Cities and Film - Writing Task

Cities have served as large inspiration to artists and influence the world of art and film. J Donald describes the growth of cinema and it's relationship with these urban environments, claiming that Cinema brought 'the experience of 'going out' to a way of life primarily built around 'staying in'' creating an 'urban experience' (Donald) and that 'Cinema learned to exploit the desire of urban audiences for distraction' (Donald.) This highlights the idea of Cities being quite isolating to an individual, who would therefore need a distraction.

The isolated individual, or in fact any city dweller, 'were the dominant, but not the sole, subject of urban documentary photography' ( Stout) states Stout, who appears to argue in 'Visions of a New Reality: The City and the Emergence of Modern Visual Culture' that despite arts interest in cities as a characteristic entity it is 'the lives of people of the city themselves' that stories and emotions are drawn from. This is a contrast to Donald's view of the city, as in 'Imagining the Modern City: Light in Dark Spaces', it is described to almost become mythological in the context of film noir.

'One of the great figures for this confrontation between the transparent, readable city and the obscure metropolitan labyrinth is the detective' (Donald) Donald states. This illustrates the importance of interpretation in regards to viewing the city. In film noir the 'detective story states the city as enigma: a dangerous but fascinating network of often subterranean relationships in need of decipherment.' (Donald) the Detectives relationship with the city illustrates it as a labyrinth of intrigue, giving it character and depth. It can therefore be stated that film has the ability to give a city personality as well as the city defining the film. Donald even sums this up, stating 'people invest places with meaning, memory and desire.'

An example of a film noir style film that includes a strongly characteristic city is Bladerunner. The city acts as more than just an environment for a narrative to take place, it breathes with life (or in cases, lack of) and illustrates a grimy future. 'The life of the village is narrative,' observed Ezra Pound. 'In the city the visual impressions succeed each other, overlap, over cross, they are cinematographic' (Stout), there is a range of imagery and context created through all aspects of a city, especially in film, that enhance certain narratives, and are especially fitting for the film noir genre. Films such as Bladerunner, that use and design cities to it's narrative advantage, seem to demonstrate the statement that 'out of interconnections of urban narrative and visual representation would come cinema.' (Stout).

Both texts studied argue the importance of people in relation to cities, as without them being populated, or even interpreted they would just be abandoned soulless buildings. Cities are human constructs, As stated by Donald who despite questioning ' 'How can such a bewildering and alien environment - the city as unsolvable enigma- provide a home?' states 'It is concrete, but just as brutally it is fantastic.'


Donald, J. 'Imagining the Modern City: Light in Dark Spaces' in Bridge, G. and Watson, S. (eds.) (2010)The Blackwell City Reader, Chichester, Wiley-Blackwell, pages 323 - 329

Stout, F. (1999) 'Visions of a New Reality: the City and the Emergence of Modern Visual Culture' in LeGates, R.T. and Stout, F. (eds.) (2003) The City Reader, London, Routledge, pages 147 - 150