Director has knack for creating flavor of home.(Cameron Crowe)(Interview)

Byline: Moira Macdonald

Oct. 13--Cameron Crowe understands the flavor of a place. Watch "Singles," his 1992 valentine to Seattle, and see the details that make it unmistakably our town at that time: the slightly grubby coffeehouse, where everyone seemed to be in a band; the easy camaraderie of a run-down Capitol Hill apartment complex filled with twentysomethings; the visionary concept, voiced reverently by Campbell Scott, of rapid transit.

Or remember how "Almost Famous" sets us firmly into the disarming strangeness that is Southern California in its opening moments: a goofy Christmas song (by Alvin and the Chipmunks) plays over the bright sunshine, as a boy and his mother step squinting out of a movie theater into the sunny, tinsel-laden streets.

At the Toronto International Film Festival last month, Crowe talked about translating the idea of Seattle into film.

"Seattle was the first place that I lived that felt like a real community, …