A Visit To Atlantic City
I remember many years ago getting up early to catch the bus to Atlantic City and get as a reward for taking the bus credits in the casinos. I walked the Boardwalk, spent my casino credits, and took the bus home. It was a way of marking an important life- changing event.
This 1980 film "Atlantic City" directed by Louis Malle predated my experience but I hadn't seen it. Burt Lancaster plays Lou Pascal, an aging and small-time gangster who becomes mixed up in a cocaine robbery. In the process, Lou become involved his young, ambitious apartment house neighbor, Sally Matthews (Susan Sarandon) whom he has been ogling at night through the window. Lou and Sally form an unlikely couple. The movie follows their brief relationship through crime, violence, and the possibility of redemption for both.
With an original screenplay by John Guare the film develops its story quickly and convincingly. Lancaster and Sarandon give outstanding performances for which they received Academy Award nominations. The members of the large supporting cast also offer fine performances. Guare's screenplay and Malle's direction also received Academy Award nominations, and the film itself was nominated for best picture. In 2003, "Atlantic City" was added to the National Film Registry maintained by the Library of Congress as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
The main character of the film is Atlantic City itself. Filmed on-site, "Atlantic City" shows the city on the cusp of a questionable revitalization and change of character with the then recent introduction of casino gambling. The wrecking ball becomes a symbol in this movie as old apartments along the Boardwalk are demolished to make way for casino. The movie takes the viewer through the shabby old neighborhoods of Atlantic City, along the Boardwalk, and through the casinos, corruption, and glitz. It is a visit to Atlantic City in time and as it is no more.
The film reminded me of my visit to the city as it was in the middle of its casino heyday. The film also reminded me of the possibility of change and of moving on in the search of a better life, as I was in the process of doing during my brief visit. . "You live too much in the past" Lou says at one point in the film to a friend who has fallen upon hard times. The aging Lou learns something in this film, as does his young, beautiful companion of a day, about the nature of moving forward and of beginning a new moment in one's life.
Robin Friedman