Movie Details
| Title: | The Naked City | |
| Director: | Jules Dassin | |
| Year: | 1948 | |
| Genre: | Noir | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 11.03.06 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (4)
- Brute Force
- Night and the City
- Thieves' Highway
- Topkapi
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 11.03.06 | DVR | This Screening is part of event: DVRfest 2006 Since I knew that Sunrise dealt, at least in some way, with "the city" I figured this would make a great refresher to rejuvinate my spirit. This is the movie that spawned the TV show and also stodd as one of the first "docu-noirs" that shades noirish crime tales with authoritarian near-documentary tone and process. TONS of NYC location shooting, all authentic look and feel, and a good ol' fashioned crime mystery. There are 8 million stories in the Naked City. This is one of them. I'd actually seen this a long time ago. Since then though, I've been turned on to Dassin's other works (Rififi, Night and the City), and I have to say his eye for location, wherever he is, is pretty sweet. This one has tons of late 40s New York scenery... I'd really love if someone did a shot for shot remake of this today just to see how much the city's changed and how much it's stayed the same. Of course, seen with today's eyes this is your basic episode of CSI:NY... but you have to respect the change of pace for back in its day. The film's narrated by the producer, who introduces the movies and the stars at the beginning and throws in running commentary as the movie progresses. There's great use of a truly omniscient point of view here, occasionally even dipping into random people's heads to hear a line or two of their thoughts as voice-over. The camera goes all over the city, picking up our cops and shady characters and whatnot as they become worth watching, filling in backstory whenever we need it, and showing the passage of time and the story's context in the lives of everyone else. For a prototype of today's police procedurals, you can't really do much better. I really like this movie. I've never seen any of the TV show though... I wonder if they're anywhere near as good. So now that the sun's down it's time to move on to a movie I've found myself wanting to see over the past several months. It was on randomly last night and therefore became a late addition to the schedule... a movie starring Bill Pullman and Pill Paxton, having plenty to do with brains... meandering coiveover people... random thoughts |
