On Christmas day, I marked my one year anniversary of moving from San Francisco to New York City. It's been an interesting year for me; a cocktail of good and bad that's given me a lubricated view of my new home. The city shifts between gifts and tolls. It's the stumble home after greeting sunrise with a bleeding forehead. In New York, no one is ever sober.
It's probably just as well that the best documentary about New York features someone who appears perpetually under the influence. Timothy "Speed" Levitch is a character so engrossing that it's unclear if the subject of the film is New York City or Levitch himself.
One could say that it's obviously him, but that discredits the fact that The Cruise is still a wonderful portrait of New York thanks to the native Levitch. Most people's first exposure to this man is probably in Richard Linklater's 2001 film Waking Life, where Levitch's rotoscoped form talks of "the ongoing WOW!" Imagine that segment expanded into an entire feature, his machine-gun philosophical musings and sexual analogies focused on the history and architecture of Manhattan, and you'll get the idea of The Cruise.
It's directed by Bennett Miller, a New York native himself, years before he made his narrative feature debut with 2005's Capote. Fitting that Levitch talks a little like Truman Capote himself. Shot in black-and-white video, it documents over a period of three years Levitch's stint as a tour guide for two of those tacky double-decker bus companies in his own unorthodox fashion.
On his tours, he was notorious for rapidly divulging trivia, quoting writers and giving hilarious opinions on various neighborhoods. A unique experience for his tourists. The foreign ones who speak little English as it is most likely didn't understand 98% of what he said. Not that it'd be useful. What he passionately thinks should be noted about Manhattan aren't on the bus tour's route, but he'd tell you anyway. At certain intersections, he would announce how many blocks away from there Thomas Paine or Dorothy Parker died.
I watched the film for the first time shortly after moving to New York, and it did endear me to the city more at a time when I hadn't attached myself to it yet. Maybe it's from someone like Levitch pointing out the highlights. Or maybe it's just his enthusiasm rubbing off through the screen, especially when the film goes beyond just showing his tour guide stints. It follows him walking around the city on his own time—Levitch calls it "the cruise"—recording his relationship with New York in ways that Levitch perhaps couldn't express on the clock. Among the things depicted on film: he talks to the Brooklyn Bridge as he would to a dear friend, he fondles flowers on the sidewalk and, in the film's most memorable moment, he grunts loudly at a building to mimic an orgasm, which he considers the terracotta frieze to be. It's all very odd and not exactly relatable, but living here makes it understandable.
I often wondered if maybe it's a city too late to love. I resisted moving to New York for a long while, not only because I'd worshipped San Francisco, but also because I'd thought that the New York I would love, the one from the movies, had been ushered away and in its place is what Christopher Hitchens once called "a plastic-imitation Disneyland." I'd missed the sordid Times Square, the gritty Hell's Kitchen, and of course, the World Trade Center. I've seen The Cruise a few times now, and watching Levitch always helps dispel that notion. The iconic things may have dissolved, but there's still New York in the little things that you experience as people. If not the lust in terracotta frieze, then perhaps the way the branches in Central Park frame commercial skyscrapers, or the smell of pizza wafting across the front of Village bars, or the moon hanging above the Hudson.
It's impossible to watch this now and gloss over the scenes where Levitch marvels at the World Trade Center. He says his favorite past time is standing between them and spinning around until he's dizzy to pretend as if the towers are falling on him. Given his tendency to personalize inanimate structures, I was worried about his reaction to the September 11th attack, but apparently Levitch dealt with it fairly well, as seen in Richard Linklater's 2003 short doc Live from Shiva's Dance, where Levitch divulges his take on the loss of the towers. "The World Trade Centers did not die," he said. "They created more space."
Levitch later starred in the Adult Swim series Stroker and Hoop (as Hoop) and appeared in the acclaimed 2009 documentary We Live in Public. Sadly, he has ended his longtime affair with New York and relocated to Kansas City. I promise to cruise in his place.
The Cruise is available on Netflix Instant Watch or for purchase in DVD form from Amazon.
Watch Out! is a feature on JustPressPlay where Arya Ponto showcases lesser-known, lesser-appreciated and often bizarre small films that are cool and deserve to get some attention. Venture here to see all previous entries.
