City of Gold

Filmmaker Laura Gabbert’s long awaited documentary City of Gold profiling Los Angeles Times writer Jonathan Gold is premiering at Sundance.  The media already had their screening and I was lucky enough to see it a couple of weeks ago. You can read some great one-liners from Mr. Gold in the Eater coverage.

It’s impossible for me to see the film objectively.  I spend a lot of time with the man and I’m a native Los Angelena, so I’m emotionally attached to both subjects of City of Gold.  But I know deep down that Los Angeles finally has a love song worthy of its breadth and complexity.  Gold was destined to be the writer to reveal its soul to those who still think of LA as a shallow pit unworthy of exploration.

This isn’t a city of gold made of glittering surfaces, easy to access that most folks glance at and leave behind. It’s a city where the gold needs to be mined, something Jonathan has done for a lifetime.  And really, what’s the true gold here?  It’s the people.  And this is Jonathan’s genius in my opinion.  It’s not just his metaphorically rich descriptions of a bowl of porridge or piece of meat.  It’s a lifetime of using words to blast open doors that reveal regular people. People as they go about their day with little attention using food as the way out of struggle to a life of slightly less struggle. Or reveal complexity in the hands of a new master who doesn’t know yet that s(he)’s a master.  Or to translate a story to us that the teller isn’t even aware of telling.

You can look at Jonathan’s work as a series of particular takes on individual restaurants, but I’ve always thought of it as one long essay exploring all that we are in our fractured separateness and all that we could be in our diverse togetherness. And this is what Gabbert the filmmaker captures.  The heart at the center of the man and the city. And it’s about more than Los Angeles.  Expect to get a little choked up.