The Cruise

The Cruise (1998)

Who is Timothy Speed Levitch?

A New Yorker, most of all. If you're a New Yorker, you know what I mean.

He's a quirky individualist who is the tour guide on one of those buses with an open second layer on top, and he rambles with idiosyncratic abandon about different aspects of the city. It would be fun to have him for your real tour guide, but I don't do tour buses, and of course the movie is all most of us have instead, so you do get something here of the man's style and his love of the city. Eventually it becomes more than a weird love letter to New York, and we come to see how a man is coping with being alive in the city and making sense of the systems that he finds insidious (including the justice system, which he once negotiated as an accused).

If you like documentaries, and you like New York, and you appreciate oddball people, this might just be a great little movie. Overall, I found it too narrow, too dependent on liking the main and only character, and too unexceptional (actually) to take off.

"Don't look up until after you're dizzy." This is just after he tells a boy on the bus that it's fun to stand between the twin towers and spin until you get dizzy, and they you can look up and it seems like the two buildings are about to fall on you. In a way, this defines fully half of the man, his boyish lack of restraint, his joy for life. He layers lots of facts about New York City into this zany fun outlook.

I didn't get swept up by his monologues partly because I've known too many people like Levitch, at least in pieces, just by knowing lots of artists and others who want to do their thing and the world can take it or leave it. His freewheeling theories are really not that strange, either, and the self-aggrandizing hidden by a veneer of humility is a bit too much about ego. Listen to me, he says, and we have to listen, even when it's not really so interesting. Don't get me wrong, I find Levitch to be an attractive kind of person, someone who is alive on their own terms, who has theories about how that world works that can't hold water but are functional anyway, and who is actually happy amidst all the grey sadness.

Still, I got a bit restless and bored by the not-so-brilliant after all chatter. Yet, it occurs to me that other people may not have run into these kinds of people, and this movie is a great entry point, and hopefully one that makes you appreciate all of them, Levitch in particular. Really, I wish I was more like him, and maybe in my own way I am, though I lack his unselfconsciousness. But what I mean is we are all secretly wishing we could just throw out all the worries we have and live what seems to be a very simple life, giving people pleasure on these bus tours and therefore seeing New York yourself, and lots of different kinds of people, every day you go to work.

It's not enough for a great movie, but it's unique enough and unpretentious, and filmed with a low-budget accessibility (by the director), you should give it a shot. You'll know after ten minutes what the flavor of the whole movie is, and even much of the content.

I loved the idea of this film! I love New York and stories about the creative and eccentric people that live there. But from the opening scene I knew that his nasal whine would irritate me, and it did. I made it through this movie even though I was tempted to turn it off a few times. There were several moments that were amusing and artistic (several comments on the tour bus; spinning in between the Twin Towers), but overall I found it to be annoying and pretentious. I guess I am getting bored with unambitious schlubs whining about the world and how much it sucks. It just seems trite to me at this point. There is a difference between living in a rebellious state, and TALKING endlessly about it like you are the most important person in the universe. And the guy in this film seemed like the latter to me. Many of his monologues were just ridiculous, and I did not care about his point of view at all. I more enjoyed watching the people around him, than him.

This little film could also have been a great story for The New Yorker. When I saw Tim "Speed" Levitch, I thought, Wow, I know this guy! He's every New Yorker I've ever met - tough, effete, gruff, wise, silly, profane, provincial, cosmopolitan, neurotic, eloquent, voluble, accessible, insecure, indomitable...

A few points:

I hope Speed wasn't fired by Grey Line (like he was afraid he'd be) for his choice comments and his non-regulation livery.

Grey Line should wise up and charge a premium for the "Speed Tour" and give Tim Levitch a fitting raise.

More than anything else, "The Cruise" is a portrait of a natural-born poet in his element.

Part Allen Ginsberg, part Woody Allen with a sprinkling of Harvey Fierstein and Albert Camus Timothy Speed Levitch takes you on a unforgettable tour of NYC - The genuineness of his love for NYC, it's history, it's culture is infectious- There is an alluring innocence about Levitch though you can't help wondering what the issue or issues are that darken his soul; is it drugs, his sexuality, mental illness? Add Levitch to the long list of highly actualized, highly troubled human beings whose struggles illuminate the journey. The scene of his visit to the grounds of the twin towers is haunting and you wonder if this film could have been made in post 9/11 world

The Cruise isn't so much of a film as it is an awakening. It is the story of one of the most unique, interesting, brilliant, and bizarre men in the most unique, interesting, brilliant, and bizarre of cities. The man is Timothy "Speed" Levitch. The city is New York. Timothy Levitch is a twentysomething New York City Bus Tour Guide. This is a good thing, because Levitch likes to talk, and talk, and then talk some more.

Levitch is a philosopher with a unique perspective on life: He views all the worlds materials as having a symbiotic relationship with each other in a way not so much cosmic as intertwined. This leads to his belief that The Brooklyn Bridge not only is one of his best friends, but the only friend who hasn't let him down. He also feels that he has had an on again off again relationship with New York City, and he has an ongoing battle with the "anti-cruise" forces. See, the anti-cruise forces are those that impose conformity on Levitch. Among others, these include his Grandmother, the police, and the city map grid.

All this may appear to be the ravings of a misguided lunatic, and at first glance Levitch surely fits the bill. Wearing something akin to Elton John's wardrobe, Levitch was a sight to behold at the premiere. However, there is more to him than that. You might not agree with Levitch after seeing this documentary, but you can't dismiss him either. He is often brilliant in his analysis of the inanities that we pass for our daily reality and routine. In his brilliant critique of the city grid system, when he says "why don't we just rob all our imagination and wonder," we tend to agree. According to Levitch, we often do.

Levitch is just as fascinating on his bus tour, speaking with a vast knowledge of NYC at a pace that demonstrates his nickname, "speed," perfectly. He mentions famous names and apartments in rapid fire succession, fascinating quotes, and interesting bizarre stories that hurl at you so fast that the tour must seem like a trip into another universe. And that is exactly the point of his tale. In one of the opening sequences, he says that the goal of the city tour is to change your view forever.

We see him talking and mingling with people, completely stripped of self conscience and convention that pervade our interactions. You see both a man full of insecurities, but also a man fully comfortable with them. In fact, you could even say he revels in them. Without those insecurities, he might not have the hatred of the "anti-cruise" forces that he, and the audience, have so much fun rebelling against.

This is never more true than in a fascinating scene when he stands with his friend the Brooklyn Bridge and verbally accosts all those who have done him wrong. These include women who have spurned him, students who picked on him, and many others, including his parents. The footage is breathtaking, hysterical, and sad all at the same time. It shows a man who may or may not have come to peace with his reality, who also fully understands that the world has not.

That scene, and the last one, where Levitch decides whether to open a door that leads to top of a skyscraper, considering the risk of the alarm going off, are the best in the film. That last one, which clearly demonstrates how and why Levitch has made the unique choices he has made, is all the more powerful, once we've gotten to know him.

The triumph of the filmmakers is in finding the material to begin with. Levitch is absolutely fascinating, and the filmmakers have brought this to the surface. They are smart enough to know they have a winner, and their style is for the most part unobtrusive. They show Levitch just being Levitch. Where the film has triumphed is at the editing level. The film's flow makes sense, and the footage they capture brings us the essence of the man.

After these 87 minutes, we feel like we know Levitch. We have seen him laugh, cry, scream, and talk, and talk, and talk. We have gone along for the ride. While we may not be fighting the "anti-cruise" forces after we've seen this story, we did for these 87 minutes. As the saying goes, "There are 8 million stories in the naked city," and we would all be better for seeing this one.