A Desultory Tour of Westwood

One rainy afternoon last week I went to see "Dreamgirls" in Westwood. Afterwards, on impulse, I started shooting mpeg movies with my still camera. This is an attempt to tease a meaningful theme out of footage that I shot randomly, with no theme whatsoever in mind. I attended UCLA Film School, so Westwood Village was my college town. It was also, in the 1970s and '80s, the movie-going center of Los Angeles. It took that title away from Hollywood Boulevard as the "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" succumbed to urban blight. On weekends the sidewalks of the Village were shoulder-to-shoulder with people. And, inevitably, the problems that had tarnished Hollywood's glitter migrated to Westwood. Cruising teenagers clogged the streets; the homeless poured in; gang fights broke out. Then in the late eighties, state-of-the-art multiplexes opened in nearby Century City and Santa Monica. Westwood's big old single-screen theaters couldn't compete with the ease, safety and variety of the new venues. By the mid-nineties, the Village was practically a ghost town. The two most prominent Westwood theaters, the Village and the Bruin, supplement their shrinking ticket sales by hosting major studio premieres. But one by one, the other Westwood theaters are going out of business. Various revitalization schemes have been tried, and have largely failed, often thwarted by homeowners who fear increased traffic, crime, etc. But it's only a matter of time before a multiplex and a modern shopping center are built. And then, maybe, the people will come back. And no doubt there will be pledges to "preserve the character" of Westwood. But whatever remains of the old village will exist only as a replica of itself. A couple things to note: The domed, temple-like building in the middle of town was once a bank. Then it became a clothing store, then a music store. Now it's Eurochow, one of LA's top "power" restaurants. ...actually, for all I know that's wrong. Eurochow may have suddenly fallen from favor while I wasn't paying attention. A common occurrence in LA. The two courtyard office buildings that I walk through are where I dreamed, back when I was a film student, that I would someday rent space for my production company. Ah, the delusions of youth. Now my "production company" is my computer and this room. The Village Theater, where my tour starts, used to be the local flagship of Fox Theatres, back when the studios owned their own theater chains. And then, at the end of the tour, one of the names you will see carved in stone is Darryl F. Zanuck, founder of Twentieth Century-Fox Studios. Thus this tour is bracketed by reminders of Hollywood's Golden Age. And the theme, I guess, is that the paths of glory lead but to the grave. MUSIC: "Time Waits for No One" by the Rolling Stones; "Rest in Peace" by Mott the Hoople.

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YouTube | February 9, 2007

Tags:. .safety. .chains. .attended. .venues. .teenagers