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City In Film - San Francisco Post

Mar 16, 2008 14:07

San Francisco, CA and the surrounding "Bay Area" is a unique corner of the United States. The city's distinct personality and charm attracts many people to live there, as only 35% of the people living there are native San Franciscans. Our national conception of this city is varied, as there are many unique things about it, it's thriving asian and LGBTQ communities, it's progressive laws and government, but most people think of the physical sights when they think of San Francisco. Cable cars, rolling hills, and arguably the most recognizable bridge in the country. The city also has an unusually high crime rate, and this is shown in the two films I watched, as both storylines revolve around people literally getting away with murder.

Zodiac
You know what I like? The TV show Law & Order. It's ridiculously formulaic. Somebody finds a body, they run the opening credits, the police investigate for half an hour, then the lawyers do their thing for 20 minutes, they figure out how to convict the person, and everything gets wrapped up in a neat little package in the last 5 minutes. You know what i don't like? Watching someone with little to no police or lawyer resources, struggling to do the same thing, failing(i.e. no neat little package), and writing a book about it. Oh, and it's two and a half hours long. That was my take on the movie.
As far as the conception of San Francisco, it shows many of the classic images we would expect. Steamships in the bay, lots of rain and fog, hills, etc. It also shows a time-lapse of the uniquely-shaped Transamerica Pyramid being built.

Basic Instinct
You know what else I like? Law & Order plus cocaine, lies, and character development! A thrilling plot. Halfway through this movie, if you don't know how it ends, you could genuinely believe that any of the main characters could be the murderer. In fact, at one point I even had a theory that it was Michael Douglas in a wig. Oh, and the twist ending was just twisted enough to please me. I don't know why, but I found it believable. This movie also shows a few shots of the Transamerica Tower, but there is less emphasis on it. There is a long shot of the Golden Gate Bridge, sudden pouring rain, and of course those cute bay windows you see on EVERY APARTMENT BUILDING DOWNTOWN.

Although the films are entirely different stylistically and just in general plot, they share the very common thread of being based around people trying to identify a murderer, and unable to do so. They both contain cops who believe they know exactly who the murderer is, but can't do anything about it due to a lack of the proper evidence. "Just because you can't prove it doesn't mean it's not true" is stated in Zodiac, but I think it applies to both plots. These movies are also both set in San Francisco, the second most densely populated city in the US. The city has an abnormally high rate of both violent and property crimes, and just last year there were 98 homocides, more than there have been in over 10 years. How many of those murders were committed with ice picks, that I do not know...
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