Lighting Up New York

Three separate power cuts in three different periods in New York. In the first of three, New Yorkers partied and made love in the dark. In the second, riots broke out with widespread looting. In the third the city simply went home and went to sleep when the sun set. These three events are just one example of how New York is continually evolving and is why New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik (which I think is the correct spelling regardless what this site says). Says that to learn about the real New York you need to turn off the lights.

I watched this film a few days before I went to North America on business and was planning to take some holiday on my way back out and stop in New York for two days to have a look around. I have only been to the city once before in 1995 and similarly I had been on-route to somewhere else and had only stayed for 3 days (albeit a packed 3 days). Ahead of my short visit I happened to spot this film in the TV schedules and taped it. I watched it thinking that maybe it would give me travel tips of things to see (as if Lonely Planet hadn't already ensured I would have no free time) but really the film was much better than some celebrity travel programme.

Instead it is a film that many New Yorkers could have made but made differently because it is more a personal history where the wider changes of New York are recalled and contemplated by Gopnik. Others would have different opinions and different takes on changes perhaps but Gopnik himself prevented me thinking about that too much because his love for the city is shown in almost every scene. It isn't that he gushes about the city – he doesn't and it is telling that he doesn't because blind love is not real love. Real love is when you can see the faults but still love and this is what Gopnik does as he essays the recent social history of the city. It is very interesting partly because the city is interesting but also because Gopnik shares his love and concerns so effortlessly with the viewer.

Not entirely sure that the film really needed the contributions from Nora Ephron and Sandra Bernhard (when did she get old!?) but even with them it is an interesting film that makes for an accessible and engaging social history of New York over the last few decades.