City of Hope

Summary

“Everybody’s a politician.”

A couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of reviewing John Sayles’ excellent historical drama Eight Men Out, which MGM had just brought to Blu-ray. This week I had the pleasure of viewing his 1991 film City of Hope which Sony has given a Blu-ray release. I first became a fan of John Sayles’ work from the pirctures he wrote for Roger Corman and Joe Dante, but when the Criterion Collection released his excellent historical drama Matewan, I was completely blown away by it. Since that time I have been snatching up any of his films that have been released in high definition. The Sony Blu-ray is a fantastic way to experience City of Hope, which is one of his most ambitious films and one of his best looking thanks to capable cinematography from the great Robert Richardson. It is worth mentioning City of Hope can also be purchased digitally in 4K. With City of Hope, John Sayles aimed to encapsulate the entire experience of smaller cities across the country through a kaleidoscope of characters that inhabit his fictional city of Hudson City. Given the name, the movie seems to take place somewhere in New Jersey, but the picture was filmed in Cincinnatti, Ohio. The themes for the city’s issues are fairly universal.

The film revolves around several characters that intersect in different ways while a land deal is trying to be forced through that would take down an apartment building housing impoverished citizens. As the film begins, Nick Rinaldi (Vincent Spano) quits his job on a construction site, despite his father’s involvement with the project. He buys some crank off of Stavros. His friends have a job for him to jump in on that could land him a good amount of cash. Nick needs the cash because he had lost more money than he could afford on a bad bet the week prior. Meanwhile, Nick’s father Joe (Tony Lo Bianco) is receiving undue pressure to back a development package that will not be possible unless the apartment buildings on L street come down. Even Joe’s brother Pauly is not above using whatever leverage he can on his brother to gain his support for the project. Councilman Winston Himes (Joe Morton), who is married to college professor Reesha (Angela Bassett,) has trouble receiving support from his own community of black folks. They consider him too compromised with the white majority. Winston desperately needs their support to keep the Mayor from pushing through the demolition of L Street’s apartment building, but they don’t want to lend their voice to his struggle when he seemingly fails to help them with their issues. Nick’s two idiot friends Zip (Todd Graff) and Bobby (Jace Alexander) get him involved in a robbery of an electronics store that local auto shop owner Carl (John Sayles) is backing. When the robbery goes awry, and Zip and Bobby are picked up by the police, Nick finds himself in a situation where he may be arrested. This puts more pressure on his father Joe. At the same time, Nick begins a relationship with Angela (Barbara Williams) who was a few years ahead of him in high school. She has a kid with a hotheaded policeman named Rizzo (Tony Denison.) Across town, when the police hassle a couple young black kids, in frustration they assault a college professor who was out for a nighttime jog. When they are picked up by the police, they claim that the man was coming onto them, which is a big issue given they are teenagers. As the tensions build over these situations, the film examines how all the characters interact and overlap.

City of Hope is an ambitious film. The script by Sayles is successful at showing numerous different aspects of city life and exploring issues of corruption, racism, crime, poverty, and politics. I think the imagination and ambition to tackle so much with one film should be lauded. In a way, this film reminds me of Altman’s Short Cuts or The Player, with the camera being allowed to follow different characters at different times, sometimes mid-conversation. That said, City of Hope at times feels a bit rough around the edges in regards to some of the dialogue the characters say. I really enjoyed Vincent Spano in the solid thriller Alphabet City, so I was excited to see him in a film directed by John Sayles. Unfortunately, the dialogue for Nick never felt like it meshed with Vincent Spano’s performance. When he was onscreen, I had numerous times where I felt taken out of the picture. One of the chief criticisms for the film that I have seen online is that the picture feels like Sayles drew a lot of caricatures rather than characters. I actually disagree with that sentiment aside from possibly Nick’s story. The film is absolutely wonderful when it focuses on Councilman Winston Himes or when it focuses on Nick’s father Joe and the harsh realities he deals with while trying to help his son. So, I think that the script for the film is a bit of a mixed bag overall, with more of it working overall than not working. If the film was a short story collection, I would still probably give it a B grade. I think the missteps on some of Nick’s dialogue are what caused some to disregard it. I personally am looking forward to rewatching the film in the future to see how another viewing would impact my perspective on the film, because there is a lot that still worked for me.

Sayles enlisted master cinematographer Robert Richardson for the film whom he had already worked with on Eight Men Out. The cinematography is absolutely fantastic. Richardson shot the film on Super 35 and the widescreeen impact can not be overstated. His camera movements to capture the crisscrossing long takes necessitated by John Sayles are wonderful. This film could easily be studied by film students just based on the incredibly long takes that Sayles and Richardson employed for the picture. Given the breadth of actors involved, the performances are pretty impressive across the board. The most impressive performances in the film are from Tony Lo Bianco as the conflicted father Joe, and Joe Morton as Wynn. Angela Bassett is great but her role is fairly minor, and Bill Raymond is well cast as the teacher whose sexuality becomes a political focus point. Gina Gershon had enough screen time as Nicks’s sister to launch her career, and Chris Cooper and David Strathairn both show up for a few minutes in the picture. Frankie Faison and Tom Wright round out the cast as the more incendiary counterparts to Councilman Wynn.

Overall – City of Hope has a lot of aspects that I enjoyed, but it is a little bit unwieldy at times. The scope of the picture is impressive, the cinematography is wonderful, and the majority of the performances are very good. That said, one performance consistently took me out of the film and I think that character’s dialogue was partially to blame. I will definitely revisit the film in the future to see what a second viewing reveals.

Video

Sony Pictures has presented City of Hope in 1080p using an MPEG-4 AVC encode in 2.39:1 aspect ratio. Sony has given the film a brand new master from a 4K scan, and the results are fantastic. Cinematographer Robert Richardson understood exactly how to bring the very best out of John Sayles’ long takes utilized in the film, which makes the picture feel so much more convincing. The focus is on realism, so the picture does not have a lot of stylized lighting. The film looks wonderful and Sony’s presentation is going to make fans very happy.

Audio

Sony has presented City of Hope in its original DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo format. The track presents the film well. As one would expect, the immersive qualities that would be present on a 5.1 track are not as forceful in a 2.0 stereo track. That said, this film relies almost entirely on the dialogue of the characters with very few moments of action or violence in the film, so the stereo track suits the picture well. Sony’s quality control is always very solid, and I experienced no issues with the track.

Supplements

• Audio Commentary with John Sayles – the writer, director, and actor talks at length about the intentions of the film and the techniques used to make the picture.

Overall Scores:

Video – 4.75/5 

Audio – 4.5/5

Supplements – 3/5

Overall – 4/5

City of Hope is an extremely ambitious project from writer and director John Sayles that attempts to encapsulate the experience of small city life with politics, racism, crime, police work, and poverty all examined in some form or fashion in the film. Sayles is very talented, and much of City of Hope works very well, but I felt myself pulled out of the picture listening to the character Nick’s dialogue. For some reason, either that character or Victor Spano’s performance pulled me out of the film. That said, that is only one aspect of the picture and the rest of the film works very well. Working with cinematographer Robert Richardson, John Sayles shot the cross-crossing storylines and characters using extremely long takes. Richardson shot the film on Super 35MM to take in the proceedings with enhanced widescreen. The resulting picture looks great and has a lot of energy. The ensemble cast is for the most part excellent. Sony has brought the film to Blu-ray with a great looking transfer from a new 4K scan. Fans will be very pleased with how the picture looks. John Sayles also lends the picture a commentary track that is pretty informative.

The film can be purchased at www.moviezyng.com.