In “Eyewitness”, 1981 directed by Peter Yates, the park is the scene of a picnic shared by Sigourney Weaver and William Hurt. It is set near a ball field, where Weaver, astride a fine brown horse, meets Hurt, on a Harley Davidson. The park is seen as a convivial kinetic landscape, a living space in which people play ball, eat picnic lunches, and live out their lives. (Sometimes going for days without dancing, singing or being brutally murdered.) The park here is a place where we could picture ourselves, hanging out with friends, relaxed and not feeling threatened. The camera is friendly to the landscape with long shots of playing fields and distant trees surrounded by buildings. We can sense that this place is indeed a refuge form city around it, a common ground in which Weaver can enjoy anonymity from her career as well known television reporter and Hurt can escape the drudgery of his life as a custodian. And, of course, a place where anyone can fall in love with anyone, the ultimate democratic ideal.

Add to these two examples any of a half dozen Woody Allen movies that use the park as a backdrop for conversations between characters, including “Annie Hall”, “Hannah and Her Sisters” and “Bullets Over Broadway”. Mr. Allen exhibits a familiarity with park that most people have with their own front yards, which would make sense since Central Park is literally his.

All of these movies share an interpretive legacy, in each one the park is used specifically as a metaphor for the city that surrounds it. This subtle allegory evolves over time from the happy singing and dancing of Gene Kelly to the beleagered wanderings of Jack Lemmon back to the joyous singing and dancing of Twyla Tharp, via Treat Williams et.al.. While it might be a stretch to discover a narrative flow over the course of these six decades it would be interesting to edit together a single movie of clips that use Central Park as a dramatic location. It would be enlightening to see how the portrayal of the park mirrored the popular conception of the city that surrounds it, how the way it was shot either enhanced its beauty or revealed a darker side.

It would also be nice to see it get top billing.