The Lineup
With Eli Wallach, Robert Keith, Warner Anderson.
US, 1958, 35mm, black & white, 85 min.
Print source: Swank
The first of three features Don Siegel filmed in San Francisco, The Lineup uses its plot of drug smugglers racing against an almost absurdly tight deadline to trace a precise map of the city punctuated by vivid locations, including the Embarcadero YMCA and the soon-to-be destroyed Sutro Baths–each transformed into sites of baroque killings. The Lineup captures San Francisco as a port city, lingering over the harbor and a map of the bay, while also pointing to its transformation during the post-WWII years through its vivid use of ominous highway construction as a metaphor for an uncertain new order quickly leaving the old behind.
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Threnody
Directed by Nathaniel Dorsky.
US, 2004, 16mm, color, silent, 25 min.
Print source: Harvard Film Archive
One of Nathaniel Dorsky’s acclaimed “devotional songs,” Threnody uses carefully rhythmic editing of luminous scenes shot in and around San Francisco to cast a spell that brings the viewer into a heightened awareness of the beauty and poignancy of each image.