Francis Thompson spent eight years working on N.Y., N.Y., perhaps his most famous film. It is a collection of images of New York City that he captured using special lenses, prisms, and mirrors. N.Y., N.Y. thus becomes a hall of mirrors with a cubist-Dadaist feel that offers a new perspective on the cityscape. The film was awarded the Golden Palm for best short film. 

Beyond all the dazzling imagery, New York, New York is a statement, an urban vision aimed at the soul more than the eyes. Thompson later joked that he wanted to “mock the absurdity of New York City life,” but the film is less about the inhabitants and more about a day in the life of Manhattan itself, an island like an ant colony full of vague glimpses of life, but defined by infrastructure.

Thompson’s distorted imagery detaches Manhattan from the earth, with its skyscrapers, high-rise buildings, and bridges hanging in the air like clouds. His work is less a portrait of the futility and absurdity of city life than a reinterpretation of the cityscape. The dream life of buildings transcends stone and steel.