Pretend It’s a City: love letter to New York ★★★★

–

Luc Boulanger
Press

After Public Speaking in 2010, director Martin Scorsese had the good idea to remake a documentary with his friend, Fran Lebowitz, based on his thoughts on culture, society and his love for his adopted city: New York. The result is rewarding!

For seven episodes, we follow with pleasure Fran Lebowitz in his walks in the streets of Manhattan (if you like the Big Apple, you will be served by the magnificent images of this city before the pandemic). But above all, we savor his words, like a rare nectar.

Because this intellectual, in 50 years of public life, has always said what she really thinks. No matter the subject, the time or the audience, she expresses herself freely, without jargon; and without trying to please trendy thinkers, on the right and on the left.

Fran Lebovitz likes to argue. In his eyes, a conversation is first and foremost a verbal jousting with his interlocutor. For her, the important thing is not to be right, like too many of our contemporaries who cling to their opinion like a buoy. But to sharpen his thought, to polish it to make it shine like a diamond.