Rationale
This module has been developed in response to a growing area of academic interest in the city as central to modern culture and in particular the determining place of the cinema in conceptions of modernity and the identification of film as the art form of twentieth century modernity. This emerging area of critical debate is developing across disciplines and drawing on perspectives from the humanities, social sciences, architecture, anthropology and urban studies. In this module our emphasis will be on the cinema and film but we will also make reference to cultural theory and literary writings on the city and modernity and will combine an examination of accounts of these cultural phenomena with close readings and analyses of a range of films.
The module builds on knowledge and skills from the modules Screen Studies and Documentary Film and will enable students to make links with themes and approaches encountered in other literary and cultural history modules.
Indicative Content
The module will examine:
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The historical dimension in an introduction to the formative decades of the cinema (The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon) and the modern city followed by a consideration of the place of the imaginings of the city in later periods; upheaval, social disruption, technological change, surveillance and control; the modern cultural centres of Paris, Berlin, New York; the opposition of the rural and the urban; landscape and cityscape; pastoral idylls & the city as Moloch
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How cities have been imagined; urban culture, its impact on the creative imagination; city as a symbolic space for formation of identities and political realities; encounters, conflicts; utopian imaginings of the city especially New York in early C20 European culture. The city as material and discursive construct
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The idea of the city as produced by film, literature, and other cultural forms; imagining and representing the city across genres and disciplines
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Film as the art form of twentieth century modernity; city-based genres; cinema’s contribution to the formation of ideas of modernity and the city; Modernism’s radical break with tradition and the ‘shock of the new’; formal aspects such as editing and time, causality, and speed; mise-en-scene, perspective and the construction of a sense of place; narration, spectatorship, modes of address and questions of identity; early Modernist, experimental possibilities and the reversion to traditional realism and narrative
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Aesthetic imaginings of the experiences of modernity – alienation, fragmentation, excitement and promise, romance and loss; mass culture, class solidarity against fear of the masses; the de-humanisation of the individual; gender anxiety and the hardened individual; chaos and regimentation, machines and men. Anonymity as freedom
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Cinema as institution of mass entertainment
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Terror, crime and links between literary and cinematic Expressionism and later film noir; dark streets, shadows; detectives, sexual crime and strangers
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The automobile and the city; car chases, road movies, the cityscapes of LA & New York; the spaces in-between; the car lot, the multi-storey car park and the drive-in
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Late twentieth century dystopias (Blade Runner, Brazil)
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The re-emergence of romance and hymns to the city (Manhattan, Wings of Desire, Run Lola Run)
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The global city and fear of difference (City of God, La Haine)
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The World Trade Centre and Ground Zero
Assessment
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A detailed written analysis of a chosen film, 2000 words (40%)
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An essay on a theme from a list of questions provided, 3000 words (60%)