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Tell us what you think.
Selected submissions will be posted here, so check back regularly.
3/18/05
John Robinson
Atlanta, Ga
Wow! You have made a thoughtful and extremely relevent documentary: I'm sorry it took me this long to find out about it! I am also studying a similar evolution here in Atlanta: http://bufordhighway.com
Please take a look (and ignore the dead links!). When it finally launches, I would love to link to your site. Be in touch and thanks again -
12/3/04
John Brosnahan
Union, NJ
A lot was said in the documentary about the shrinking "Anglo" population of Los Angeles, but what about the Irish, German, Italian, Polish and other White ethnic communities in the city? How are they faring in the new Los Angeles?
12/3/04
Sandra Malone
los angeles, ca
The L.A. Times ran a story about how we're starting to see American-born latinos doing poorer than their immigrant parents. Vanishing living wage jobs-the Wal-Mart effect-pits American workers against immigrant workers in a race to the bottom. Compounding the problem is the huge school drop-out rates among latinos. Moreover, the unknown factor-outsourcing-can make education less of a sure route to the good life. Some analysts say that any job that can be computerized will be sent to cheaper shores. Not the warm and fuzzy browning of L.A. that the documentary depicts.
11/29/04
Al Carlos Hernandez
Pacifica, California
The film was magnificent, a new paradime in documentary filmmaking. It worked on several levels, a jump cut, mood swinging media buffet, the Nortec music was subliminally convincing. It showed me what LA feels like. I am familar with Rodriguez' work his film on Ocampo, God is my co-pilot. This effort raises the bar.
Please play it again.
11/29/04
David Plettner
Los Angeles, CA
Thank you for an extraordinary work of visual imagination and thoughtfulness.
What makes Los Angeles dynamic? Cultural confluence is a big part of it. As a New England boarding school kid and Ivy Leaguer, I was in profound culture shock when I moved to Los Angeles in 1980. But the city performed psychic surgery on me. Your film reflects the ever-present cultural surprise that is our "infrastructure," and is so difficult for outsiders to understand. At first this multicultural experience seemed merely exotic (Thai burritos) or amusing (the Hummer stretch limo). But the cultural ironies began to accumulate. Northrop Corporation B-2 bomber design software was adapted to enable the soaring shapes of Walt Disney Concert Hall. Sheer demographics helped make race less of an issue for young people than anywhere else, or any other time, in America. I have come to realize that Los Angeles has given us all the unprecedented creative gift and challenge of a non-hierarchical cultural world. I value it more each day.
11/29/04
Collette Byrne
Palms (Los Angeles) CA
P.S. to my earlier comments.
I have also found that people who complained about L.A. were the ones who wanted it 'handed to them on a platter' and didn't try and one of my and most joyous lessons in life and here has been that when you try you get results, usually happy ones. That's the essence of Los Angeles.
11/29/04
Collette Byrne
Palms (Los Angeles) CA
Thoroughly enjoyed the film. I came here from Ireland in 1986 and I often said we're missing a heart to L.A. too. However, I also now believe if you look there is heart everywhere in L.A. and your film certainly showed that. The collage-type visuals were a brilliant portrayal of the city's diversity. When you go into the neighborhoods and try to feel L.A. you will. When you take the public transport, of which we don't have enough, you will feel L.A. because you will have felt the people.
Thanks - I feel a part of a very big and changing city all the time.
11/29/04
Felice
Los Gatos, CA
The city as the country is becoming more diverse every day. Som feel threatened, others are enhanced and believe it will bring out the best in us. We create ourselves from experiences with others. Being attracted to others is what makes us modern. Individual peace and understanding rest on a collective peace and understanding.
Good work Phillip. I'll look forward to seeing what's next.
11/29/04
Jim Coyle
Being a Los Angeles native (who now lives on the East Coast) I was struck by the regular references to "Anglo" culture and "Anglo-Americans." I may be wrong, but I never thought that the people of Los Angeles were predominantly of English extraction. "Anglo" refers to English culture, not white culture as a whole. I'm surprised that Mr. Rodriguez would regularly make such an error.
11/29/04
Portland, OR
The show's title caught my eye because LA has always been a part of my heart since growing up there in the 70's. Also, there is a long history of family members that have lived and died there; and some still reside there.
However I did find the piece very divisive. Instead of bringing the rich range of cultures together, the piece tended to be very shortsighted, and sounded like a "we" vs. "them." "We" meaning Latinos/Asians, and "they" whites, blacks and everyone else that lives and resides in LA. LA seems to have become polarized.
There is a rich black history there too. That part really wasn't explored.
Another thing not mentioned was the horrible illegal immigration issue we are facing. Of course if millions of illegals are residing in LA and its surrounding areas, it explains why Latinos make up almost 50% of the city.
Los Angeles, in recent years, has become dirty, infested with crime, and not liveable.
Unfortunately, the LA of yesteryear is gone.
11/29/04
Mark O.
Los Angeles
Immigration when regulated broadens and deepens core values and allows assimilation of immigrant cultures into the mainstream. Unregulated overwhelming immigration over the last 20 years here in Los Angeles has created a Balkanized socio-economic world that was poorly reflected in your program. You can do better. Now more than ever before we need a much clearer view of what the future can be, BladeRunner or Bosnia.
11/29/04
mark martin
austin tx
What kind of software was used to manipulate the photographs in the film?
<< Filmmaker Phillip Rodriguez reports that LOS ANGELES NOW's image manipulation was handled using Adobe After Effects, Discreet Combustion, and NewTek Lightwave 3D. >>
11/29/04
Richard DiRusso
Tucson, Arizona
LA is so mush more multicultural than your program portrayed. Where were the Gay and Lesbians? Transgender people? I cannot believe that you never got around to portraying even one out and obviously queer person (of any ethnicity) in the entire program, let alone show the whole communities that exist of our kind. Richard Rodriquez (a gay) commented quite often, but never once about gay people and how they are a part of the city. What a disservice to the GLBT Community of Los Angeles. How homophobic can you get? So much for diversity if the producers of your program can only see people in shades of black, brown, yellow, and white you forget that there is rainbow out there and it grows everyday.
11/29/04
Robert Twomey
Orlando, FL
Great film. I grew up in Miami in the 1980's and saw a very similar transition from predominantly White to Hispanic. While experiencing this transition, I realized this is the future of America. The rest of the nation doesn't know it yet, but this will happen, to some degree, in almost all areas eventually. Cities like Los Angeles and Miami are the blueprints for not only major cities, but for the suburbs and rural towns across America in the 21st Century. There will be tension and ethnic struggle along the way but it will lead to a more prosperous and stronger nation. It is the story of America really.
11/24/04
Joaquin Mesa
Los Angeles, CA
First, I helped to make this film and I must admit that it is one of the most visually stunning projects that I have had the pleasure to work on. The camera work of Claudio Rocha evokes the magnificent layers of the city, the imagination of the people, as well as the complications of a place that is constantly reshaping itself.
To speak to the questions posted, Los Angeles is not a blueprint for tomorrow's American cities. Unfortunately, Los Angeles is a by-product of a unique time in history where culture, color and opinion were physically exported from all over the world. Kansas City will never look like Los Angeles. San Antonio will never look like Los Angeles.
This is exactly what makes Los Angeles dynamic. It sets a precedent for multiculturalism that might not be matched for a very long time in this country.
I would imagine that the global marketplace will facilitate a more segmented cultural landscape, and immigration into the U.S. will decline, especially to places that are not globally inclined like New York, Miami and Los Angeles are. I would go even further and say that Americans will become more integrated into cities like Paris, Toyko, Saigon, Singapore and Moscow, with Los Angeles becoming the blueprint by which these cities are shaped (with Americans assuming the roles the Mexicans, Central Americans, Chinese, and Koreans play in Los Angeles).
Finally, Los Angeles has had its nervous breakdown in relation to race (The LA Riots). We are not due another one for thirty years (Zuit Suit Riots-1942, Watts Riots-1965, LA Riots-1992)...
11/24/04
jacquin dole
McMinnville, Oregon
Mil gracias....I hunger for the vitality of Los Angeles. I miss her terrible, with her multicolored, multidimensional realities........This was just was I think about Los Angeles. YES ...
PLEASE do your thing, LA, so that the people of this world can see it is possible........Possibility is your middle name.
I took it for granted until I left, and came to rural Oregon. Beautiful, calm, stoic, and stuck. Ten years ago, all white. Now, 25% Latino(Thank you), and even a few black and yellow faces---oh my!! I hunger for the language, music and food of all of you in Los Angeles. Thank you for all you are.......I count on you- so that those of us who "immigrated" can bring the spirit of renewal to the outback..........
Viva la Difference~
Independent Lens- Magnifico!
11/24/04
Kris Hayhurst
Killeen, TX
I grew up in Los Angeles County, and my grandparents lived on 104th street in the city; George Washington High School. The white bread working class world they lived in wasn't the suburban life I was surrounded by in the nineteen-seventies...the multicultural blend of Peruvians, Filipinas(os), Pakistani, Korean, Japanese, Latin, Jamaican, West Indian,a cross section of the united nations and just plain old white folks like me of european extraction. I went to High School in Lawndale, CA...Leuzinger H.S...when I went there, the campus was given state recognition for diversity in student population. I thought that was strange, because what existed there was a naturally occuring phenomenon, like a photograph in ethnic statistics. I'm glad I've been in LA to start my life.., because the gold standard for me is within that root. but that the real world is much larger than the family...the world came to me in Los Angeles, in grade school with the kids of Cuban Immigrants, the kids of Japanese Americans, a garden variety...not a melting pot, but a garden spot where we all grew. That is part of what makes LA dynamic. I look for that wherever I live, and for now, its in Texas. I learned Spanish in my suburban education, and I still love to hear it.
11/24/04
Luis R. Ramirez
Queens, New York
i really liked the work they did with the editing, but i though i was actually going to learn something about LA, and i was very disappointed as i kept watching the show, because it just showed a few peoples point of view and not how LA i really viewed by most people. But again that is just my opinion.
11/24/04
David
Louisville, KY
I found most of the documentary an apology for an unwanted demographic transformation of an American city. Mass immigration (legal and illegal) is a tool of power and class warfare. Is there any doubt LA is a poorer, more stratified, and dangerous city than it was 40 years ago?
The 10 second speeches and philosophical ramblings were annoying and sometimes shallow. And why no mention of the lawlessness of illegal immigration that has so dramatically changed LA?
11/24/04
Rosa Holden
I just saw "Los Angeles Now" and came away feeling that its perspective fell short of the American reality. America is a melting pot; straight and simple. Certainly for the first generation and perhaps the second, new comers can live deluding themselves that they are truly Korean-Americans or Mexican-Americans or what ever, but they likely came here for one reason: The American Dream.
The artificial pretence of being a hyphenated American falls away to the demands and reality of realizing the American Dream. Multiculturalism is an illusion and the strained attempts to serve this "false god" by declaring Spanish as an official language or mandating Spanish road signs are the products of opportunistic political expediency rather than a true grasp of the American cultural reality.
America doesn't conquer, it assimilates.
I lived in LA for a little more than six years and I grew uneasy with its lack of a sense of direction or purpose. LA was and is LA, with onerous demands on its residents that I felt left me with less true freedom than I aspired to. We parted company and I haven't looked back.
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