Cities and Film
The city in modernism. Urban sociology.
The city as both a public and private space.
The city in postmodernism.
Simmel.
A German sociologist.
Metropalis and Mental life.
Wrote about the effects of the city on the individual.
Comes from surrealism and Dada.
The idea that one individual is surrounded by people, yet still alone.
Simmel puts forward the idea of urban sociology. In his essay he examines how the individdual can exist in a space that is built on a group contribution.
Idea of the city engulfing the human figure. In the background as a threat, yet also being dependant on physical and manual labour.
Sullivan.
Credited with being the creator of the modern skyscraper.
'Form follows Function.'
Guaranty Building. The idea of the city growing upward as well as outward.
Extremely decorative. Influenced by the arts and crafts movement. The inside is tightly organised. Divided into four zones. Basement mechanical area. Ground floor- piublic area, shops. Third zone, office. Final zone, consisting of elevator equipment and small offices.
Ordered environment.
The skyscrapers in the American city represent the upwardly motion of business opporunity.
Manhatta.
Paul Strand and CHarles Scheeler.
The idea of an America that is built on immigration.
Positive?
Explore the relationship between photography and film.
Small cog in a larger machine.
Scheeler.
City towering powerful mechanical presence.
Fordism.
The human body becomes part of the machine.
Maximum productivity with minimal effort.
The worker who is employed for this menial effort labour, so they can get a wage to buy the goods they produce. The labourer is also the consumer. Self perpetuating prophecy.
1929 Stock Market Crash.
Factories close, unemployment rises.
Leads to the Great Depression.
Man with a Movie Camera.
Silent documentary film 1929.
Explores the role of the movie camera in the city.
Famous for its range of cinematic techniques- they are invented within this film for others to follow.
Seeks to create a futuristic commentary.
Celebration of industrialisation, mechanicalism, technology etc.
Flaneur
"To stroll"
Figure in literiture has been used to think about what the role of the body is in the city.
Baudelaire.
Looks at the Flaneur who is simultaneously a part of and a part from the crowd.
A man of leisure, with no place to go. Just there to observe others actions and interactions.
Benjamin.
Adopts this concept as an analytical tool. Ironic as he himself is in essence a Flaneur.
Arcades Project.
Allow an experience of the city that is both inside and outside at the time. The idea of a 'cafe society'- places where these observations can be made.
Flaneuse.
Female version of the Flaneur.
What does it mean for the female figure to be a wandering observer in the city.
A femenist sociology of modernity should emerge.
Susan Bock- Morss.
Suggests that what we think of when we think of a woman on the street is either a 'bad lady' or a lady of the night.
Arbus and Hopper.
Observed moments. A sense of threat. The darkness that surrounds them has depth to it. The night is engulfing them both.
Venice.
Architecture and layout. Labyrinth of alleys and streets. Small- so you'd always end up back where you came from.
'Don't look now.':
Issues of memory and trauma of grief. Play on identity.
The Detective.
Private dectective hired to follow herself. His record of his obervation following her. Photographic evidence of her existence. Essentially like facebook- a construction and story that is edited and writeen by her. SHe took the dectective wher eshe wanted to go because she knew she was being followed.
Cindy Sherman.
Stereotypical figure of women in the city. Where the woman is in some sense almost lost/trapped by the city. Low angle view points. Looming presence of skyscrapers behind the character.
Weegee.
City as a place of threat not just examined by female photographers.
Dark side of NYC.
Mobile darkroom in the car.
Instantanious reporting. Revolutionary.
'The naked city'.
Noire tradition.
L.A. NOIRE- 2011
The firt video game to be shown at the Tribecca Film Festival.
Challenges the player to control the L.A police department.
The idea of the city as simultaneously in the past present and future.
Metropolis/ Blade Runner.
Future in he city,
The idea of the body in the city is also explored in Lorca di Corcia Heads 2001.
Detatched observer. Haunting, alienated subject of the individual in the crowd. Clearly in their own mental space whilst surrounded by others.
Doesn't ask permission.
Name of the photographs are the city- placing them back into the annonymity of that place. Taking away their identity.
Walker Evans.
Many are called.
Made with the sue of a hidden camere beneath his trenchoat. Unobserved moments. Moments of very private moments within the public space. Unaware that they are being photographed.
Again, the idea that people are alone in the city despite being surrounded.
Ed Soja.
Getting lost in architecture.
Proposed same idea in the city.
City is a confusing and encompassing experience on the individual.
Joel Meyerowitz.
Eye level- confusing.
Reflects mental state.
Citizen Journalism
Impossible to be a detatched observer now.
Liz Wells.
Immediacy of mobile phone images. Replaces the idea of reporters. Different aesthetic in citizen journalism. More about information- photography used as evidence. Images of 7/7 bombings were online within an hour. No longer have separation of individual and city and experience of the city.
Surveillance city.
Enormous investment in machinery of surveillance.
Coming together of photography and film in the street.
