The Talk of New York Lights, camera, get out of the street, pal! By Bob Yampolsky	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
映画の好ロケ地ゆえのジレンマ= ニューヨークの街は映画の撮影によく使われます。自分の家のそばで大物映画スターを目撃すれば、ミーハー心もくすぐられるというもの。しかし、撮影は俳優だけではできません。機材から衣装、食事を運ぶトラックなどが通りを占拠するのです。そしてそれに付随して起こる交通渋滞…。うれしいような迷惑なような、ニューヨーカーの複雑な心境を紹介します。

I saw Tom Cruise a few months ago, in his happier, pre-divorce days. I was walking down Amsterdam Avenue on my way to work, and there, unmistakably, was Tom Cruise himself, at the wheel of a green convertible.

I'm happy to report that he looked his usual magnificent self. The wind was blowing through his long hair, his white teeth were flashing, and even from far away I could notice a certain glow about him — which is not surprising, actually, since a whole formation of movie lights were trained on him.

The convertible was not a functional car: The entire front section (including engine) was missing, and it did not have any wheels. It sat on the back of a flat-bed truck, which also carried a bank of equipment and some crew members, including a cameraman and movie camera. The aforementioned lights, if I remember correctly, were on two vehicles, one on either side, driving parallel to the truck. In front of the truck were two sedans. And right in the middle of all this was Tom Cruise, glowing, as I said, in the spotlight.

Amsterdam Avenue, I should point out, is a favored route of taxi and truck drivers. It's wide and the traffic lights are well synchronized, so you can literally drive for miles without stopping. This is no small feat in Manhattan.

On this morning, however, traffic was barely moving, all because of Tom Cruise. The truck and the attendant vehicles were taking up virtually the entire width of the avenue, and a lot of traffic had built up behind them. It was the usual New York motley — taxicabs, trucks, luxury cars, battered vans and such. Needless to say, the drivers of these vehicles were not happy. They had expected to zip up Amsterdam, but now found themselves stuck behind a movie star going 10 mph (16 kph), and they were honking their horns in rage.

That, I think, sums up how New Yorkers feel about the plague of on-location filming that has descended upon the city. As long as it doesn't get in our way, we can accept it; it is part of the cost of living in New York. The problem is, though, that they almost always get in the way.

Apparently, it is impossible to shoot a scene in New York without at least three or four large trucks full of equipment and three or four house-sized mobile dressing rooms, occupying large stretches of the street that would otherwise be available for parking. There is usually also a catering truck, which will have a nice spread of food, with a notice to passersby that the food is not for sale, but is for the crew to eat. Film crews involve a lot of people and a lot of equipment, and they tend to end up acting as if they own the sidewalk. For certain types of scenes, streets will be closed off to traffic.

I live on the border between two neighborhoods — the Upper West Side and Morningside Heights — that are both popular shooting grounds. In fact, the street I live on, because it is wide and uncongested, is used regularly for filming, and at least once or twice a year something will be shot in our building.

I've had business cards slipped under the door: Interested in renting your apartment for a shoot? And from time to time solicitations from production companies are posted in the lobby. Last fall, Linda, our neighbor across the hall, got $1,500 (¥180,000) for letting a TV show film a scene in the foyer of her apartment. The whole operation took parts of three days.

There is nothing special about our building, other than the fact that it is on a convenient street. I suspect its very ordinariness is its appeal. In addition, it is a rental building. Most of the buildings around us are co-ops and condos, meaning that they have complex ownership structures and rules, and gaining permission to shoot is difficult. With our building, all a production company has to do is slip some money to our "super," who does not say anything to the landlord, and then work out a deal with the tenant of whatever apartment they are going to use.

At first, I'll admit, it was flattering to think I lived in a place looked on favorably by Hollywood and televisionland. And over the years I've witnessed a number of interesting scenes: A car crash, a gunfight and, most memorably, Dustin Hoffman standing on the ledge outside a fifth-story window, and Warren Beatty trying to persuade him to come in.

But nine times out of 10, all I see is a lot of big vehicles taking up space, and equipment blocking the sidewalk or the hallway, and I really do wish they would find some other place to shoot their scenes.

Shukan ST: June 29, 2001

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