Omaha, Nebraska, is a seriously cool small city in the Midwest. Filmmaker Alexander Payne has made five movies — Citizen Ruth, Election, About Schmidt, Nebraska, and Downsizing — in Omaha and points out that in some ways it has similarities to Portland, Oregon. “It has become one of those little best-kept-secret cities. That is what people who visit tell me. If Minneapolis is the Seattle of the Midwest, then Omaha is swiftly becoming the Portland,” says Payne. The 61-year-old Academy Award winner is referring to the city that’s also known as The City of Roses, Stumptown, and Portlandia. “It is not as cool as Portland, nor really will it ever be, but it has a certain sense of that since it’s a smaller, cheaper city with a lot of groovy things going on, good restaurants, and good music,” explains Alexander Payne. “Omaha’s always about 10 years behind cooler towns, but we get there.”
He was born and raised in Omaha and is impressed with the city’s evolution. “A funny thing about Omaha is that when I was growing up here, people couldn’t wait to get out of this cow town,” says Payne. “It was very conservative and very stodgy. So my generation, and the generations before me, would go to college on the East or West Coast or at least somewhere out of state. They would leave if they could, and not so many people came back.”
But the times are changing. For example, Alexander Payne says now “there is a lot of money in Omaha, and individuals and corporations love to invest locally, and it’s improving the city by leaps and bounds.”
What Makes Portland Unique?
“Keep Portland Weird” is the city’s unofficial motto since it was first introduced in 2003 as part of a campaign to support local businesses. Some of the city’s quirks include that it is home to the only vertical street in North America; Mills End Park, a Guinness World Record holder for being the world’s smallest park at just 2 feet across; the annual World Naked Bike Ride in June, the Faux Film Festival, which consists of spoofs and mockumentaries; the Freakybuttrue Peculiarium and Museum; and a clown-themed bar, The Funhouse Lounge.
Alexander Payne Shines a Spotlight on Nebraska
Payne says that a common misconception about Nebraska is that it’s flat, boring, and conservative. “Nobody ever comes,” he says. “When people drive across the country, they don’t say ‘I was in Omaha’ — instead, they say, ‘I drove through Nebraska. Boy. That’s a long state.’” That’s been the trend for centuries. “It’s always a state that people passed through on their ways east or west,” says Payne. “The Mormons, the Oregon Trail, the Gold Rush Trail, the transcontinental railroad, all of these people plowed through it on their way to the West Coast. In fact, the Midwest was the last part of the country to be settled, really. First, they settled in the East Coast, and then they all went west, before finally filtering back into the plains.”
However, when someone does take the time to stop and explore Omaha, Payne says they discover, “We have a wonderful park system, influenced by Olmsted.” Frederick Law Olmsted also designed Central Park and Prospect Park in New York City and the Minneapolis park system. “We also have a world-class zoo — one of the best in the United States — and we’re currently building a state-of-the-art interactive science museum,” Payne adds.
When it comes to good eats, Omaha has plenty of gourmet options. “Finally, for such a meat-and-potatoes town in a red state, we have a nice assortment of ethnic cuisine,” says Payne. “There are different regions of Thailand represented, and a lot of Indian restaurants, as well as Chinese restaurants. In addition, Omaha has three outstanding sushi restaurants, as good as any I’ve had on the West Coast. So we are getting there, slowly but surely.”
According to Alexander Payne, “The city has blossomed. It has become the city we never thought it would or could become. Now, it’s a really groovy provincial city. Young people love it. Headhunters say that it’s hard to get people to move to Omaha, and then it’s hard to get them to leave.”
A Filmmaker Is Born
“It was in Omaha where I fell in love with current films and old films,” shares Alexander Payne. He was a motivated student, and his parents encouraged him to get good grades. “I played piano in a jazz band. I was editor of the yearbook and wrote a column for the paper,” he says.
However, movies were his passion. “I’d scour TV Guide to find old movies to watch on television,” he says. Throughout his adolescence, the local museum showed old movies on 16-millimeter film every Sunday. “I only missed one in all those years,” says Payne. “A lot of my early film education was here in Omaha.”
He graduated from high school in 1979, so during his junior high and high school years, Payne watched the movies that are now considered cinematic classics. “It was those movies that really made me want to make movies eventually, even though it was a distant dream,” says Payne. “Those are still the movies that I aspire to create.”