Architecture of GREAT KITCHENS IN FILM


A Perfect Murder









For the pleasures of a good index, I’ve compiled a list of “Great Kitchens In Film”. As the architecture of film goes, these are set designs notable not for do-it-yourself ideas, but rather for the joys of taxonomy. These constitute an architecture because they give us a new way of seeing. Their success lies less in their tastefulness than in the expressive efficiency of their structures. The list is by no means exhaustive.

In Bright Eyes (1934) Shirley Temple spends a lot of time in the black and white tiled spaciousness of her single mother’s wealthy employer, who only ever comes in to give directions. Though it’s a place of unremitting labor, the gleaming surfaces and comestible abundance help the uniformed staff serve as a surrogate family, which is what Shirley Temple movies were all about. Who wouldn’t feel safe and happy with cupboards that clean and ceilings that high? The counters are a mile long.

To get to the kitchen in Shampoo (1975), we first follow a long path from the driveway to the rolling lawns in back, down to the clay tennis courts and back up to the sprawling, Bel-Aire home of Lee Grant’s daughter Carrie Fisher, before finally entering. In the double door refrigerator-freezer (the Sub-Zero of its day), already prepared cold-cuts and peeled & cut veggies are arranged and waiting on a plate under Saran Wrap . It helps to define her precociousness, affluence and sense of entitlement that she can carry on a pointed argument with her mother’s lover while at the same time politely offering him a baked apple, “So, are you queer? – you want a baked apple? they’re cold, but they’re good – Well, are you?” You can just smell the central air-conditioning.

That we never really see the kitchen in his studio apartment sheds much light on the manly modern artist Jimmy Stewart plays in Rear Window (1954). He’s too busy pushing the boundaries of photo-journalism to care about eating. Reflecting both his economy of means and his increasing dependence on a “perfect” woman, the kitchen is only animated by a restaurant delivery man and a girlfriend’s preparation of after-dinner drinks. It helps that the restaurant is “21”, and the girl is Grace Kelly. But in the incandescent shadows reflected off the narrow ceiling as she hums invisibly fixing coffee and cognac, we are made privy to Stewart’s ambivalence to warmth & domesticity.

A Perfect Murder (1998) features an impossibly enormous renovated prewar townhouse, and though the kitchen is the ultimate scene of the crime the only thing perfect is the housekeeping. This kitchen isn’t for soiling with anything so messy as food. Even the cook’s “famous roast” comes out of the oven like an immaculate concoction. Our introductory view is disembodied as the camera slowly and coldly caresses the highest-end fixtures and furnishings, gliding across hand painted glass tile backsplash, unused brass-plated standing faucet and antique lever controls above an enormous, pristine, porcelain bib sink; copper pots for every possible purpose hang high and still over a work table big enough for a wrestling match with a stranger. The multiple entrances from various parts of the home only makes us feel more vulnerable to unexpected entry and the separate door to a service elevator can only lead to danger. If the ominous darkness wasn’t enough to make unsuspecting Gwyneth Paltrow stay miles away in the bath, you might still need the plot contrivance of a ringing phone to bring her padding in in robe and slippers. Lucky for her there was a 9 inch stainless-steel meat thermometer nearby. ______________________________________________________________________________________
Coming soon - Pantry with its sliding metal door cabinets and seltzer bottles and extra glasses (and bicarbonate of soda- how comforting) in All About Eve Mellow late night under the cabinet light (and green travertine?) in FLW’s Ennis house location for Harrison Ford in Blade Runner – augmented with a realistic-because naturally accreted- mismatch of additional lighting and cooking implements. Six Degrees of Separation has the classic late1980s glass fronted high end cabinets with interior halogen pin-point lights, and central island and granite counters – and no food. See also the first yuppie kitchen for aging boomers in the early '80s “The Big Chill” – one of the first re-examinations and exonerations of bourgeois domesticity, until then repudiated by younger versions of these same characters. See also the unsoiled fantasy of the “Father of the Bride” remakes; The cosseted retro-deco of “Alice”; The kitchen in Dinner Rush doesn't count because technically, its real (Gigino Trattoria on Greenwich Street)