Motown

picture source here

For those with a soft spot for bygone eras and glamorous abandoned buildings comes a documentary (?) about the rise and fall of Detroit - the Atlantis of motor vehicles. If you've got time sit down and let your heart ache over the jaw dropping ruins of the past and lost splendour - who would have thought a city could accumulate so much history over (what in comparison to Old World cities is) a lifespan of a fruit fly?
You may be left with a strange aftertaste (not unlike that of a fermented blackcurrant juice). - we are, after all, a civilisation in progress. And like all others before us, we will some day be buried in time/rising sea levels. Anyhow, it's a simple, maybe slightly superficial but at times touching piece of cinematography. Featuring crazy artists, urban explorers and Cadillacs. And (of course) good old Motown music:)

"Requiem for Detroit"
directed by: Julien Temple
Duration: 75min
Free to stream via the BBC iPlayer
available until: 10.14pm Sat 20th March 2010

And here's a matching article to go:
Detroit: the last days by Julien Temple

I also came across this photo and explanation:

“Michigan Theater” is a view of the former Michigan Theater whose space was transformed into a parking lot. Remnants of the theater give the scene great irony made more poignant by the fact that this was also the site of Henry Ford’s first workshop. The wealth created by Ford’s genius put America on wheels and caused the city of Detroit to explode in size over night and a skyscraper with a 4000 seat movie theater to supplant Ford’s humble shop. As time passed and suburban theaters with free parking emerged, the Michigan Theater with its lack of parking failed and the commercial viability of the Michigan Building was similarly threatened. The solution was to turn the theater into a parking lot.

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