The Noisy Landscape1968

I dug this film's visuals, but can't get on board with centralized, technocratic planning of urban signage. Apparently, the Architects of America prefer San Francisco as a tourist trap rather than a working port, or quiet suburbs to the proliferation of signs in NYC... The shots of NYC and other big cities are wonderful, with all the crazy, commercial energy of the old Times Square and different small stores and restaurants, night clubs and movie theaters -- how unlike the sanitized New York (or anyplace else, for that matter) of chain-stores and boring corporate standardization! Watch this film for a glimpse of the vanished urban eyesore in all its flashing, neon glory!

Here, aesthetics are as interesting as intent and objectives. The architects who created this doc provide fascinating examples of clean and cluttered urban design, but the overall effect is transparently self-serving: "You should hire professional architects (AKA us, the filmmakers) to clean up your unsightly streets!" Because of the extent to which mid-20th century "urban renewal" was responsible for razing historic and minority neighbourhoods, I found it difficult to simply laugh at the motive.

Priceless.