| Movie Review | The Journal of American History, 93.3

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| Movie Review | The Journal of American History, 93.3 | The History Cooperative

Movie Reviews

Las Vegas: An Unconventional History. Dir. by Stephen Ives. Prod. by Stephen Ives and Amanda Pollak. Insignia Films, 2005. 180 mins. (PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, VA 22314; 800-531-4727; http://www.shoppbs.org/)
Las Vegas, Nevada, has long been a canvas for American neuroses. This is an old habit for Americans, a well-worn attitude to the city that began when Las Vegas was exotic, delectable, delicious, tawdry, and anything else the visiting writers and filmmakers (whom the locals call "carpetbaggers") could think of to call the city. They came prepared to see the city and its people in a certain way, and in a place devoted to illusion, it is not hard to find what you came looking for.	1
Stephen Ives's Las Vegas: An Unconventional History sadly falls into that generations-old trap. There is nothing unconventional about this film. It recapitulates every cliché about the city. The film could have been made by the Travel Channel. Ives is a lesson in and of himself. He brought to the project an East Coast sensibility, which led it astray from the beginning. He and his staff had an ahistorical vision of the city in their minds from the start, and that skewed image led to one indefensible choice after another.	. . .

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