New York, a cinematic stage: with over 10,000 films and series shot here by directors like Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese, there’s truly no set like New York City.
Text and potos by Sergi Reboredo
Undoubtedly, this is the city in the world that appears the most in the movies. After a hiatus in 2001 due to the World Trade Center attacks, the city has returned to what it was and dozens of production companies continue their work every day filming the city from the most varied points of view. The fact that Mayor Michael Bloomberg has substantially reduced the daily filming fee, in addition to implementing substantial tax discounts, has also contributed greatly to this.
It should also be taken into account that along with the countless films that are shot, the city that never sleeps is also the non-stop scene of renowned television series such as “CSI New York”, “Law and Order”, “Dirty Sexy Money”, “Gossip Girl”, etc.
All that glitters is not gold
Despite the thousands and thousands of movies and video clips that have been filmed in these streets, we should not believe all the locations that some guides insist on adding, among which are the famous cemetery of Michael Jackon’s “Thriller” video, which was actually filmed in a Los Angeles studio, or the presentation fountain of “Friends”, which is not in Central Park but in a private lot of Warner also in Los Angeles.
All this so that tourists enjoy their stay in the Big Apple much more and can verify with more accuracy, that those “déjà vu” or sensations that certain places produce are nothing more than memories of a frame of a previously seen movie.
The Empire State Building and King Kong
If any movie is capable of symbolizing the skyscrapers of the city of New York, that movie is, without a doubt, “King Kong”. The original film of 1933, narrates the adventures of a gigantic ape of 38 tons that is captured and taken to the Big Apple at the time of the Great Depression, to be exhibited to the public, managing to escape and causing a terrible panic that ends of course in a dramatic way. This ending, in which King Kong searches for his beloved Ann clinging to the top of the Empire State Building while several biplanes shoot at him, is the one that everyone has stored in their retinas. The film was a pioneer in the use of special effects using the stop-motion technique, but above all it was the precursor of advertising the Big Apple worldwide as a great Hollywood-style set.
Central Park, the park par excellence
ocated in the middle of Manhattan, this vast green park with its lakes, has always been the favorite of directors when it comes to shoot a scene in a large open space. Here, for example, Julia Roberts had to look after the children of her fiancé (Ed Harris) and his ex-wife (Susan Sarandon) in the film “Stay by my side”, while shooting a photo shoot at Belvedere Castle. Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney also had “An Unforgettable Day” while splashing around with their kids at Bethesda Fountain. The more mysterious corners of the park were also filmed in “Home Alone 2” as Kevin Mc Allister hid from the pair of clumsy burglars. From the center of Central Park comes the memory of the mythical “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”. Ghostbusters was also filmed in the southern part of the park, and very close by, on 59th, Fame.
The Brooklyn Bridge, another of the city’s classics
This famous bridge, which also makes it immediately recognizable which city we are talking about, has also been the scene of several films such as, for example, when Kevin Kline and Peter Mc Nicol walk across the bridge toasting with Champagne in “Sophie’s Choice”. Also in “Gangs of New York”, Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz, finish the movie at the foot of this magnificent bridge that was built between 1870 and 1883, being the first suspension bridge in the world built in steel. It measures 1825 meters long and has a distance of 486.3 meters between the two support towers, a record that stood for six years until the Forth Bridge was built. Six hundred people worked on the project, which was designed by John Roebling, who died before construction began.
