MANHATTAN BY NUMBERS
US, 1993, 95 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Amir Naderi.
Manhattan by Numbers is a short story, a contemporary poetic film by Iranian Amir Naderi. It is the story of the early '90s, a journalist sacked and unable to pay rental for his apartment and for his family. He spends a day searching for people who will help him to raise the money. His journey takes him from 215th Street in Northern Manhattan down through Times Square to the Bowery and Wall Street. The film is a visual presentation of the many aspects of Manhattan as well as of its many faces - especially those without money.
A small-budget feature, it is a striking portrait of Manhattan as well as a relevant story of a man suffering from the '90s recession.
1.The portrait of Manhattan, the island, the buildings, the streets, the people? Small budget? An Iranian viewpoint?
2.The structure of the film: one day, the search for friends, the search for Tom Ryan, the growing desperation?
3.New York City, Manhattan, Washington Heights and 215th Street, the Harlem and bombed-out-looking apartments, Times Square, Eighth Street, Alphabet City, the Bowery and Wall Street? The musical score?
4.215th Street and its ordinariness, the apartment? The subway as a motif, the stations, the tunnels, the trains? Interiors and exteriors? The apartments around 190th Street? 145th and Harlem, 125th, the bombed out buildings, the shops, Times Square - and the hallucinatory images of Times Square? The village, Lower Manhattan, the squalor of Alphabet City, the parks? Skid Row and the Bowery? The buildings and statuary of Wall Street?
5.George Murphy and his situation, a writer, up all night, looking for jobs, his love for Mary and his daughter, the phone calls, the pocketbook, the range of friends, the possibilities, impossibilities? The growing obsession with finding Tom Ryan? The visit to his cousin, ringing the journalists, going to the shop for the loan?
6.The range of people and their portraits - the people of the New York streets, old and young, different races, poverty?
7.The portrait of Tom Ryan - never found? The journalist, his drinking, the jobs, Ruth and her information, the people at the bar, hostile, his causes, the reactions of the range of people?
8.Wall Street and its giant canyons - and the street scenes with the absence of people?
9.The young man and his seeing George in the shop, running after him, searching? His message of hope - that someone was interested and tried, the gift, "Merry Christmas"?
10.George's growing desperation, phone call to Mary, at his wits' end? His despair with his friends?
11.A cinema poem?
