This is simply one of the best montages of Los Angeles I have ever seen. The clip is from “The Canyons” which was written by Bret Easton Ellis who I have been a fan of since I was a teenager.
The video captures L.A. in a perfect way. Behind the polished exterior lies a deep isolation, one I know very well. In Ellis’s books Less Than Zero and its sequel Imperial Bedrooms, there are characters and situations that are very unique to L.A. A lack of empathy and a darkness. I knew people like the characters in the books. Empty, always searching but getting nowhere. As the darkness started to surround me I knew I needed to get out before I let the city devour me. Videos like this make wonder if anything would be different if I went back. Will my ghosts still be there waiting? Maybe they never left me at all. Los Angeles is a city that holds a strange energy, one that contains beauty and death at the same time. The angels might watch out for you or turn your soul black. Everything was after all, my own experience. L.A. Is just as beautiful and isolating as the clip and I am proud I grew up there. Darkness and all.