Cities and Film - Helen Clarke
The city in modernism,
the beginnings or an urban sociology. As a public and private place. The city in post modernism and the relation of the individual to the city.
Georg Simmel
The first person to attempt to write about the city, wrote a really important essay called Metropolosis. Influenced by the school of Frankfurt. Writes about the effect of the city on the individual. Reflects on the individual with the built up city. This is the same time freud was writing about psychoanalysis.
He writes about the resistance of the individual to be levelled and swallowed up..
In context the growth of the city was exponential. People were moving to the city specifically for employment. Made people vulnerable, even crossing roads was a skill to be learnt, avoiding traffic etc.
Architecht Louis Sullivan.
Creator of the SkyScraper. Guaranty building was designed in four zones, below ground mechanical no detail. Second zone shops, Third zone office space practical cell design. Outside the building was very detailed with a lot of embellishment.
Particularly designed buildings in Chicago as there was a huge fire in 1871 so there was space for the skyscrapers and he redesigned the sky line of Chicago.
Sky Scraper symbolism for the sky being the limit for opportunities in the city.
Manhatta Paul Strand & Charles Sheeler.
Text in the film is taken from a poem by Walt Whitman.
Film celebrates the transport in the city. Highlights the relationship of transport and building with the individual from a detached viewpoint.
Charles Scheeler was an advertising photographer for the ford motor company. in the industrial environment and his photography comes from the abstraction of machinery. A composition of shapes.
Fordism: mechanised labour relationships.
Antonio Gramsci. The repetitive nature of the factory line almost turns the individual into a cog in the machine but they only earn enough to buy the product they are making.
Charlie Chaplin parodies this in Modern Times (1936) a political comment on him being driven mad by working on a factory line. Causes chaos in the film and gets accused of being a communist and sent to jail and ends up being a performing artist. Escaping the factory. The FBI investigated Chaplin due to this film and whether he was a communist.
'In handicrafts and manufacture, the workman makes use of a tool, in the factory, the machine makes use of him' (Marx cited in Adamson 2010 p75)
Stock Market Crash of 1929
A rupture in the brave new city and it no longer being a place of opportunity. This led to the Great Depression. People unable to feed their families and unable to find work.
“The man with a movie camera”
A revolutionary film. Similar themes to manhatta where it explores scenes where people come together en mass. Celebration of machinery by showing all the components that go into the cinema.
Flaneur
Gentleman stroller. A bourgeois dilletant. From 19th century literature. A way of investigating the individual with the city. Observes the city with a detachment. SEE NOTES FROM IDENTITY FOR MORE INFORMATION
Walter benjamin adopts this concept as a analytical tool. Particularly arcades as a central meeting point for social groups and cafe culture.
Susan Sonntage proposes that the photographer is an armed version of the Flaneur. Finding the world picturesque.
Daido Moriyma - a drunken flanuer. Walks round areas that are districts, red light, drugs bars etc. Brings back grainy disjointed abstract photographs. Influenced by william Klein.
Flaneuse - The feminine version.
Susan Buck-Morss
The bag Lady or the Prostitute are the two main street lady’s you hear about.
Venice a labrinyth of alleyways. You’ll probably get lost but always end up back where you started.
This kind of detective motif also comes up in Sophie Calle's other work, she becomes the followed as they both photograph each other.
The series The Detective (1980) provides photographic evidence of her existence, by her hiring a private detective to follow her and then she lures him round the city taking them to all her favourite places.
Further Research
Cityscapes of modernity: critical explorations By David Frisby
Art of America: Modern Dreams (2/3) Andrew Grahame Dixon BBC 4 21/11/11
De Grazia, Victoria (2005), Irresistible Empire: America's Advance Through 20th- Century Europe, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Susan Buck-Morss, The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades
I didn’t feel like this lecture was very well put together considering you’ve got such a wide audience from illustration to graphic design to animation in this lecture she pretty much does only cover photography. And what she does mention of other disciplines is the tiniest bit of film to say film is in the title and a bit of games design. Well DFGA doesn’t exist anymore it’s just animation why hasn’t she changed her powerpoint in the last five years? I also felt that feminism and the female gaze was touched upon very heavily in this lecture which i did not appreciate because it’s the same stuff that was covered by James in identity don’t these lecturers talk to each other? Also there’s only so much female gaze content a person can take especially if it’s not an issue close to you.
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