Los Angeles

Sarah Morris
Los Angeles
2004
35mm / HD Digital
26:12 mins

“Sarah Morris’ image of Los Angeles vividly bring the place to the kind of life it conveys when you are there: Conflicted, ironic, weird, empty, glitzy, dreary. She has an extremely sharp eye and a superb sense of composition and contrast.”

– Peter Bogdanovich

“Los Angeles” shot by Sarah Morris in 2004, continued Morris’s investigation into the culture, architecture, and aesthetics of the city, which is the center of the film industry. The film investigates both the surface of the city – its architecture and geography – as well as its “interior”: the psychology of inhabitants and its key players. Morris has since produced numerous films in various cities including Rio, Beijing, and most recently in Japan. Her films are collections of modular parts, which can be detached and recontextualized in relation to the other films in her oeuvre.

“Los Angeles” gives an inside look at an industry that is fueled by representation, ambition, fantasy and celebrity. Morris obtained unprecedented access to the annual Oscars, playing with the notion pre-production and the production of this “event” as well as questioning the role of the artist. Scenes range from legendary producers and actors Dino de Laurentiis, Faye Dunaway, Robert Evans, Nicole Kidman, Jack Nicholson, Brad Pitt, Nick Cage, Naomi Watts, Bill Murray, Dennis Hopper, Jennifer Garner, Scarlett Johanssen, Sofia Coppola, Johnny Depp, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Uma Thurman creating scenes of urban landscape showing the mechanisms of filmmaking and celebrity that indelibly form the image of Los Angeles.