1998 Directed by Bennett Miller
Affectionate portrait of Tim "Speed" Levitch, a tour guide for Manhattan's Gray Line double-decker buses. He talks fast, is in love with the city, and dispenses historical facts, architectural analysis, and philosophical musings in equal measures. He's reflective and funny about cruising: he loves it, got in it to meet women, and he'd quit work if he could. His personal life is disclosed in small
Bennett Miller’s documentary is both an ode to New York City and to one of its eccentric citizens who cruises around the streets delivering idiosyncratic tour guides in an open top bus. The film follows the fast-talking, effeminate and nasal-toned Timothy ‘Speed’ Levitch as he philosophises about life and the city whilst delivering a dizzying guide about the Big Apple to his dumbstruck passengers.
Shot in grainy black and white and opening with a Gershwin number, this is a film that romanticises the city of New York much like the work of Woody Allen. Although remaining focused on Levitch’s tours and his own personal life, Miller’s documentary also explores the past and present of a living and constantly evolving city.…
Timothy "Speed" Levitch, our guide through the streets of Manhattan speaks at one point about a time where he felt that the city he loves was in the progress of divorcing him. Me own relationship with NYC pales in comparison. At most she's that girl you, and about everyone else, have a crush on in high school. You know, the one that doesn't even know that you exist, only dates older guys and never even gives you a fleeting glance.
My one and only visit to the city came this summer, not that she noticed. Three days was not even close to being enough. This documentary on the other hand, is a great substitute but now I wish I'd seen…
The Cruise is a documentary with an interesting premise, but not that good execution. The subject matter is Tim "Speed" Levitch, who is an interesting man. The problem is, this would work if it was a podcast. As a movie, it is not that good. At times, I was browsing Reddit while the movie was on and was just listening to the movie. And it's better that way in my opinion.
Tim "Speed" Levitch idiosyncratically and kinetically embodies New York City in Bennett Miller's equally brisk documentary The Cruise. Emoting bus cruises all over the Big Apple, his long curly hair dancing with the bus' breeze, poems, random curiosities, and inspiring architectural descriptions are abound in Levitch's tour. Miller tries to keep up with all his theories and feelings and ideals, drawing up a portrait of a completely unique, slightly sad, partially silly, and perhaps mad man who lives to experience the world around him while exploring its beauty. The chaotic pulchritude that both men extract from their environments is quite stirring, despite the fact that the video cinematography is very blurred and often doesn't allow its viewers to fully witness…
"The Twin Towers. Sometimes I like to spin in between the two towers and you make yourself dizzy and then you look up and it looks like the buildings are falling in on top of you. Yeah It's amazing, I recommend that, it's fun."
If only he knew.
Timothy "Speed" Levitch is viewed against horizontal and vertical lines, occasionally breaking out into open air and canted angles. Rarely is an on-the-fly documentary so well composed. Even the cheap video works to help Levitch stand out against washed out backgrounds.
A completely remarkable journey into the psyche of a unique tour guide giving a fascinating tour of New York City in the late 1990's. A gift of a documentary.
"The Cruise" is my favourite documentary ever and I am now realising it is one of my favourite films. It is the story of one man trying to articulate the ineffable; grasp the fluctuating, slippery object of existence and explore it through various anecdotes of the city he loves. I could see why someone could view what Timothy Levitch says as pretentious but there is such a rhythm and a quality to his tone that I think his words are nothing other than poetry; just watching him is making me more deliberate in my choice of words and make an attempt to be eloquent now. I took something entirely different from this film last year when I first watched it…
SuperSam's Super Thoughts:
I was very fortunate enough to watch this in clsss today and I'm blown away. The Cruise is the best New York documentary I ever seen. It is gorgeous to see the film be shot in black and white with different angles of various places in New York. This is also the first film of Bennett Miller, who went out to direct Capone, Moneyball, and Foxcatcher. Timothy "Speed" Levitch is an incredible character with great on screen presence. He has some memorable lines like We are all co-authors of this dancing exuberance, for even our inabilities are having a roast. We are the authors of ourselves, co-authoring a gigantic Dostoevsky novel starring clowns! Truly remarkable. The Cruise…
I'm interested in stories of people living, for lack of a better word, "authentic" lives, and I can't think of a better example than The Cruise and Timothy "Speed" Levitch. Some may find his voice grating and his philosophizing superficial, but as a tour bus guide, Levitch raises a job many would consider trivial to the level of performance art. Sad, joyful, exuberant, deep, shallow, crazy, and above all fascinating, hold on to your seat belts folks, it's a wild, highly-recommended ride.
Could this be my new favorite movie?
Equally revelatory of man as of Manhattan. Poetry escapes Timothy Levitch's mouth as freely as breath -- sense and nonsense in a dance both profound and playful.
This unclassifiable indie feature (a winner on the fest circuit) evidently started out as a performance documentary capturing the spiels and routines of Timothy 'Speed' Levitch, an ineffably camp (but self-proclaimed straight) New York City tour guide. He approaches each bus ride through the metropolis as a new situationist experiment in psycho-geography, treating bemused tourists alternately to waspish put-downs of buildings and their former residents and floods of free association between his own (sad) life and the universe. Some of his patter is pretty droll, so it's understandable that Miller periodically takes off from it into visual fantasias rather like the little 'city poems' underground film-makers used to churn out in the 1950s. Ultimately, though, your response to the movie depends on your response to Levitch himself.
Have you ever met someone with such a larger than life, eccentric personality that it takes over an hour or so of listening to them talk for you to realize their stream of consciousness rambling offers more amusement than insight? Well, that's pretty much The Cruise.
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