The Cruise
Genre: Documentary
Cast: Timothy “Speed” Levitch
Director: Bennett Miller
Release: (1998)
Bennett Miller seems to have a thing for the effeminate eccentric. Best known as the Oscar-nominated director of the Oscar-winning Capote, Miller’s first film casts its gaze onto the life and mind of another, equally idiosyncratic character, a New York City tour guide named Timothy Levitch. Nicknamed “Speed” forhistendencytotalktilethis, Levitch looks like a cross between John Lennon and Steven Wright and sounds like an effeminate tommy gun. The Cruise takes us along for the ride as he spends his days spitfiring bits of information and philosophy at bewildered foreign tourists and his nights making love to the world in his mind. (Sounds vague, I know, but there aren’t a whole lot of other ways to describe it).
Though Levitch may have an appreciation for the world that would be hard for many to understand, his true love is clearly with New York City. Levitch speaks passionately of the city, and its beauty and emotions, with the type of reverence is usually found only in the overwrought verses of alcoholic poets in love. His (literally) near-orgasmic appreciation of the intricacies of the city’s architecture may border on pathology, but it is also a somewhat charming reminder of the astonishing achievements all around us that most of us take completely for granted.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this film, however, has very little to do with Levitch at all. Shot pre-9/11, the film provides a snapshot of a time when the twin towers were just another part of the New York City skyline, not much more than mildly interesting postcard fodder. Occasional transition shots of the city mixed in with no intended significance become fascinating as a reminder of a time when they would actually have no intended significance. Levitch does also weigh in on the doomed structures that he affectionately refers to as “the brothers”, the result being a climactic scene towards the end of the film that will forever now leave post 9/11 audiences speechless.
Despite coming in at a short 76 minutes, there are moments along the way where it feels it could have been a little tighter. A little over half way through I reached a stage where the feel of the film went from “Yeah, that’s pretty interesting…” to “Yeah, I get it, stuff is beautiful. You mentioned that.” If you can make it through that little rut, though, Miller saves some of the best for last and eventually gets Levitch to offer us a glimpse of the tremendous amount of emotional baggage that he is also clinging to. Though it sheds a more pathetic light on Levitch, ultimately it just adds to the depth of a complex individual laid bare for our entertainment. The one thing you’re likely to walk away with, whether or not you learn anything else from “Speed”, is that we should all be so lucky as to love anything the way Levitch loves New York.
Grading
Story: N/A
Acting: N/A
Visuals: A
Originality/Innovation: B
Enjoyability: B+
Overall: A- |
