Stardust memories

ArtForum, Jan, 1996 by J. Hoberman

Who would have more to say about this Empire of Impulse Behavior: Freud or Marx? Anyone who has seen Barry Levinson's 1993 Bugsy knows the Flamingo was built for love - a latter-day Taj Mahal, the While-U-Wait Wedding Chapel of Reified Desire. But Las Vegas also turned out to be the mob's most profitable piece of diversification, paying off $100 billion on an outlay of $6 million (and, among other things, making possible the happy ending of Levinson's Oscar-winning Rain Man, 1988). Business rules. Scarcely two years after Bugsy's release, the last remaining fragment of the original Flamingo was demolished - as was the Dunes sign, blown up by phony cannon fire from an ersatz British frigate to mark the opening of a new themed hotel, Treasure Island.

God bless America and render unto Caesars Palace. Las Vegas, like Hollywood, becomes the object of popular nostalgia, despite (or perhaps because of) its own lack of civic sentimentality. The illusion of freedom is maintained in an environment of total control.

J. Hoberman contributes this column regularly to Artforum.