Can a Taxi Man Make a Subway Movie?

Photo by Diego Cupolo via Flickr (Creative Commons)

There’s a surprising tidbit in the Slate review of “The Taking of Pelham 123,” the Denzel/Travolta-starring remake of a ’70s subway-thriller classic. Turns out, director Tony Scott never actually rides the New York subway. Or, almost never: “Well, when I say never, I mean maybe once or twice quite drunk at night, when I couldn’t find a taxi.” Right.

You know that saying about writing what you know? Well, I think the same could apply to directing intensely place-based films. Slate’s John Swansburg says it all: “For a movie ostensibly set in the city’s bowels, [Scott] frequently contrives to take his camera on helicopter rides.”

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