Fun City Cinema

New York City and the Movies that Made It

By: Jason Bailey, Matt Zoller Seitz (Foreword by)

Write A Review

eBook | 26 October 2021

At a Glance

Format
ePUB

eBook

RRP $45.63

$36.99

19%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $9.25 with

Instant Digital Delivery to your Booktopia Reader App

A visual history of 100 years of filmmaking in New York City, featuring exclusive interviews with NYC filmmakers

Fun City Cinema gives readers an in-depth look at how the rise, fall, and resurrection of New York City was captured and chronicled in ten iconic Gotham films across ten decades: The Jazz Singer (1927), King Kong (1933), The Naked City (1948), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), Midnight Cowboy (1969), Taxi Driver (1976), Wall Street (1987), Kids (1995), 25th Hour (2002), and Frances Ha (2012). A visual history of a great American city in flux, Fun City Cinema reveals how these classic films and legendary filmmakers took their inspiration from New York City’s grittiness and splendor, creating what we can now view as “accidental documentaries” of the city’s modes and moods.

In addition to the extensively researched and reported text, the book includes both historical photographs and ephemera, as well as still-frames, behind-the-scenes photos, production materials from each film and original interviews with Noah Baumbach, Larry Clark, Greta Gerwig, Walter Hill, Jerry Schatzberg, Martin Scorsese, Susan Seidelman, Oliver Stone, and Jennifer Westfeldt. Extensive “Now Playing” sidebars spotlight a handful of each decade’s additional films of note.

About the Author

Jason Bailey is a film critic and historian. A graduate of the Cultural Reporting and Criticism program at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, his work has appeared at the New York Times, Vulture, Slate, VICE, Flavorwire, The Atlantic, Salon, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, The Playlist, The Dissolve, and Crooked Marquee. He lives in the Bronx with his wife and two daughters. Fun City Cinema is his fifth book.