The Many Lives of Chicago Cinema

US cities have often been transformed by the lens of cinema, particularly for generations who grew up with such a strong imprint of the American imagination; through films and TV series, they have made a country across the Atlantic feel much closer and more familiar. Whilst New York’s cinematic recognisability is beyond question, and whilst the entertainment industry shares the imagery of Los Angeles in an almost identical way, the city of Chicago, too, has continued to appear on screen for over a century, lending its streets, houses, stations, bridges and skyscrapers to stories as diverse as can be. The result is almost a curious parallel geography: a deeply real Chicago in which, as you walk its streets, its many fictional lives constantly come to the fore. From "The Blues Brothers" to "Ferris Bueller’s Day Off" (known in Italy as "Una pazza giornata di vacanza"), from "Home Alone" to "The Untouchables" and "The Dark Knight", the secret to all this perhaps lies in its architecture. Chicago is, in fact, a city that offers both grandeur and everyday life: the vertical centre of the Loop, the tram tracks suspended above the streets, the bridges over the river, Lake Michigan, onto which the skyscrapers look out, and a landscape where gigantic office blocks coexist with residential neighbourhoods. A highly diverse urban fabric that resonates in film noir, in teen comedies, but also in gangster films right through to comic-book adaptations. In short, Chicago always seems to have the perfect backdrop at its disposal.

And it is probably precisely this capacity for transformation that explains why Chicago works so well on camera. New York, in fact, often plays itself. Los Angeles can play almost any setting, bringing with it both the echo and the artificiality of the industry that produces those images. Chicago occupies a different position: it is iconic enough to have a personality of its own and malleable enough to be able to construct another. For this reason, experiencing it through its locations and the Seventh Art means constantly having the impression of having been there before: in a place where a suburban villa can instantly transport you back to childhood, a church can evoke a mission in the name of God, a flight of steps can bring vivid images of gangster films back to life, a museum can remind you of a day off school, and a tangle of skyscrapers can conjure up Gotham City. And yet, in the background, there is always Chicago: a city that never ceases to be itself.