After days one and two of the Nebraska trip, I finally made it to the city of Omaha, the Nebraska location that most often takes front and center in Payne's films. Most all of Citizen Ruth and Election are set here. A big portion of About Schmidt was also set in the city, but even more of it (in particular the "Denver" scenes) were also filmed here. Meanwhile, Omaha plays a smaller role in his most recent film, Downsizing, though I was pleasantly surprised to see more of that film's locations than I expected. In the end, I appreciated being able to see so much of the city up close, and to see how many geographical connections existed across the individual movies; at the same time, I was most struck by how "typical" Omaha looks as a Midwestern city--that what appeals to Payne might not be only hometown nostalgia but also its quite effective role as a cinematic stand-in for generic middle Americana (in a way that I would also not expect someone to both see and not see the Madison or Milwaukee that I see, for example).
By the time I finally got there, I only had one full day in the end to really explore the town's locations. I had planned to see more of the city in general (such as the Durham Museum) but the sights and tasks on the first two days of the trip had taken more time than I anticipated. So all that was left for the itinerary that Wednesday was a mad dash across the greater Omaha area, before I then pivoted to northern Nebraska for the last day and a half of the trip.
The first two spots were near my motel in Council Bluffs. This "Tires Plus" (above) was the setting for one of my favorite moments in About Schmidt, when Warren goes to visit his childhood "home" in Holdrege, Nebraska (which in reality is probably 3-plus hours to the west of here) only to discover that it has been long since demolished in favor of a tire store--an apt metaphor for a movie (and a body of work in general) about road trips and about motifs of change and progress in a broader sense. This also echoes one of the two themes I noted for my own exploration that day--how Omaha has both changed and stayed remarkably the same since Payne's crews were here 20 plus years ago shooting these films.
The second location (below) was the setting for the abortion clinic finale of Citizen Ruth, which was just a few blocks away from the tire store. The only change I noticed from its 1990s appearance in the movie was that in the film it was surrounded, understandably, by a fence to protect the people inside (I don't know offhand whether that barrier was added for the movie or was there already).
Probably what was more memorable about my morning visit here was it was the only time on my trip where someone tried to passively confront me about the photos I was taking. Now a dentist's office, someone in a face mask poked her head out the door and quietly gave me a look while I was taking photos. I briefly explained my purpose from a distance and moved on. And I wondered, with all these locations (especially within the generic sprawl of a major metropolis like Omaha), how many people in general did or didn't know that a place they may visit every day once made an appearance in a major motion picture.
I next left Iowa and crossed the river back into Nebraska. I made a quick detour to the north to see Eppley Field (the local airport which had a brief appearance in About Schmidt) and recognized the part of the location in the movie, but--between the heavy flow of traffic, strong police presence, and probably the still fresh memory of the dagger-eyed friend in Council Bluffs--I passed on trying to grab a quick picture.
I then headed just a little bit more down the road to a park by the Omaha Public Power District Plant:
This makes an appearance in Election, where young Tammy often goes to stare at the power lines and collect her thoughts. More than character development, however, it also establishes the location for an important plot point later in the film, as she silently witnesses Tracy trying to hide her crime by quietly throwing away evidence nearby (garbage, as I'll allude again in another photo below, is a well-known reoccurring motif throughout that 1999 film). I took a photo of this dumpster at the park below in reference to the scene in question, though I'm reasonably certain it probably wouldn't be the same one in the movie itself.
After that detour, I headed to downtown Omaha, as much to visit Payne's own neighborhood as to see particular filming locations. Of course, the first sight one in this situation is likely to recognize is the Woodmen Tower:
This tower was both long the dominant visual centerpiece of Omaha's vast landscape (not unlike the capital in Lincoln) as well as Warren's former place of employment in the beginning of About Schmidt:
The above location is featured early on in that film, when a bored-in-retirement Schmidt leaves the Woodmen Building in dejection, after a superficial and dismissive meeting with his disinterested replacement. Upon exiting the doors to the right of the frame above, he turns and sees boxes of his own files (his "life's work" in a sense) piled up by the garbage in the garage door off in the distant left side of the frame (it was oddly refreshing for some reason to see that in "real life" these two spots were really right next together and not cut in the movie to look closer than they were). This is the first of many moments in the film--a bookend to the Archway scene at the end--when the elderly Warren is forced to reflect on whether his life has made any difference to anyone.
The Woodmen Tower also makes a cameo in Downsizing (see photo above). If you can't see it, that's part of the point--here, the trees in full summer bloom are blocking the sight line of that building down the street on the right side of the frame. In the movie, a couple played by Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig stand in the middle of the brick-laden street, in front of the Jams Grill, which also appears in the movie (part of a lovely historical district called Old Market, by the way--one of the few non-Payne locations I took the time to indulge myself and modestly explore). In the movie, the couple says goodbye to friends (before their "downsizing" operation) with the Woodmen clearly in the background.
I make a note of all this foliage because it reiterates an idea I picked up on the day before, while snapping pics in downtown Lincoln, and would also notice when heading north later to Nebraska filming locations in more rural parts of the state--as Payne has noted in several interviews, he prefers the barren look of Nebraska in winter (at least when it comes to depicting it onscreen) to the warmth and life of summer.
I appreciate this aesthetic a lot more now having seen what so many of these same locations look like in person at other times of year besides November and December. Of course, as a fellow Midwesterner (born and raised in Wisconsin, lived in Illinois, studied at Indiana), I don't need to be reminded that there are four seasons, but my point is how quickly we can allow cinematic representations of a locale to subtly and unthinkingly become our sense of their reality, particularly in a place like Nebraska which is so singularly identified within the cinema with one filmmaker.
While downtown, I also visited the historic building Payne co-owns, which used to be the home of the iconic King Fong restaurant (an Omaha institution which, like Jack's steakhouse from the night before, had been around for 100 years now):
In an article from Nebraskan Life:
From a very insightful article in The New Yorker (a piece worth a second look, as it provides a lot of biographical context for many of the images I'm sharing here):
The King Fong, unfortunately, appears to have closed around 2017-2018 (it definitely would have been my lunch destination that day), and it's distinctive now also as one of the few buildings in that neighborhood with clear "no trespassing" signs.
Just around the block, meanwhile, was a beautiful art deco building, which, as you can see, has a clear view of Woodmen Tower in the distance (and a giant dumpster parked out front, lol).
So this was all before lunch (which I enjoyed at a pasta place in Old Market). In the afternoon, I finally visited the rest of the metro area. On my way out of downtown, I swung by Film Streams, a nationally recognized independent cinema which Payne has supported heavily over the years, both by serving on the Board of Directors and by regularly attending promotional events there:
Not too far from downtown, heading west, I very quickly discovered a very different Omaha--that of the working class neighborhood of Citizen Ruth, for example. Below is the back of an apartment building which makes an appearance in the very beginning of the film, where Ruth (Laura Dern) exits after engaging in what will quickly prove in the narrative to be an eventful tryst.
Not too much further from there is Roberta's (Kathy Bates) "Denver" (!!) home in About Schmidt (I was not able to see if there's still a hot tub in the back--if there's one scene from that film that a casual viewer would still remember, it is probably that one):
After that, I swung by the La Casa Pizzaria (whose neon lights at night for some reason captivated me in their brief cameo in Downsizing). I came back here later that day for dinner:
Then, I visited an intersection (with the church in the background) that appears in a driving scene in Citizen Ruth:
For some reason, this location in Omaha fascinated me in particular because the theme of life and mortality from that movie also hangs over the funeral in About Schmidt, which I only recently discovered was filmed at a cemetery right next door!!:
Here you will again note the point I made earlier about how much different Nebraska looks in the summer, as these same trees appear barren and lifeless in the film (fans of About Schmidt will also notice in the far right distance of the frame is the parking lot where Warren observes a cow trailer being rinsed out during the funeral--if garbage is the dominant motif of Election, cattle is, as Girish Shambu previously noted, a ubiquitous one in About Schmidt).
At that point, it was all a haze, as I raced across the metro area in search of what other locations I knew where to find. I saw the Dairy Queen where Schmidt stops briefly for a treat, unaware of the tragedy waiting for him at home (picturing Jack Nicholson ordering anything at a DQ still blows my mind after all these years):
The pizza joint from Election, where HS teacher Dave Novotny first starts creeping on his student, Tracy Flick (and still looks identical 22 years later on the inside!):
That restaurant is just down the street from the real high school where much of that movie was filmed (more garbage in the frame! maybe that's just a NE thing?):
The location where Warren buys the "second cheapest" casket for his wife:
. . . which as a side note is directly across the street from the elite school, Creighton Prep, where Payne went to high school:
The strip mall where Schmidt confronts his best friend over an affair the latter had long ago with this now-dead wife:
(I was always amused by the comically awkward punch Nicholson tries to throw in this scene, and it echoes nicely with something about Payne's aesthetic I only recently discovered--his oft-stated fondness for the physical humor of silent comedy). I also love how, like the interior of the Godfather Pizza, this location hasn't seemed to change a bit in two decades, down to the still distinctive neon "Barber Shop" sign over the door through which his friend emerges in the scene.
Of course, a lot has changed as well. As with Warren visiting his childhood "home" inside a tire store, I found myself also attracted to places now gone. Here is an empty lot where the building housing the pro-choice office in Citizen Ruth used to stand (the remaining structure in the background is visible in the film), the victim of a massive fire a few years ago:
And the Bucky's gas station where the Tony Roma's (the rehearsal dinner location in About Schmidt) used to stand--another Omaha location that stood in for "Denver" in the movie--and which probably matched well with the vintage office building still standing behind it.
Probably my personal favorite of these afternoon stops that day was the grocery store in About Schmidt where Warren--now helpless with his wife gone--goes to load up his RV with frozen foods, a trick he learned from his "bachelor days," and where he also goes back to shoplift booze and Preparation H in another wonderful deleted scene (which I only noticed last night featured an actor, Tim Driscoll, who also appeared in Ruth and would later go on to have slightly larger roles in Nebraska and Downsizing--half his filmography consists of Payne films).
The groceries are long gone, and in fact the whole store looks like it was partially gutted and broken up into smaller stores. The main interior is now a giant antique mall:
I wandered the aisles for a bit. I couldn't help but notice the irony of this particular item (below), which I wonder if the vendors themselves were aware of:
(I also picked up a lovely little end table on clearance here for my living room back in Stillwater. As with the theatre sign I picked up the day before in Nebraska City, others will never realize the significance of it, but for me it will always be the "About Schmidt Table.")
From there (which was way on the western edge of the metro area, not too far from the above referenced Dairy Queen), I headed back to the heart of Omaha to see the Dundee district, the slightly affluent neighborhood where Payne grew up (Warren Buffett famously lives nearby, and it's most certainly not a coincidence that "Warren" Schmidt in the movie lives on the same street [Farnam] that Buffett reportedly does, and on which the Woodmen Tower is also located).
The centerpiece of this area is the restored Dundee Theatre, which is also run by Film Streams:
With more time (and you know, no pandemic), I might have been tempted to take in a movie at one of these two locations.
Nearby was also the pharmacy from Citizen Ruth (again those suddenly full trees):
. . . and the back alley where both Warren in About Schmidt and McAllister in Election, respectively, go to discretely throw out valuable garbage:
From there, I visited two more close locations--Schmidt's home (not on Farnam in real life):
and nearby Memorial Park, which appears in Citizen Ruth:
My last stop of the day (before dinner at La Casa) was a convenience store from Citizen Ruth that I had missed earlier in the day, situated in the same economically depressed neighborhood close to downtown where the apartment building from the same movie I visited earlier that day is also located:
It was an appropriate final stop on the tour, as it reminded me of the other big theme of the day: the Omaha I saw first hand, in many respects, both does and does not match the "Omaha" captured in About Schmidt, Election, Citizen Ruth and Downsizing.
* * *
So, I didn't ever get to the Durham Museum, but hopefully it's clear I made the most of my one full day in Omaha. I didn't see every filming location in the city and its surrounding suburbs, nor was I ever trying to. My modest goal was to get a feel for the totality of the Omaha that exists within and outside the films of Alexander Payne.
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