The Cinapse Selects column is written by our team on rotation, focusing on films that are past their marketing cycle. Maybe we’ll select a silent film, cult classic, or forgotten gem. We’re all about thoughtfully advocating film, new and old, and celebrating what we love. So join us as we share about what we’re discovering, and hopefully you’ll find some new films for your watch list, or some validation that others love what you love too!
For me, one of the biggest takeaways from this past awards season was the still-unbelievable notion that so many people were enchanted by La La Land. As someone who saw the film twice, I cannot help but say that I was NOT one of those people. It’s not that the leads were bad (Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone were in fact pitch perfect and earned every bit of acclaim they received) or that the script was sub-par (Damien Chazelle’s gift for dialogue remains impeccable). Instead, it was the fact that the song and dance numbers seemed to be competing with the timeless story of dreamers struggling to cope with reality. As a result, the film felt at odds with itself, pausing its efforts of diving into the pitfalls of romance and failure in tinsel town to sing an upbeat tune. It was a structure that, for me, just didn’t work. It did keep me going back to another dreamy tale set in L.A. which dealt with love in a way that mixed the romanticism of the city with a slick blend of magical realism and effective humor. For anyone who hasn’t seen it, 1991’s L.A. Story is the true La La Land.
Produced by and starring the great Steve Martin from his own screenplay, L.A. Story sees the actor take on the role of Harris K. Telemacher, a Los Angeles TV weatherman seeped in his own neuroses. Besides a highly compromised relationship with a style-conscious girlfriend named Trudi (Marilu Henner), Harris feels more or less satisfied with his day-to-day existence. However when he receives a cryptic message from an electronic highway sign, he begins to reevaluate his life. Before he knows it, Harris finds himself confiding in the sign as it predicts a number of changes which begin to happen, including a fling with a free-spirited shopgirl named SanDeE* (Sarah Jessica Parker) and an unexpected attraction to a visiting London reporter named Sara (Victoria Tennant).
A large portion of the comedy from L.A. Story is pure Martin played front and center while managing to maintain cleverness. There’s a scene in an L.A. museum where Harris and the others are facing the camera, looking at a painting the audience cannot see. Harris proceeds to comment extensively on it’s heavily sexual features. “Look how he’s painted the blouse sort of translucent,” he notes. “You can just make out her breasts underneath and it’s sort of touching him about here.” Eventually the camera reveals the painting to be nothing more than a large canvas painted red. Other comedic bits in the film can be considered straight up gags, including a slo-mo function on bathroom showers which allows people to actually shower in slow motion, and a museum of musical history which contains “Beethoven’s balls.” These laughs work best when used to gently poke fun at many L.A. stereotypes, including when Harris refers to the city as “a real weenie shrinker” when the temperature drops down to the high 50s, or when he and SanDeE* emerge from their dinner date and approach an ATM which contains two lines – one for customers and one for robbers. Nothing about the city is off limits for Martin and his screenplay, from its architecture: “some of these houses are almost 20 years old,” Harris states as he drives Sarah through a historical L.A. neighborhood), to restaurant culture: “Gee, I’m done already and I don’t remember eating, remarks Harris after looking at the tiny portion of food he’s been served.
Quick laughs aside, Martin doesn’t waste the opportunity to engage in some good old fashioned, yet heightened, satirical humor in order to showcase the city’s otherworldly side. This is done most brilliantly with the film’s opening, which tips its hat to Fellini as it showcases its version of Los Angeles. There are traffic signs proclaiming, “Uh, like walk,” neighbors running in slow motion while wearing pastel pajamas and robes, waving to each other and picking up their papers all in sync, pedestrians wearing gas masks on their way to work and signs which state notices such as, “Libra parking only.” The film’s lunch sequence in which Harris and Trudi meet up with a group of friends and acquaintances at a popular eatery represents the sheer outrageousness of L.A. culture in ways small (a bride and groom in full gown and tux are shown having brunch by themselves at a nearby table) and large (an earthquake takes place in the middle of the meal, alarming no one at the table as they continue with their food and conversations).The only time L.A. Story takes things a bit over the top is the scene in which Harris tries to make reservations at the most exclusive restaurant in the city. The restaurant, named “Le Idiot,” is shown to be so incredibly concerned with who eats there that Harris is forced to meet with the manager (a hilarious Patrick Stewart), the sous chef, an accountant, and an attorney at a bank to see if he’s financially stable and desirable enough to be a patron. With everything, from his credit background, to where he spends his summers, to what he and his date may order should they be allowed in, called into question, the scene is a bit much, but every inch hilarious.
As uproarious as L.A. Story is, the film never forgets how to be somewhat philosophical. Many telling musings occur in the scenes between Harris and Sara as they begin to realize how attracted they are to one another, making their courtship all the most exciting. “Ordinarily, I don’t like to be around interesting people because it means I have to be interesting too,” Harris tells her at one point. “Are you saying I’m interesting?” she responds. “All I’m saying is that, when I’m around you, I find myself showing off, which is the idiot’s version of being interesting.” At the same time, there’s a poetic side to the characters in L.A. Story, each of whom contains their own unique sensitivity and romanticism. Nowhere is this more beautifully illustrated than in the moment when Sara, noticing a group of roller skaters, recalls a story from her childhood when she tried rollerskating, which ended with her crashing into another skater who gently looked into her eyes and said: “little lady, let your mind go…and your body will follow.” The most fulfilling aspect of the film is its take on romance. with Harris’s continuous narration containing a number of profound and truthful takes on the emotion, such as: “A kiss may not be true, but it’s what we wish was true,” and “Why is it that we don’t always recognize the moment when love begins, but we always know when it ends?”
L.A. Story takes the full advantage of Martin’s many skills in ways few other films of his have ever been able to. The actor nails every comedic moment through either full-on deadpan or wild zaniness. Meanwhile, he projects an earnestness and a soulfulness during times when Harris feels disenchanted or in love. He’s equally matched by the women in the film. Henner nails self-absorbed and bitchy, while Parker is wonderfully free-spirited with a dash of cleverness thrown in. Tennant manages some laughs of her own, but her strength here is as the straight man. She plays Sara with such a deep curiosity and sensitivity that we literally are able to watch the character fall in love with Harris. Rounding out the cast are a large assortment of of throwaway, yet wholly enjoyable, cameo appearances. Besides Stewart, there’s Rick Moranis as a humorous gravedigger, Woody Harrelson as Harris’s boss, Chevy Chase as a frustrated restaurant patron, George Plimpton as a rival weatherman, and Paula Abdul as a roller skater.
Maybe it’s because no one knew what to do with a Steve Martin film that was part romantic comedy and part high-concept experiment, but the studio chose to dump the film on a wide release in the doldrums of February, where even the actor’s most loyal of fans struggled to make it a hit. Despite this, Martin and the film both received near unanimous praise from every major critic who embraced the film’s comedy and loving jestful look at L.A. In the years since, the movie has been voted both one of the greatest comedies ever made by the American Film Institute and one of the best L.A.-centric films by The Los Angeles Times.
L.A. Story is a film which earns the right to be called whimsical. It possesses a poetry and a romantic air about it which it wisely never plays up for any longer than necessary. As a result, the film becomes one of the strongest love letters to the city ever put to film in ways which extend beyond just the beautiful shots of iconic L.A. landmarks like the Hard Rock Cafe or the Venice Beach boardwalk. Although this is a film made squarely for the ‘90s, it operates on such a universal wavelength that hairstyles, clothes, and cars aside, it can’t help but feel timeless. La La Land may be the film which many will point to when asked which film exemplifies the dreamy power of Los Angeles. But that film will never be able to exist in its own reality or make such great use of magical realism the way L.A. Story so effortlessly does. Maybe the reason for this can be found in the essence of that line both Sara and Harris find themselves unexpectedly reciting, which signifies the heart and soul of what makes L.A. Story both instantly embraceable and deceptively profound. “Let your mind go…and your body will follow.”
