Wednesday, July 1, 2009

dream


A non-existent Woody Allen movie, or at least the opening credits where scenes of New York City are inter-cut with white text in that Woody Allen font against black screens . The montage was from when I visited New York for the first and only time, entering it by Amtrak from the south (the above footage is entering from the North and thereby different but not all that different). It is a great way to confront the city; you come to it slowly at what seems street level and Manhattan looks like a garbage barge with buildings and boxes and things piled up on top of each other and you are slowly plowing right into the middle of it.

Over this montage was Carrol O'Connor, TV's Archie Bunker, playing piano and singing Daniel Johnston's "Like a Monkey in a Zoo." That is not so much of a stretch - Johnston's barrel-house piano is not dissimilar to that played in the "All in the Family" theme, and the view outside a train window is not unlike the parade of houses in the ending sequence. Carrol O'Connor as the curmudgeon battling modern existence by dating an attractive woman half his age in a Woody Allen movie, on the other hand, might be an interesting tack.

No comments:

Post a Comment