Akin, Joshua Marston and Randy Balsmeyer; written by Hu Hong and Meng Yao from a story by Israel Horowitz, Suketu Mehta, Shunji Iwai, Olivier Lecot and Yvan Attal, Jeff Nathanson, Xan Cassavetes and Stephen Winter, Anthony Minghella, Natalie Portman, Fatih Akin, Joshua Marston, Hall Powell, Israel Horowitz and James Strouse. Released by Vivendi Entertainment.
With: Hayden Christensen (Ben); Andy Garcia (Garry); Molly (Rachel Bilson); Natalie Portman (Rifka); Irrfan Khan (Mansukhbhai); Orlando Bloom (David); Christina Ricci (Camille); Maggie Q (Call Girl); Ethan Hawke (Writer); Chris Cooper (Alex); Robin Wright Penn (Anna); Anton Yelchin (Boy); James Caan (Mr. Riccoli); Olivia Thirlby (Actress); Blake Lively (Ex-Girlfriend); Julie Christie (Isabelle); John Hurt (Bellhop); Shia LeBeouf (Jacob); Tey (Taylor Geare); Carlos Acosta (Dante); Jacinda Barrett (Maggie); Ugur Yucel (Painter); Shu Qi (Chinese Herbalist); Eli Wallach (Abe); Cloris Leachman (Mitzie); Drea De Matteo (Lydia) and Bradley Cooper (Gus.)
