This brings me, of course, to Spider-Man 2. My young friend Ben Letzler, whose very existence refutes the claim that cinephilia is dead, writes from Berlin that I was wrong to be disappointed by this movie, and reactionary to prefer Before Sunset. Other Nation readers have issued a similar challenge. Can I really fault Spider-Man 2 so severely for running an el through Manhattan?

I can; I do. The joy of the first Spider-Man came in no small measure from seeing authentic, often unglamorous locations wedded to the special effects. You did not need to reside in New York to recognize the spaces as genuine; you could sense their life pulsing around and through the characters. That respect for actual urban space is also present in Spider-Man 2, but only a little and mostly in the first reel, when Peter has to negotiate Midtown traffic to make a pizza delivery. After that, the movie becomes (to use Andersen's critical jargon) a little silly in its cityscape. The movie calls up an el where none exists, for a too-conventional fight scene; and then, as if in balance, it makes a real place, Aunt May's house, disappear, without bothering to specify where Aunt May will go.

Are these problems fatal? No. I found much to enjoy in Spider-Man 2; but I'd still rather watch Celine and Jesse move slowly through the real, inhabited Paris of Before Sunset. Call it a high-tourist movie if you will--again, I borrow the term from Andersen--but Before Sunset makes its characters deal with one another in spaces that are continuous, thickly textured and not entirely controllable by a filmmaker; and those qualities carry over to the performances as well. The result? Celine and Jesse are interesting not for what they say and do as individuals but for what happens between them. The movie's focus is always on their interaction, which is so amply charged that it can even register thoughts about poverty, environmental decay and the imperialism practiced by one character's nation.

Before Sunset lets us stray far from the cynical myths of Los Angeles, and far from robotic behavior. That's what can happen when a movie risks going into the city.

Correction: In reviewing Fahrenheit 9/11, I mistakenly wrote that all of the members of the House who contested the Electoral College decision in 2000 were African-American. In fact, the late Representative Patsy Takemoto Mink also entered an objection. My thanks to the readers who pointed out the error.

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