FILM 223 - Cinemas and Urbanisms

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

(Same as URBS 223) The cinema is one of the technologies, like mass transit and electricity, that made rapid urbanization in the early 20th century possible. Cities were one of early cinema’s favorite subjects, and their population density provided the audiences media industries needed to flourish. A quarter of the way through the 21st century, as the global population is increasingly urbanized and our lives, wherever we live them, are increasingly mediated, the relationship of cinematic media and cities becomes ever more inextricable. The course surveys the development of that relationship over the past 125 years. We explore how cinema developed a standardized grammar for imagining the city and taxonomizing some of its key features, the role cinematic technologies played in shaping (and contesting) urban redevelopment, the architectures that determine how cities house moving images, and the uses to which the entertainment industry and citizens alike put the cinema as ti shapes our daily lives in the city. Throughout our explorations, we encounter deadly tourists in Glasgow, enchanted lovers and slaughterhouses in Paris, ghosts in Dakar, small-time mobsters in New York, detectives in over their heads in Tokyo, and travelers in Sao Paolo. Assignments include two papers, a group presentation, and a creative project on the cinematic image of the Hudson Valley region. Erica Stein.

Prerequisite(s): FILM 175, FILM 209, or permission of the instructor.

Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.

Course Format: CLS