I'm afraid this post isn't directly about Cristina Degli-Esposti Reinert's
interesting review, but her post reminded me of something I thought about
when the title came up placing the film "in the early 90's," I wondered why
MS wanted us to go into "period film" mode for a movie that didn't at first
seem to have to rely on evoking the past.
There is the obvious explanation of being faithful to the novel (which I
assume but don't know to be set in the early 90's), and also Scorsese's
historicizing impulse towards his home city. But I been wondering what
comprised the time period known as the early 90's? What it meant to be set
in the early 90's came to mind especially in large part because I had
recently re-watched "12 Monkeys" for the first time since its 1995-ish
release, and was struck by how dated it felt, only 5-6 years later. In
part, because Inner-city drug dens, urban crime, homelessness, fear of
fast-spreading communicable disease were all "early 90's" issues often seen
in popular (US) culture product at the time.
Of course these issues have certainly not gone away, but in a economically
"booming" time (so everyone says), with lower crime rates, unemployment,
etc, such issues are rarely addressed. You could imagine that there are no
more homeless people in Giuliani's cleaned-up NYC. Sci-Fi seems to be
limiting itself these days to space instead of urban America, and even
serial killers don't seem to be doing so well these days outside of Wes
Craven films.
Could Scorsese think we can't imagine pre-bull market recession--a
pre-Giuliani NY? Is he playing into Giuliani's "we fixed all that"
rhetoric? Of course NYC is just one city in the US, but for it to lose it's
emblematic status of all that's wrong in America--What a triumph for the
public relations team! In the late-90's/ early 00's it seems to be all
about suburban decay and the supernatural.
Though the retro-late 80's impulse has been rather much discussed lately
(even a S&S cover story this month), what do you think about it when a
director considers the urban horrors of his story could only have taken
place in the early 90's, and when a film like 12 Monkeys' view of the future
now seems far-fetched? I remember being fairly convinced by it at the time.
This is far from a coherant arguement. Anyone else been wondering about
this lately?
Julie Turnock
Hamamatsu, Japan
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