The cityscapes of New York and Los Angeles have always been the natural establishing shot for American movies but, over the last few years, another skyline has started to develop a certain familiarity – Boston, Massachusetts.
Observers of American cinema have been largely unaware of the New England town which, with a population of just over 600,000, is only the twenty-first most populated city in America. But Boston has gone through an intense process of gentrification of late and, despite the global recession, now offers the most jobs per square kilometer of anywhere in the US. And, for the filmmakers, Massachusetts offers the holy grail – tax incentives. Lots of tax incentives.
For good or for worse, Boston has suddenly become the vogue destination for a whole slew of films. It is highly debatable whether this has actually benefited the Boston tax-payer overall, or whether Hollywood’s presence has actually shortchanged the New England economy. Certainly, it is clear that many people would like to see the camera crews pack up their tripods and return west without a backward glance.
Quentin Tarantino is always telling us that the only thing worth filming is acts of violence, and this seems to hold true for Boston’s films thus far. Those already released are primarily considered with themes of violence, corruption and vertically integrated crime. Martin Campbell’s recent outing, Edge of Darkness, and in particular Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River feature Boston as a visible, and often vicious, character.
Meanwhile Martin Scorsese has used Boston as the setting for his last two films. His latest, Shutter Island, is set in a number of locations across New England, whilst The Departed was a modern Greek tragedy inherently rooted to the city’s streets, and was as bloody as it was nihilistic. But home-grown boy Ben Affleck is responsible for the murkiest depiction of the city with his directorial debut Gone Baby Gone, starring his younger brother Casey in the lead role. Gone Baby Gone was adapted from the novel by Dennis Lehane, who also wrote Mystic River, Shutter Island and episodes for the HBO series The Wire. Lehane grew up in the bruised and blighted ‘hood of Dorchester where the film is set.
From the opening montage onwards, Affleck thrusts the audience into the raw, marginalised projects of his hometown, where the promise of violence seems to lurk in the shadows of the daily grind. Within this setting, a narrative of abduction, paedophilia, narcotics and murder plays out with unnerving credibility. Affleck has two more Boston-set projects in pre-production – The Town and The Company Men - which intend to show the atrophy of the American public in the face of the economic recession. The trend, therefore, looks set to continue.
It is difficult to interpret the reasoning behind this. Do these films reflect something about Boston, of normal people trying to eke out a place in a of city unrelenting change? Is it equally a reflection of a mass audience who, like Alex with or without his droogs, thirstily consume narratives soaked in ultra-violence and immediately clamor for more?
Or perhaps it is simply a reflection of harsh practicalities – if it is cheap to shoot somewhere, and there is enough talent around to understand and communicate the nuances of the city, why go anywhere else? Whatever the reason, this is not the first time a city has been used in such a way. Scorcese, that venerable canvasser of urban decay, frequented New York of the late 70s for the parables of Mean Streets and the iconic Taxi Driver. De Niro’s memorably intonation in that film continues to ring true: “Thank God for the rain to wash the trash off the sidewalk.”
