I didn't realize that it had a name but it does: that shot ... that shot when a person or a couple of people are walking the crowded streets of NYC, a long-lense camera focusing on them as we follow their journey -- both literal and existential -- is called "the Tootsie shot."
That's because, in the 1982 classic Tootsie, we follow the crossdressing hero played by Dustin Hoffman as he/she walks the crowded Manhattan streets as they try to restart their acting career as a woman.
I just listened to an entire podcast episode about this particular shot, and how variations of it appear in different ways in many NYC movies. But what this shot contains, what all the version of it contains, is the same visual meaning -- that of a person, alone in NYC, is starting a new journey that will change his or her life.
And here's the thing: "the Tootsie shot" is much older than Tootsie itself. In the 1969 classic Midnight Cowboy -- more than a decade before Tootsie -- Hoffman himself walks on the streets in a crowd, bellowing his classic line, "I'm walkin' here! I'm walkin' here!"
There are many examples of this famous shot from different NYC movies over the decade -- including two with John Travolta playing the Brooklyn dancer Tony Menero.
Here are some great examples of "the Tootsie shot" in some classic NYC movies:
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Times Square (1980)
Tootsie (1982)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please keep it civil, intelligent, and expletive-free. Otherwise, opine away.