World Film Locations: Los Angeles

World Film Locations: Los Angeles (Book)

Edited by Gabriel Solomons, Jared Cowan and Fabrice Ziolkowski

World Film Locations: Los Angeles is an engaging and highly visual city-wide tour of both well known and slightly lesser known films shot on location in one of the birthplaces of cinema and the ‘screen spectacle’. It pairs 50 synopses of carefully chosen film scenes with evocative full-colour film stills.

Category: Film Studies, World Cinema

Series: World Film Locations

Recommend to your library

Request a review copy

Request an inspection copy

Edition

The heart of Hollywood’s star-studded film industry for more than a century, Los Angeles and its abundant and ever-changing locales – from the Santa Monica Pier to the infamous and now-defunct Ambassador Hotel – have set the scene for a wide variety of cinematic treasures, from Chinatown to Forrest Gump, Falling Down to the coming-of-age classic Boyz n The Hood. This volume marks an engaging citywide tour of the many films shot on location in this birthplace of cinema and the screen spectacle.

World Film Locations: Los Angeles pairs fifty incisive synopses of carefully chosen film scenes – both famous and lesser-known – with an accompanying array of evocative full-colour film stills, demonstrating how motion pictures have contributed to the multifarious role of the city in our collective consciousness, as well as how key cinematic moments reveal aspects of its life and culture that are otherwise largely hidden from view. Insightful essays throughout turn the spotlight on the important directors, thematic elements and historical periods that provide insight into Los Angeles and its vibrant cinematic culture. Rounding out this information are city maps with information on how to locate key features, as well as photographs showing featured locations as they appear now.

A guided tour of the City of Angels conducted by the likes of Robert Altman, Nicholas Ray, Michael Mann and Roman Polanski, World Film Locations: Los Angeles is a concise and user-friendly guide to how Los Angeles has captured the imaginations of both filmmakers and those of us sitting transfixed in theatres worldwide.

Gabriel Solomons is a senior lecturer in graphic design at the University of the West of England in Bristol, UK. He is chief editor of both the Big Picture magazine and Intellect's World Film Locations series.

Jared Cowan is a contributing writer and photographer for a number of Los Angeles-based publications including Los Angeles Magazine, L.A. Weekly and L.A. TACO.

Fabrice Ziolkowski is a professional screenwriter and filmmaker. His writing credits include the 2010 Oscar-nominated feature The Secret of Kells.

Maps/Scenes

Scenes 1-8 – 1923-1955

Scenes 9-16 – 1955-1977

Scenes 17-24 – 1978-1991

Scenes 25-32 – 1991-1994

Scenes 33-41 – 1994-1998

Scenes 42-50 – 1998-2011

Essays

Los Angeles: City of the Imagination – Michael S Duffy

California Slapstick: On Location Film-Making Gets Rolling – Nicola Balkind

Black Dynamite: Film Noir and Los Angeles in the Shadows – Andrew Spicer

Getting Played: Hollywood, South Central and the Space Between – Benjamin Wiggins

Welcome to Hell-A – Martin Zeller-Jacques

Living in A Mann's World: Michael Mann’s L.A. – Wael Khairy

Eurovisions: Alternative Views of the Hollywood Landscape – Michael S Duffy

Each of the chapters/Scenes is followed by a succinct but authoritative essay that explores a significant aspect of filmmaking pertinent to the city.

Screening the Past Lynn Smailes

Bics

Film scripts & screenplays, Film theory & criticism, Films, cinema

Bisacs

PERFORMING ARTS / Film / General, PERFORMING ARTS / Film / History & Criticism, PERFORMING ARTS / Film / Reference

Related Titles