Digital Culture & AudioVisual Challenges

7th International Conference

Digital Culture & Audiovisual Challenges Interdisciplinary Creativity in Arts and Technology

 Title:

Cinema and the City. The urban space from living city to the cinematic city.

Keywords: Cinematic city, living city, narrative space, urban space.

The depiction of the city in cinema is not just a scenographic background, but an organic factor of the narrative, influencing the dramaturgy and the meaning-making of the cinematic image. In the context of this research, an attempt is made to analyses the way in which cinema functions as a tool for mapping, representing and reconfiguring urban space. It also attempts to explore the relationship between the cinematic depiction of the city and the urban environment. One of the important factors in our research was the relationship of the city not only as an environment, but also as vital processes of people and city, cinematic landscapes (constructed or not) and interpretive narratives. This encapsulation of the city (cinematic city) within the city (living city) brings to the surface a multitude of elements, architectural, historical, socio-political that interact with form, death and memory that interconnect cinema and urban space. Often, this reconciliation catalyzes the living city which, as Clarke (1997) states, transforms the city into a cinematic value, a theme we see in many films referencing cities such as Paris, New York, Tokyo, Rome, Milan, Berlin and Athens that have been portrayed as symbols of cultural identity and social change.

The designed world of the cinematic city thus refracts the designed world of the living city, and often adds its own signatures (Orr, 2003). The way cities are represented in film is closely linked to the historical, social and cultural conditions of each era. Cinema has the potential to create and reinforce specific images of the city, turning certain areas into emblematic landscapes that are identified with particular cinematic narratives (Barber, 2002). One such example is Los Angeles, which is often depicted in film as a dystopian metropolis, as seen in films such as Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982). In contrast, Paris is shown as a romantic place, ideal for cinematic narratives of love and nostalgia. New York, on the other hand, is often portrayed as a city in constant tension between social contradictions and crime.

Cinema does not simply document the city, but reconstructs and interprets it through cinematic techniques. The use of camera, lighting and editing helps to shape a specific perception of urban space. For example, the use of the hand-held camera in films such as Kassovitz's La Haine (1995) conveys a sense of immediacy and proximity to the reality of the marginalised suburbs of Paris (Massood, 2003).

Night filmmaking, on the other hand, transforms urban space into a landscape full of mystery and tension. A typical example is film noir, where the use of shadows and contrasts, reinforces the sense of danger and isolation within the city. Editing can also be used to create a fragmented image of the city, as in Dziga Vertov's films, where the city is presented as a set of successive images and rhythms.

Cinema is a valuable tool for understanding and interpreting the urban landscape. Through the mapping of cities, the representation of everyday life and the use of cinematic techniques, films can function as archives that capture the constant change of the urban environment. Moreover, cinema contributes to the formation of collective memory and political consciousness, making the city not just a setting but an active element of the narrative.

References

1. Barber, S. (2002), Projected Cities, Cinema and Urban Space, London: Reaktion Books
2. Clarke, D. B. 1997. The Cinematic City, New York & London: Routledge.
3. Massood, P. (2003), Black City Cinema, African American Urban Experiences in Film, Philadelphia: Temple University Press
4. Orr, J. 2003. The City Reborn: Cinema at the Turn of the Century. In Screening the City, edited by M. Shiel and T. Fitzmaurice, London & New York: Verso.
5. Shiel, M., Fitzmaurice, T. (2011), Cinema and the City: Film and Urban Societies in a Global Context, London: John Wiley & Sons