City of Hope is a raw John Sayles John Sayles movie. The camera follows the characters until it bumps into other characters, which is a simple, straightforward method, both a little more honest but also a little more amateurish. It introduces a gimmick into the film, which rarely does anything any good. It isn't always the bumping characters--the most effective sequence is when, at the same time, separated by cuts, a bunch of characters decide to sell themselves out or not to sell out. But the bumping does pop again and it is noticeable. Maybe it's a consequence of pan and scanning a 2.35:1 film (City of Hope, as far as I can ascertain, has never had a non-pan and scan video release). The pan and scan does hurt a little, but the gimmick would still be there, wider field of action or not. It's not bad--films still do it today, good films, but they're films made after Sayles (much like Sayles makes films after the Altman Nashville standard). It's a raw artist in progress and it's a thing sixteen years has made more noticeable. It doesn't date the film, but City of Hope does have a visible place in Sayles's body of work.
It's also his most traditional story--one of the two primary storylines is Italian-Americans and their relationship to work and corruption. Sure, it's political corruption--but the corrupt mayor is Italian. Vincent Spano's character is also a very general lead for a Sayles film too--like I said, it's all very raw. The other primary story, about Joe Morton's attempt to be a successful and moral politician, is more radical. However, the Spano story, simply because Spano, and Tony Lo Bianco as his father, are so great. Joe Morton's great too, but Sayles gives Spano a romance with Barbara Williams (who's also fantastic). Watching certain moments in City of Hope, it's obvious Sayles spent a lot of time figuring them out. There are some short car ride conversations he does beautifully, but also the scenes with Spano walking Williams home. Those scenes are amazing, pan and scan or not.
Where Sayles lifts the film from the norm is in the third act, when the viewer discovers it's actually not all about people bumping into each other, or the titular City of Hope, which pops up three times at least, but is actually all about watching people corrupt themselves. There's a wonderful juxtaposition of one woman telling her husband not to sell himself out, then congratulating him (that one's from Macbeth, right?), with another not supporting dishonesty, after positioning herself to do so. Except every character in City of Hope, not just those four--with the exception of Williams, who's a bit of a saint--eventually makes the choice to corrupt or redeem him or herself. Well, not redeem, but not further corrupt.
Besides the aforementioned, Tony Denison is great, so is Angela Bassett. Chris Cooper's only in it for maybe four minutes, but in that time, it becomes clear his never becoming a leading man is a considerable tragedy for American cinema.
I'm probably less enthused about the film than I should be, but it's only because I spent the entire time wondering how beautiful it must look in the right aspect ratio.
CREDITS
Written, directed and edited by John Sayles; director of photography, Robert Richardson; music by Mason Daring; production designers, Dan Bishop and Dianna Freas; produced by Sarah Green and Maggie Renzi; released by the Samuel Goldwyn Company.
Starring Vincent Spano (Nick), Tony Lo Bianco (Joe), Joe Morton (Wynn), Angela Bassett (Reesha), John Sayles (Carl), Gloria Foster (Jeanette), David Strathairn (Asteroid), Kevin Tighe (O'Brien), Barbara Williams (Angela), Joe Grifasi (Pauly), Louis Zorich (Mayor Baci), Gina Gershon (Laurie), Rose Gregorio (Pina), Bill Raymond (Les), Jace Alexander (Bobby), Todd Graff (Zip), Frankie Faison (Levonne), Tom Wright (Malik), Tony Denison (Rizzo), S.J. Lang (Bauer), Chris Cooper (Riggs), Stephen Mendillo (Yoyo), Josh Mostel (Mad Anthony), Daryl Edwards (Franklin) and Lawrence Tierney (Kerrigan).
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