Any day now the renovated Chelsea Hotel will fully reopen, capping a drawn out process that has seen the grand edifice on the west side of Manhattan shrouded in netting and defaced by scaffolding for over a decade.
Repeated construction delays, legal wrangling between residents and the building owners, as well as a dispute with the city agency devoted to historic properties all contributed to the endless postponements. But the magic of a place that has been home to the artistic and idiosyncratic for over a century seemingly cannot be obscured by clouds of construction dust.
The new documentary Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel invites viewers inside the red brick palace to spend time with long-term residents who contribute to, and perhaps are, the essence of the Chelsea’s charm.
“It’s a film of encounters and the people we met, we love them,” explains Maya Duverdier, who co-directed...
Repeated construction delays, legal wrangling between residents and the building owners, as well as a dispute with the city agency devoted to historic properties all contributed to the endless postponements. But the magic of a place that has been home to the artistic and idiosyncratic for over a century seemingly cannot be obscured by clouds of construction dust.
The new documentary Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel invites viewers inside the red brick palace to spend time with long-term residents who contribute to, and perhaps are, the essence of the Chelsea’s charm.
“It’s a film of encounters and the people we met, we love them,” explains Maya Duverdier, who co-directed...
- 8/5/2022
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
In Maya Duverdier and Amélie van Elmbt’s mesmerizing and immersive documentary about the Chelsea Hotel, “Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel,” the filmmakers pay tribute to the last bastion of New York bohemianism and breathe memory into the walls of this iconic building; walls that would speak volumes if they could talk.
The Chelsea Hotel has long loomed large in our collective cultural consciousness, demonstrated in a snippet of archival footage, with which the film opens, of a young Patti Smith describing how the hotel was the first place she landed in New York, declaring “I always wanted to be where the big guys were.”
To underscore the point about the “big guys” that lived within those walls, Duverdier and van Elmbt utilize a hypnotic stylistic motif throughout the film, projecting images of the celebrities who spent time at the Chelsea onto the walls, almost anthropomorphizing the ghosts, or at least the spirits,...
The Chelsea Hotel has long loomed large in our collective cultural consciousness, demonstrated in a snippet of archival footage, with which the film opens, of a young Patti Smith describing how the hotel was the first place she landed in New York, declaring “I always wanted to be where the big guys were.”
To underscore the point about the “big guys” that lived within those walls, Duverdier and van Elmbt utilize a hypnotic stylistic motif throughout the film, projecting images of the celebrities who spent time at the Chelsea onto the walls, almost anthropomorphizing the ghosts, or at least the spirits,...
- 7/7/2022
- by Katie Walsh
- The Wrap
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.