Thursday, 1 December 2011

Cities and Film


  • The city  Modernism
  • The possibility of an urban sociology
  • The city as a private space 
  • The city in post modernism
Georg Simmel

German sociologist- Told to lecture on the role of the social life in the city, but instead reverses idea and comments on the impact the city has on the individual.

Urban sociology. How the individual can exist in a space that is built on a group contribution. 
Engulfing the human figure, being swallowed up.

Architect Louis Sullivan- Creator of the modern sky scraper, form follows function. 

Guaranty building. Influenced by the arts and crafts movement- outside very ornate. The inside is very tightly organised. Basement mechanical zone, ground floor public zone, third zone office and fourth elevator equipment and small offices.

Skyscrapers represent the upward movement of business opportunity in New York.

Manhatta  Paul Strand an Charles Scheeler (1921)
Explore the relationship between camera movement and film. The figurine city, a small cog in a larger machine. 
Charles Scheeler photography- The city being a tall mechanical presence. Industrial landscape.

Fordism: mechanised labour relations. Maximum productivity in a minimal effort. Spew out standardised low cost goods. 

Modern times Charlie Chaplin (1936)
The body being consumed by the factory environment.

Stock market crash of 1929. Factories close and unemployment goes up dramatically. Those in factories mostly effected. 

Man with a movie camera (1929)
Silent movie. Famous for its range of cinematic techniques, split screens, close ups, stills, double exposure etc. Was invented within this film. 

Flaneur
Means a stroller, longer, saunter or loafer. Charles Baudelaire describes the role of the body in the city. A person who walks the city to experience it. He is just there to observe other people actions and interactions. Walter Benjamin adopts the concept of the urban observer as an analytical tool and as a lifestyle as seen in his writings. 

Photographer as flaneur. The flaneur finds the world picturesque. The female version- flaneuse. In the time that the idea of the flaneur was emerging women were not seen alone on the street. What we think of women on the street- either a bad woman or a prostitute.

Arbus/Hopper
A woman sitting alone in a cafe. A threat? The darkness that surrounds it has a depth to it, almost like the night is clinging to her. 

Sophie Calle (1980)
Creates a photographic piece of work about the flaneurs relationship with the city (Venice). Follows people without them knowing, documenting their journey. Somewhere between stalking and a love affair.
Venice- city of a labyrinth of narrow streets- you always end up where you began. 
The detective (1980) 
She gets her mother to hire a detective to follow her. Photographic document of her existence. Set in Paris. Ultimately controlled by her- she leads him around the city.

Cindy Sherman untitled film stills (1977-80)
Stereotypical view of the woman in the city. Low angle film points, skyscrapers behind characters- being swallowed up and overshadowed by the city.

Weegee (Arthur Felig)
See the dark side of New York. Follows around the emergency services, documenting them. Instantaneous reporting- kept  a portable dark room in his car s he could develop them quickly and go straight to the press.

The Naked City (1948)

LA Noir (2011)- video game. Challenges the player to control the LA police department. The city as simultaneously in the past and the present.
Bladerunner- made in 1982 depicting the city in 2019.

Walker Evans Many are called (1938)
Uses a hidden a camera, takes unobserved photographs. Intensely private moments. The idea of people being alone and separate in the city, despite being surrounded.

Post modern city on photography. Joel Meyerowitz.

9/11 citizen journalism. The end of the flaneur? Impossible to be a detached observer. The destruction of hte twin towers is the destruction of the American dream.
Adam Beezer 2001. Mobile phone images, replaces the idea of a journalist being sent to the scene- citizen journalism.
Surveillance city. Coming together of photography, film and the street.