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Cortland Rankin, Decline and Reimagination in Cinematic New York (Routledge, 2023)

Raphaëlle Costa de Beauregard
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Cortland Rankin, Decline and Reimagination in Cinematic New York (Routledge, 2023)

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1Cortland Rankin’s book has 250 pages and numerous illustrations in black and white (totaling 5 figures with an average of 8 plates each). The opening table of contents lists five chapters, an introduction, an epilogue by way of conclusion, a useful filmography (3 pages) and an equally useful index (16 pages). The book gives useful information on a field of research which, though surprising at first, covers a wide range of subjects of interest. Detailed information about representative films is made available to the reader, while the wide range of films which are considered shows the subject to be rich in discoveries about little known events. Specialists will also appreciate the method with which the corpus is approached, which allows for different points of view at different periods, and their evolution in time. Those who are familiar with New York will enjoy detailed information about different districts of the city. The general argument points at the role of artistic performance and creativity in the rebirth of the city: it celebrates the importance of freedom of expression and the originality of new artistic trends, the creations by Jean Michel Basquiat appearing as an emblem of such a renewal. But to researchers in film studies, it is the wealth of sources which have been consulted, as well as a definition of cinema as essential to popular as well as learned culture which makes this book a model of the genre.

2In the introduction, Cortland Rankin explains his aims and then proceeds to give a short presentation of each chapter. To start with, this book has two primary goals. Firstly, it brings the dominant cinematic discourse of urban decline into dialogue with marginal perspectives that re-imagine the city of New York. Secondly, it highlights the importance of highly versatile representational elements, such as derelict spaces and urban nature. On the other hand, this book also distinguishes itself by its approach to the films analyzed in the light of the concepts of creativity, possibility and difference, in order to explore the specific concept of reimagination. For example, filmmakers have embraced the enhanced social freedom afforded by a less restrictive urban environment and the artistic inspiration offered by social and economic malaise.

3Chapter one (p. 13-49) opens with an overview of the theme of ruins in visual arts. The filmmakers used ruined locales as a metaphysical trope of the Wasteland. Disused industrial sites, abandoned residential and commercial buildings, and vacant lots provided the profilmic setting. The historical context is briefly recalled: from the 1960s to 1980s, manufacturers relocated in semi-rural sites or overseas. Thus, jobs disappeared, but the physical structures of the industrial city remained. The South Bronx in particular became an emblem of a certain type of neighborhood: useless, ugly and dangerous. The main narrative functions identified by the author are arenas for action (e.g. Fort Apache, the Bronx, Daniel Petrie, 1981) and metaphors for the breakdown of civic institutions and personal trauma (e.g. Black Caesar, Larry Cohen, 1973).

4Chapter two (p. 50-88) examines how both Hollywood and exploitation filmmakers in comedies, crime films, horror films, and science fiction films, represent the city’s decline as a return to a ‘savage’ state of nature. Several methods are identified by the author in close analyses of films: either the reconfiguring of parks as dangerous wilderness (e.g. Cruising, William Friedkin, 1980), the deployment of racist theories of animality, savagery, and monstrosity (e.g. Wolfen, Michael Wadleigh, 1981), or else, the repositioning of New York as a frontier space through the conventions of the Western (e.g. Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese, 1976).

5In the films discussed in chapter three (p. 89-131), there is a tendency to reimagine the social use value of derelict urban spaces. Firstly, as an intentional political act of resistance. Examples which are studied in detail are A Thousand Clowns (Fred Coe, 1965) and Times Square (Allan Moyle, 1980). And yet in some films, this ideology appears quite unintended by the filmmakers’ subject position, as in 80 Blocks from Tiffany’s (Gary Weis, 1979) and Garbage (Newsreel, 1968). However, other films are explicit documentaries: Simpson Street (William Sarokin 1979) is about displaced tenants, social workers, and community leaders who rebuilt the Hunts Point neighborhood of the South Bronx in 1977. As Rankin argues, the latter group of films show that revitalization efforts which emerge out of and serve communities themselves are crucial in safeguarding the interests of those most impacted.

6Chapter four (p. 132-171) shows that in the 1970s, two waves of artistic innovation took place: first in the East Village and the Lower East Side of Manhattan, rechristened SoHo, and second, in Central Brooklyn and the South Bronx, with another innovation group, in the form of hip-hop music, graffiti writing and breakdancing. In this chapter, the first section examines how the city’s vacant sites served as professional venues, the second section addresses the experimental and documentary effects of visual artists to reframe detritus, dereliction, and demolition. The last section focuses on how both documentary and fiction films articulate the role of derelict space in the city’s new emerging culture.

7The vacant city provided room to move and a performance stage. The Broadway musical The Wiz (1975) and Sidney Lumet’s 1977 film The Munchkins materialize out of the graffiti wall. Dorothy and Toto revivify the moribund quarters of Oz, as its inhabitants are one by one en route to see the Wizard. The experimental film Scotch Tape (Jack Smith, 1962) is also analyzed in detail, followed by a study of Songdelay (Joan Jonas, 1973). Such films show the extraordinary creativity that such vacant city space allowed to develop. Between 1978 and 1985, a non-profit arts organization called Creative Time, commissioned a number of artistic pieces for The Beach, an empty land located next to Manhattan’s Financial District. Several of these shows are analysed in detail by the author.

8Yet, the section on reframing detritus, dereliction and destruction provides even more exciting reading. The art of Gordon Matta-Clark is analysed, in particular in his film Splitting (1974), as well as Rudy Burckhardt’s 1972 film Doldrums. The chapter then turns to a discussion of graffiti as a response to the Derelict City, mostly Jean-Michel Basquiat’s. The 1983 documentary Style Wars (Tony Silver) explores subway graffiti within the context of the city’s hip-hop scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s, while Wild Style (Charlie Ahearn, 1983) fictionalizes a celebration of graffiti’s regenerative potential.

9As the title of chapter five (p. 172-215) “Greening the City: Reimagining the Nature of New York” indicates, the first section of the chapter covers a corpus of films from Hollywood to poetic documentaries and experimental films that celebrate city parks as utopian spaces of social openness and artistic experimentation. In the first section, Rankin analyzes two films adapted from popular stage musicals that fully reimagine Central Park as a utopian space: Godspell (David Greene, 1973) and Hair (Milos Forman, 1979). The second section concerns films focusing on ecological features of nature. Two films, City Pasture (Rudy Burkhardt, 1974) and Sonatina & Fugue (Rudy Burkhardt, 1980) exemplify the aesthetic means by which the city and nature are linked. Other films on this topic develop the conflicts between natural and industrialized worlds and the necessity of ecological networks, using New York as an example. In this respect, Organism (Hilary Harris, 1975) reimagines the city in biological terms. Other significant films are analyzed, such as Peter Hutton’s important New York Trilogy (1978, 1980, 1990).

10By way of conclusion, the “Epilogue” (p. 216-229) discusses the legacies of the films discussed in the five chapters, adding information about films such the New Black Cinema’s ghetto crime cinema or The Hole (Courtney Fathom Sele and Billy Feldman, 2010). In the latter film, at once pre-modern New York and post-apocalyptic New York are conflated, rewriting the history of the city. My personal conclusion is that this book, on the whole, is highly original and has a great wealth of information about films which are not always well known. The book would therefore be a valuable addition to any university library for students and researchers to discover. It is also a relevant source of information and interest for specialists of the topic.

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Raphaëlle Costa de Beauregard, Cortland Rankin, Decline and Reimagination in Cinematic New York (Routledge, 2023)Film journal [Online], 10 | 2024, Online since 01 December 2024, connection on 09 July 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/filmj/1272; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/130ul

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Raphaëlle Costa de Beauregard

Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès

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