Quiet City seems so simple, so spontaneous, and so unstructured – as if Katz had merely followed his central couple around the city with a camera for a few days and recorded what they did; but the simplicity is deceptive. Much of the dialogue was indeed improvised, but the film is beautifully constructed to culminate with the scenes in the art gallery and the dance party, where the romantic issues that were suppressed in earlier scenes are finally brought to the surface. Katz also beautifully modulates the film’s tone from scene to scene, glissading from clumsy tenderness (e.g. Jamie and Charlie’s meeting), to broad comedy (e.g. the scenes featuring Adam and then Kyle), to romantic meditativeness (e.g. the scene in the bedroom where Robin talks to Jamie about her need for love), to intimacy (at the end of the film). A point of interest: Joe Swanberg, the director of Hannah Takes the Stairs, also showing in this series, plays Adam in the comical coleslaw scene.