This is where Meg Ryan picks up Tom Hanks in Joe Versus the Volcano and where she meets him again in Sleepless in Seattle. Airports are status locations for screenwriters. Lovers say goodbye. Lear jets deliver Mr. Big to pivotal meetings. Bad guys face down good guys on deserted concourses.
Airports are, by their nature, high drama.
Not yet, anyway. Of course, the misty, teary farewell scene in Casablanca was filmed on a set. But Hollywood has since discovered that there's no point in faking it anymore when there are hundreds of the real things sprawled all over the land. No wonder that representatives of over 250 local film commissions escort Hollywood decisionmakers through their fair cities and charming, picturesque outlying regions. And no wonder that airports are being seen in a whole new way, through the frame of a director's outstretched hands as he joins his thumbs at the tips and looks through the resulting rectangle.