I (re)watched The Friends of Eddie Coyle the other night, and thoroughly enjoyed the sad and squalid atmosphere, Peter Boyle's enigmatic stare, Robert Mitchum at his most charismatic and seedy, and most of all the you-are-there feel of Boston in the 1970s–because I was there, in 1978, for a few weeks, wondering if I could fit in, visiting an old friend who was doing grad studies at Harvard, wandering about. I saw Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain at the Beacon Theatre, and drank in the atmosphere (and pints) in venerable local establishments such as The Plough and the Stars in Cambridge...anyway, it all came back to me in one scene of the film in which Mitchum meets his gun dealer (Stephen Keats) in the parking lot of a supermarket, a long tracking shot that descends slowly from above the parking lot, affording us a perfect view of the automotive hardware of mid-70s America. Not a pickup truck in sight, nor an SUV. All big, solid sedans and wagons, Detroit iron, Buicks, Oldsmobiles, Chevys, an all-American panorama except for the odd Datsun or VW, probably belonging to college liberals. Elsewhere the absence of cell phones and computers amid an otherwise modern landscape is striking. It all gives resonance to the expression "in an earlier lifetime": yes, I was there then, but was it really me? Surely not.

(Highly recommended, BTW: the Mitchum/Keats "I got four extra knuckles" scene.)