If you were an avid cinema-goer in the 1980s and 1990s, it would’ve felt like almost every blockbuster film was set in New York. But fast-forward to the present day and the number of films set in the city has declined sharply. Why aren’t films set in New York anymore and is it part of a more general trend of films not being set in the real-world?

In this week’s podcast, we discuss New York in film. We hark back to the gritty glamour of 1980s New York, discuss how globalisation may have changed the international film industry and analyse the highest grossing films of previous decades. Nick presents his realism index for films and we share some of our favourite films set in New York.

A few things we mentioned in this podcast:

• List of films set in New York City
• Satisfaction with own life five times higher than with U.S.

For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email [email protected]

looking at was a reason for this over-representation of New York could be tax rebates and financial incentives. So production companies sort of operating. It's really depressing if that is

the answer. Let's look, we've got to entertain these prosaic explanations before we get overly.

Movie companies financing films and receiving a tax rebate for them being set in New York. So basically the New York government offering tax breaks to these production companies to set their films there. And I think that is a rather prosaic reason, but I think it is something that apparently reached a high point in the 80s and 90s and then has since the money has gone elsewhere. So it's massively correlated. Well, yeah, not just correlated, but yeah. Is that it? What do you think? No, I think there's other things going on. Apparently also, while there were a lot of films set in New York, there was also a large number that was set in places that to look like New York. So apparently Toronto was used as a substitute because there are parts of Toronto that look remarkably similar to the skyline of Manhattan. So even though there was a high number of films in New York, there was also people making cheaper adaptations, like imitations of films.

Yeah, I think one of the best films about New York is Eyes Wide Shut and that was made in London. I've never seen that film. OK, well, we need to correct that, but we'll discuss later. Sorry, keep going, Jordan.

Well, I think one of the other sort of maybe to go into more of the artistic or cinematic kind of reasons is possibly that it was just we've reached a saturation point with films set in New York. And maybe we're all the cinema goers were sort of exhausted with the number of films set in New York. And so directors were looking for more, you know, diverse settings.

I mean, all this data and stuff is all very well. But when we get into the realms of speculative conjecture and so on, that's why I feel more comfortable. And I think it's that, I mean, my theory is that, you know, New York used to be glamorous. And of course, it's a beautiful setting, et cetera, lots of architecture and New Yorkers with their great accent, by the way, with their whole sort of I want a coffee. And that's all very, you know, exotic, interesting. But, hey, we're globalized now and, you know, not so exotic anymore. And it's tied in with that kind of saturation. That's my sort of thoughts on this. Chris, anything we're missing from what?

you saying big trouble in little China doesn't cut it. I'm going to say that it's very difficult

for a US film market to make authentic Chinese films. Right. And if you look at people from different cultures ability to access information or art from other cultures, I think about myself trying to read the Chinese translation of the three body problem, which is a famous Chinese science fiction book that's translated, and it's very difficult to interact with it. And then I think about my ability to look at historic classical Chinese theatre and music, and I find it very difficult to engage with it. And I wonder whether the idea, you know, what can America make authentic films about real, you know, it's about American culture. It's, it's, you know, Erin Brockovich, Forrest Gump, American Beauty. That's what it can make authentic films about or stuff set in New York. But it might be that these other international audiences can't really access that, you know, it used to be the US market was the big film market. Now it's not. Yeah. Are they able, you know, when they look at things set in New York, do they just shrug their shoulders and go?

Does the international internationalisation of the film market blandify? Yeah. And remove geographical and cultural touchstones? Yeah. Like, like New York, which means a lot to us, but doesn't mean a lot to anyone. And maybe this is also why you end up with millions of superhero films as well, because it's very international. So I've got some data on that. But before we do,

Jordan, you were just going to, I was just going to say that I think it's that, but it's also potentially that the element of risk has been removed from cinema as well. Not to bring it back to money again, but it kind of is, I think that these franchise films or these kind of Marvel films, Jurassic, Star Wars, all these franchises, they're a safer bet than something that might be more artistic. Yeah. And maybe that could explain it as well. Yeah. And I think

there's also a case of the diversification of the film producing world itself, not just the audiences. But so, you know, I mentioned those Chinese films focusing on things in China, famously, you know, Parasite, the South Korean film was a gritty sort of soul set, drama. You look at British cinema and the films coming out this year. Boiling Point is a kitchen thriller. True Things is a relationship drama set in, you know, England. The Duke with Jim Broadbent as a cabbie involved in art theft and Operation Mincemeat. They're all set in authentic English sort of settings. And, you know, and so there are films being made in the real world. They're just not being made in the American real world, perhaps. OK, because that brings me on to

Why? Why? Well, I had an initial theory, which I subsequently I think disproved to myself, which was that because they can. Right. So with the advent of technology, right, and CGI, it enables you to do things that obviously you couldn't previously do. So you can set an entire thing in space, you know, I wouldn't say at low budget, but you don't you no longer need to build massive sets and all that kind of stuff. And it looks really good. So I initially thought, well, maybe there was always this latent desire for for fancy, you know, look at look at comic books and that kind of stuff. And so I thought, well, I wonder what the you know, in the let's say the 70s, what the top books were, were they all, you know, fantasy genres? But actually, no, if you look at US book sales in the 70s, they were things like The Choir Boys, which was about the LAPD department, Ragtime, which was sort of historical fiction set in New York. Money Changer was about the politics of a major bank. So I sort of realised that actually the bestsellers lists of the of the 70s weren't full of, you know, gritty real life stuff where they were. They were essentially, you know, novels set in the real world. So they were. So actually, you know, if you're taking that as a measure of what people would like to see, what kinds of fictions they like, what kind of fiction they like, there wasn't necessarily, you know, maybe that mores have changed. You know, what people want in their fiction has changed, not just that they always wanted that and now they can can make it. So I think I sort of disproved that theory that CGI was at the at the heart of why we're getting more fantasy. It's not about the capability to do it. It's actually is about demand for it. Jordan. Yeah, well, Chris was talking about how

the audience tastes have changed, but I think also the way that films have made or have also has also changed. I think they're probably more more market researched, more audience audience tested, vetted, modified. And I think that they've sort of strayed now into audio visual entertainment rather than than like artistic cinema. And I think that's also possibly why they're less about real people and real events, but they're more just excitement, CGI, you know, these sorts of things that people like to sort of go and be and be amazed by. And I think

How do you fancy some completely uninformed speculation? Oh, of course. Yeah. Based on that thought. Right. Which is if you look at and I know we've discussed this before, and I think you and I disagree on this, but that I think you can't just say, you know, well, all stories have, you know, the same sort of basic structure and OK, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hero's journey and the you know, the kind of buildings or a man of, you know, you get plucked out of your everyday life and go into. But I think there is an evolutionary purpose behind that. And it's, you know, behind the reason we find those interesting. And it is essentially because it's informative. You know, you learn. I remember this. How to deal with problems by listening to other people facing problems, you know, and overcoming them. And that basically that gives us a. What was that bizarre theory words that sort of you put to Shannon information? Yeah. So so so anyway, let's hold that thought. Right. That basically we like stories that are informative. But what kinds of stories do we like now? I would let's say you're happy with your world. You're happy with the value you live in. You want to see stories about trees and how where you find fruit and fish and everyday life. If you're not happy about the value where you live, you want to see a story about a different valley, because actually the thing you want to do probably is up sticks as a tribe and go and find that better valley somewhere else. So I suppose taking, you know, Chris's idea about there being a sliding scale of of realism, it feels like it actually ties into the notion of escapism, the fact that actually the further the unhappy you are, the stories are still fulfilling the same. It's basically the same model. It's just sliding But depending, it's sort of a question of how how far away you want to learn. Yeah. And and the unhappier you are now, the further away that thing is that you want to be informed about, because who cares when you're not going to be living in this valley very much longer either, because we're all off. Yeah. Monday. Off we go over the hill. Yeah. Greenfields beyond. Yeah. So yeah, I think we might have actually unusually come to some kind of concrete conclusion. Yeah, no, I agree. Look, unless we've got something else, I've definitely got a question I want to ask. Really obvious question, but I'm not ashamed of it. Favourite film set in New York. I've got some that I've already thinking of. Can I kick off? Yeah, go on. So just four off the top of my head. I love Annie Hall. Famous. You can't have that one because that's in my top five favourite films of all time, let alone set in New York. Wonderful film. And also famously, I think Martin Scorsese said is that, you know, because he and Woody Allen's of their film was actually often set in New York around the same time. And Martin Scorsese saying, well, I don't know what New York he was sort of living in, but it's not my New York. But yeah, I love Annie Hall. Escape from New York. Yeah, good one. Nice. Great film. Some beautiful character actors in there as well. But then my top two, Midnight Cowboy. I mean, just fantastic. But probably my top film set in New York. You're just taking all of them. This isn't fair at all, is it? Because you guys always so original, have such different ones to me. Serpico. Love that film. And one of the greatest things about, I mean, I just love the way New York looks. I love the way Al Pacino looks. I want to look like he looks towards the end of that film or about two thirds of the way when he's got his handlebar moustache. But the best thing, and it never happens these days, is one day I was visiting a mate and I was at university. We sat down to watch TV on a, you know, Thursday evening or something and switched on the telly. And this film comes on called Serpico and never heard it, knew nothing about it and wonderful film. I recommend it to anyone. Those are my top films. Sorry if I've just nabbed them all, but Serpico is mine. So let's

open this up. Taxi Driver. Oh, yeah. Is it Do the Right Thing? The Spike Lee film. Yeah, those are the ones that spring to mind. And then there's, I guess, other classic sort of King Kong and like, even what's even that newer? Where there's so many films, I think, where New York gets destroyed as well. I think where it's like destruction of New York, which are also. Yeah. Yeah. Hey,

well, no. Yeah. Because you've seen iconic stuff being knocked down. But no, it's less zero in a bit. I mean, Taxi Driver. Wonderful film. Why? Why do you like it? Why? It's just I think. Yeah,

I think it's that was, I guess, in Nick's high point of New York sort of, you know, like the grittiness, the kind of, yeah, the aesthetics of it. I guess it's, you know, peak 70s opportunity. It's just a yeah, I think Robert De Niro, synonymous with New York. Yeah. 70s New York. There's something about it, right? Yeah. Don't know if I'd actually want to live there, but it

looks great. Well, I can I can have a go on this. Yeah, I'm tempted. I'll have two. I want two, which is the the two would be, first of all, the kind of blockbuster New York, which is Ghostbusters. Yeah. I just I just think it's got so much in it. I've now I've been I went when I was in the US over, so I went to the place to their firehouse. Yeah. It's now a kind of Ghostbusters museum. But yeah, I think that's that really just has has everything in it as the city is a character really in the film, isn't it? You know, the I've not seen it in a while, but yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, but they go into all kinds of different places, you know, they're in this kind of rundown firehouse, but they go into, you know, big hotels and there's a big apartment building, which turns out to be a kind of conduit for for evil forces. And it's just it's a real sort of sweep across the city. But I think the other the sort of other end, Eyes Wide Shut, a kind of exclusive, very upper middle class New York world, closer to the Woody Allen world of, you know, rich people's houses. And, you know, but but also that contrast is, you know, when he goes out into the streets with the sort of lowlifes. But but you're seeing it from the perspective of, you know, someone who's used to that that sort of high class world. And, you know, as I there's something very appealing about all that. I need to go away and see that film. It's just because of ambivalent or ambiguous rather reviews that I've stayed away from it. I've stayed away for too

long. Chris. Yeah. So I think a couple of a couple of films stand out for me. The first is big. And I think I watched that when I was probably about the age of the main character. And so, you know, you see all of New York as a child and, you know, all the amazing stuff there is there. And wouldn't it be cool if you had your own loft apartment in New York, you know? And so so that because it was probably a really child focused view of New York at a time when I was a child. The other film is Carlito's Way, which another Al Pacino film he seems to be featuring, featuring heavily, but not particularly because New York featured in it, but because it's about, you know, the failed attempts of this tragic failed attempts of this person to escape that New York crime scene. And the reason I suppose it really stands out in my mind is because of the character, Benny Blanco from the Bronx, who, you know, he well, I won't I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen the film, but he yeah, he has a very important part. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that film. I'll tell you a film I hate that's set in New York. Yeah. Gangs of New York. Yeah, that is a a terrible. Yeah, it did nothing for me that film.

I mean, I liked it. I can't remember much about it now, but have I rewatched it? No, no, it didn't feel real to me. No, in no way. Loosely based on West Side Story? No, it's set in the set in the 19th century, I think in the 60s. Yeah. Yeah. It's about sort of gangsters in 18, 19th century New York. It's a good idea. Just so I do know. But what do you think of Daniel Day-Lewis? His performance in it is scary, is quite sort of visceral. I think he sucks. Yeah. Yeah. Sucks a bit too much of the air out of the film. Yeah. No, it's a good way of putting it. All right. Nice. I enjoyed that one as well. So we will stop there. Thank you as always for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. I've been here with Jordan Fermanis, Chris Wragg, Nick Hare of Aleph Insights. Until next time. Goodbye.