THE setting of a movie scene, according to a professor of American literature, is the third important element of storytelling, right after the characters and the plot.
For us, sentimentalists and film buffs, where a movie has been shot is essentially the only visually tangible thing we can go to and feel whatever vibe we have for it.
Often we see actors seemingly detaching themselves from the beloved characters they’re known for. An Oscar winner may accept the award, say, fully bearded and sporting long hair, while the character that actually led them to the trophy is shaved and bald.
Unless it’s a movie set disassembled after the shoot, the place where an iconic movie scene was shot will likely provide goosebumps to movie fans.
That was my experience when I was brought to the site of the iconic house that served as the main setting of the 2018 Netflix movie Bird Box. The house located in Old Town Monrovia (in California), with its identifiable front stairs and moody look, is where the characters of Sandra Bullock and John Malkovich, the film’s most popular faces, quarantined themselves along with other interesting figures to survive, albeit temporarily, the menace happening outside.
After standing in front of the Bird Box safe house, and having my picture taken there, I re-streamed the movie and excitedly waited for that opening chaotic scene to unfold. I was awed realizing I just passed by the street where the sister of Bullock’s character sees the thing causing the mayhem and which leads to her numbing demise. The spot had become a tourist attraction after the success of the film, with netizens posting pictures or videos of themselves with blindfolds in various ways to mimic the blindfolded protagonists,
A few months back, I was driven to a spot where an iconic scene from the original Back To The Future movie featuring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd was shot. That clip where the DeLorean time machine first got tested and which resulted in Marty McFly being transported to November 5, 1955, by circumstance was shot in the premises of Puente Hills Mall (City of Industry, CA), renamed Twin Pines Mall for the movie.
Writer Ed Cunningham stated that “there’s something quite glamorous about seeing somewhere you know in a Hollywood blockbuster.” He thinks that people would want to put themselves in the shoes of a famous character while in the very spot where he or she is seen in the movie. In my case, it’s more of elevating the world presented in a movie, and more importantly the meaning of the film, by paying homage to its setting.
Whatever happens in a movie is forever attached to the setting where it takes place. Regardless if it’s fiction or based on a real story, it becomes a certain spot’s created version of reality. So that house used in Bird Box is no longer just a house like any other in that area of Monrovia, but the epicenter of a post-apocalyptic world existing in the movie, or in the novel where it was adapted from.
One time late last year, I was in Los Angeles visiting a family friend who surprised me by revealing that a few steps from their place lies the site of the diner featured in the opening scene of the Antoine Fuqua-directed Training Day starring Denzel Washington, in his Academy Award-winning performance, and Ethan Hawke, in a role you would root for. A new establishment now occupies the lot, but knowing it was there where Alonzo Harris and Jake Hoyt first met in the film made me smile. I was on some solid ground!
In every fine film, there is a place that the art of cinema puts a stamp on and turns what is otherwise commonplace into some mystical, magical spot.