The City (1998 film)
| The City | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster
|
|
| Directed by | David Riker |
| Produced by | Paul S. Mezey David Riker |
| Written by | David Riker |
| Music by | Tony Adzinikolov |
| Cinematography | Harlan Bosmajian |
| Edited by | David Riker |
| Distributed by | Zeitgeist Films |
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
88 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English Spanish Korean |
The City (Spanish: La ciudad) is a 1998 American neo-realist film written and directed by David Riker, his first feature film, and shot in gritty black-and-white film stock. The drama features actor Joseph Rigano and, in neo-realist fashion, an ensemble cast of non-professional actors. The film is also known as: The City (La Ciudad).
The drama consists of four vignettes that plunges you onto New York City's poorer neighborhoods where Latin American immigrants, many of whom barely speak English, live at the mercy of exploitative employers and inflexible institutions. Many of the characters are in the United States illegally to make money in order to send back home to their poor families.
The picture won numerous awards including the Organisation Catholique Internationale du Cinéma et de l'Audiovisuel (OCIC Award) at the San Sebastián International Film Festival.
Among intermittent scenes of Latin Americans having their photo taken by a photographer, the four stories in the picture include:
Professional actors
Non-professional actors
Bricks
Home
The Puppeteer
Seamstress
David Riker spent five years researching the project (1992-1997), and worked with the non-professional actors in order to capture the "impoverished authenticity of life on the streets" of the Latino community in New York City.
DVD
A DVD of the film was released by New Yorker Video on June 7, 2005. The DVD includes the featurette: The Making of a Community Film.
In a DVD review of the DVD, technology critic Gary W. Tooze, wrote, "New Yorker have drastically improved their DVD packages in the past few months with strong extra feature additions, but their image quality appears to have plateau'd. This is non-anamorphic and exhibits minor coming in spots (non-progressive) but much of the inferiority of the image is a function of the independent manner in which it was produced...The featurette addition is a super extra and helps further appreciation of this fine film. Even with the weak image we strongly recommend!"
The film critic for The New York Times, Stephen Holden, lauded then film when it was released, and wrote,"The City doesn't go out of its way to pull your heartstrings, but its understatement makes it all the more devastating. The anxious, careworn faces of downtrodden people who have no choice but to continue as best they can convey their plight more powerfully than any words. New Yorkers will recognize these faces. There are tens of thousands of them. They're only too glad to do our dirty work."
...
Wikipedia