Cinematic Urbanism: A History of the Modern from Reel to Real

TL;DRAbstract

Cinematic Urbanism presents an urban history of modernity and postmodernity through the lens of cinema while arguing that urbanism cannot be understood outside the space of the celluloid city. Nezar AlSayyad traces the dissolution of the boundary between real and reel through time and space via a series of films that represent different modernities. He contrasts the "rational" European city of early twentieth-century industrial modernity as portrayed by Berlin: Symphony of a Big City (1927) with its American counterpart in Modern Times (1936). He illustrates the different forms of small town life and an urbanizing modernity across the Atlantic as exemplified by Cinema Paradiso (1989) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946). Using Metropolis (1927) and Brazil (1985), he shows how utopian ideals harbour within them their dystopian realities, while Jacques Tati's nostalgia for tradition in Mon Oncle (1958) and Playtime (1967) reveals a cynical modernity and a rebelling against its idealism.

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