Lost Highways of Los Angeles

From the monochromatic Downtown of the silent era to the colorful late-1960s road trip in Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point (1970), this course journeys through the lost and imagined landscapes of a city often better known for its demons than the angels it was ironically named after. Skipping film noir altogether, we pass swiftly through studio backlots with the Coens’ Hail, Caesar! (2016), drift into the nocturnal haze of Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001), and slip just southwest of Los Feliz to the reservoir depths of Under the Silver Lake (2018). From there, we surface along the Los Angeles River, crossing the San Fernando Valley of the 1970s in Licorice Pizza (2021), before looping back to 1940s Tinseltown in a frantic taxi chase over the Hyperion Bridge and through the tunnel to Griffith Observatory in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). Will we make it in time to help Roger Rabbit stop Judge Doom from dismantling Toontown for a freeway? Join us to find out!