Beyond Mike Davis's recent books, another volume that can
provide a great prism for viewing fiction set in Los Angeles
is Reyner Banham's scintillating 1971 study, Los Angeles: The
Architecture of Four Ecologies, which despite the somewhat
forbidding title is thoroughly entertaining. Banham on
Polynesian restaurant architecture is worth the price of
admission!
I recall a critical volume on Los Angeles fiction that
rightly devoted a whole chapter to Roman Polanski's
Chinatown, which could well be the finest Los Angeles-based
film not mainly about the film industry
(and is obviously one of the greatest hard-boiled films
ever). In making water the key theme and symbol of that film,
Polanski and screenwriter Robert Towne got L.A. just
right.
Mark
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