Night and The City- the best London film ever?
Jeremy Smith has compiled a list : ‘The signature film of every major city’. London is the only British city to make the list. And the choice of film? Night and the City, a great London noir film.
A blacklisted American filmmaker in London summoned up his rage and resentment to make one of the nastiest noirs of of the 1950s. Perhaps a non-Englander’s perspective is required to place this film above the numerous classics shot in this prominent world capital, but there is something about Dassin’s lensing of London as a city of granite and steel — a hard place with no give — that leaves you aching once the tawdry tale is finished. Honorable mention: Lean’s “Brief Encounter,” Mackenzie’s “The Long Good Friday,” Crichton’s “The Lavender Hill Mob,” Cammell/Roeg’s “Performance,” Leigh’s “Naked,” Wright’s “Shaun of the Dead” and Boorman’s “Hope and Glory.”
Posted: 19th, September 2019 | In: Film Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
