FILMS SHOT IN BALTIMORE: NO RATS HERE

     President Trump's potent insult to  Maryland Representative Elijah Cummings about his hometown of Baltimore left an indelible mark on this critic. Although I  was born and raised in Baltimore, I had not been there for decades. And yet it's a place I will never forget, just as the Baltimore residents will never forget Trump's statement that it was a rat-infested city not fit for human beings. ( I wonder if he had read the relatively recent account  in the Baltimore Sun that a rat had been found in the iconic Lexington Market, America's oldest public market place, circa 1782 ). Name me a city in the U.S.A. where rodents have never been spotted. Or name me an urban center which does not have its share of  poverty-laden neighborhoods. Baltimore is no better or worse than most other cities of its kind.

     Yet Baltimore is also different: where diversity and uniqueness give Baltimore a fullness of life overflowing with sights, sounds, tastes and smells. And neighborhoods with iconography that remain with you for the rest of your days.

It seems rather melodramatic, but Trump's statement moved me in a way none of his nasty tweets has ever done before. I have yet to figure out why, but examining feature films made in/about Baltimore brought back my precious past. It also became evident that Baltimore itself is a salient CHARACTER in these movies. I could now dismiss the President's insults. He was not talking about MY Baltimore.

     My earliest memories of Baltimore were as a young child, visiting my beloved grandmother who lived in the Pimlico neighborhood ( whose racetrack was home to the Preakness). Year after year,  the announcer's "And they're off" signaled the beginning of each daily race as  the sounds echoed up and down the streets. Of course, I  could only imagine what the racetrack looked like since I never stepped foot inside, but this Baltimore neighborhood made me realize that the place was both odd and enduring.

       There was other iconography that gave the city its characteristic features: the row houses had become  iconic architecture in most  working and middle class Baltimore neighborhoods. So had the marble steps which fronted many of these residences; daily scrubbing of these same steps also became iconic as my immigrant mother never failed to remind me. 

     Baltimore carried a mixed message regarding art, however. True, New York artists in John Water's "Pecker" saw Baltimore merely as row houses and marble steps, but they also perceived the atmosphere as sexual and powerful. Conversely, how did Baltimore artists define their own endeavors? What New Yorkers call art in Manhattan is deemed "miserable" in Baltimore, according to the film, "Pecker." Art, to local  residents,  was simply  "what you see everyday."

     It's obvious that the characters in "Pecker," including the photographer/protagonist, dearly loved their home town which was "Everything a place should be." And even though out-of-towners perceived Baltimoreans as "culturally challenged," residents' loyalty was unshakable.  Consider the homage to Baltimore that Tracy Turnblad sang in "Hairspray's" beginning ( "Good Morning Baltimore"). 

     In all the films I saw, mostly written and directed by John Waters, including "Pecker" (1998), "Pink Flamingos" (1972), and Barry Levinson's "Diner"(1982), "Tin Men" (1987), "Avalon" (1990), and "Liberty Heights" (1999), no character ever wanted to leave Baltimore, although obviously filmmaker Levinson did.  But he continued to stay connected with works like  TV's "Homicide" years later.

     Of course, iconography in Baltimore means more than physical items like row houses and marble steps.  Its neighborhoods, scattered all over the city, each has distinct demographic features defining who lives there, like their social status, religious affiliation,world view, and race. For example, the shops and hipster atmosphere  in Hampden still suggest the blue collar mill town that it once was in the 19th century. This is Baltimore at its "kitsch" best and the area where women are called "Hon" during special times. In "Pecker," it is where Mary Kay Place's  clothing shop for homeless people exists. Other quirky stores are reminiscent of Christopher Walken's place in "Hairspray" ( 2007 ), a John Waters' remake directed by Adam Shankman. 

     Fell's Point is another neighborhood featured in "Diner" and "Liberty Heights,"  where the boys go to hang out  at their home-away-from-home, the diner. This restaurant is no ordinary place, where the boys muddle through their problems and ponder their evasive future.  Both "Dinner" and "Liberty Heights" serve as rites of passage, and the diner plays an important part in the process.

     Forest Park also represents an iconic, popular Jewish neighborhood, and the terraced row house that the Kay Family moved into in "Avalon" was Levinson's real-life childhood home. It was  also the same residence that Danny De Vito and Barbara Hershey moved to in "Tin Men." Important changes in both families were a result.

     The suburbs figure in "Avalon" as well, when the Kay Family moved to what appeared to be Pikesville signaling their new found middle-class status. However, the move also divided the previously close-knit relatives and brought about a change in family dynamics.

     While unique iconography and neighborhoods gave Baltimore its distinctiveness, it was also the role of national change that made this city significant: the acceptance of integration in "Hairspray" and "Liberty Heights"; the surmounting of antisemitism in "Liberty Heights"; and  the  introduction of the Home Improvement Commission in "Tin Men."  These changes imbued Baltimore with a strong moral character that would overcome any rats that happened to be running down the streets.