A Scanner Darkly (2006)

A Scanner Darkly is a science fiction thriller by Richard Linklater. It is based on Philip K. Dick’s novel A Scanner Darkly, originally published in 1977. It is said to be a semi-autobiographical story, set in a dystopian future (1994 - the future at the time the book was written) Orange County. Substance D, a highly addictive drug has become widely available and a separate government organisation sends out undercover cops to infiltrate the drug society. The protagonist, Bob Arctor, struggles through addiction, rehab and conspiracy in an attempt to do his job.

The film was filmed digitally and then re-rendered frame by frame to create a cartoon style appearance. This method allows for effects such as the scramble suits to be portrayed in a convincing way.

Walls Have Feelings: Architecture, Film and the City
Katherine Shonfield

Endpiece

Katherine Shonfield teaches Architectural History and Theory, is a partner in an architectural practice, is the deputy editor of the Journal of Architecture as well as writes for the Architects’ Journal. In her 2000 book ‘Walls Have Feelings’, she writes about the relation between film and the built environment. Shonfield applies insights and methodologies from film to the practice of architecture.

Three main elements run through the book:

• An idea of how apparently natural or objective characteristics of space can be interpreted in terms of capitalist activity (pursuit of profit)
• The expression of a ‘quest for purity’ which permeates architectural and urban practice today. (displayed in zero carbon strategies, definition of borders and in many other ways)
• An idea that fictions (especially films and novels) can be used to reveal/explore the unseen workings of architecture.

The relationship between film and architecture, according to Shonfield, seems multi-facetted and must be examined in a number of ways. She draws a parallel between film as representation of the city and dream as representation of life. Alluding to the work of Freud, she writes:

‘If fictional representations of the architecture and the city are understood as the architectural equivalent of the dream record, then their entire status can change.’ (p. 160)

This interpretation of film opens up an interesting array of academic study. Can we, however, be sure that the original assumption, film as dream, is valid?

Meaning and symbolism of architecture in film is a contentious topic. Shonfield expresses surprise over how film-makers can spend more time deciding how objects (buildings/sculptures/squares/spaces) are to be filmed than the time spent originally designing the objects themselves. This originates in the film’s intent to tell a story, meaning that the choice/use of every individual object becomes loaded with meaning.  One must also consider this from the viewer’s perspective. The careful choice of symbols in films adds another layer to the narrative and the ability of the viewer to interpret these symbols, can result in a deeper (and more personal?) understanding of the film. There is, of course, always a risk of academic over-interpretation of a film’s symbolism which one must take care to avoid.

Shonfield also points out the complex nature of architecture; the interlinking of practical specifics and cultural meaning. I interpret this as the relationship between form and function as well as space and people (or people in space!) Form, function and logic seem closely interlinked. Shonfield highlights this in the following quote from Henri Lefebvre’s 1991 book ‘Production of Space’:

‘Is it conceivable that a complete correspondence could occur between a visual logic carried to the extreme in built architecture, and a ‘logic of society’ – the strategies inspired by a state bureaucracy?’ (p. 166)

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Shonfield, K. (2000) Walls Have Feelings: Architecture, Film and the City. London: Routledge pp. 154-175

Fantasy Cinema: Impossible Worlds on Screen
David Butler

David Butler’s Fantasy Cinema forms part of the Wallflower Short Cuts series, which provides introductions to a wide spectrum of film studies. His last chapter, ‘Interpreting Fantasy: Functions and Beliefs’, applies the concept of fantasy to real life. Butler challenges the idea that fantasy is mere escapism, that all fantasy offers is a ‘carefree wishspace’ that has nothing to do with reality. Surely fantasy can, and is, used in this way.

Tolkien claimed that escapism can just as well be regarded an act of resistance. We shouldn’t condemn people for trying to imagine a different (better!) world. Butler uses the example of Martin Luther. Can we now dismiss his ideas of racial equality and civil rights as escapist delusions? (One must, however, of course take care to not get caught in a fantasy world and keep in touch with reality!) Returning to Tolkien, he believed that the best fantasy could offer a receptive audience was recovery, escape and consolation.

But, as Butler asks, ‘what happens when we contrast a fantasy world with our own?’ and quotes Jack Zipes on this issue:

‘By moving to the past or another world, the fairy tale enables readers to regain a clear view of their situations’ (p.100)

So, by looking at our own world through the filter of a fantasy film (or written story), we can examine it from a more objective point of view. It is easier to understand, critique or applaud society if you are not directly involved in it.

Finally, Butler mentions in ‘Fantasy Cinema’ Christopher Booker’s five stages of story structure (adding to the previous theories I have written about by Vladimir Propp and Susan Sontag). They seem to apply remarkably well to many dystopian films and will be worth keeping in mind for future reference.

The five stages are:
- Anticipation
- Dream
- Frustration
- Nightmare
- Miraculous escape

Cinema and the City
Edited by Mark Shiel and Tony Fitzmaurice

Chapter 1
Cinema and the City in History and Theory, Mark Shiel pp. 1-18

In his introduction to the book, Shiel announces cinema to be the most important cultural form of the 20^th (and, so far, the 21^st century) alongside the city as the most important form of social organisation. Hence the title of the book; Cinema and the City. He argues for improved connection between cultural and social studies (film studies and sociology/urban studies) and how both sides can be enriched by interdisciplinary contact. Shiel also talks about cinema as a global industry and talks at length about the globalisation of film (culture) and society (architecture).

Like Stephanie Hemelryk Donald mentioned in her essay ‘Out on a Limb?’ in ‘Visualising the City’, Shiel questions the legitimacy of using L.A (or another American city) as a symbol for the entire Western world.  He goes on to question what kind of cities there are and divides them according to the classifications of a number of authors; Saskia Sassen’s Global, Transnational and Subnational Cities and Mike Savage/Alan Warde’s Global Cities, Third World Cities, Older Industrial Cities and New Industrial Districts.

Shiel makes an interesting comment about how there is a network of semi-autonomous cities and megacities that relate more to other cities in this network than to the national or even regional space they occupy. These cities could be perceived as symptoms of globalisation and ‘smoothing out’ of world cultures. The dominance of Hollywood cinema can easily be regarded a threat to regional and national identities and cultures as Western ideas of free market enterprise and individualism are introduced to (imposed on!) other cultures.

Is Hollywood cinema simply an apprenticeship to Western capitalism?

Chapter 3
Bunker Hill: Hollywood’s Dark Shadow, Mike Davis, pp. 33-45

Bunker Hill was a hilltop slum overlooking Los Angeles. It was a popular setting for the film noirs of the 1940’s, seen as a broodingly urban and mysterious place very different to L.A. Davis describes how the area, despite poor social statistics had a favela-like sense of community. The community was eventually flattened, its residents moved to the neighbouring Crown Hill only to be replaced by a new, wealthy, upmarket community of museums, bank(er)s and yuppies.

In relation to Bunker Hill, Davies mentions Dickens’ recollection of Five Points - describing the generic Victorian slum as present in his ‘American Notes’.

“This is the place [Five Points], these narrow ways, diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives as are led here, bear the same fruits here as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors have counterparts at home, and all the wide world over. Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken frays. Many of those pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright in lieu of going on all-fours? and why they talk instead of grunting?”

Davis describes how early film industry used an urban landscape already portrayed/defined by writers, photographers and artists. Los Angeles, however, had no compelling image in literature, giving the film industry an immense sense of freedom. He writes that ‘LA was a (stage) set, which is to say, it was U-topia: literally, no-place (or thus any place)’ (p.35). Films redesigned LA in their own image. Zorro was neighbouring Robin Hood through the Spanish Colonial houses built next to the English Tudor style ones. (Eventually  accompanied by the Egyptian inspired villas and pyramid shopping malls). Is this a reason Hollywood so easily found a home?

Chapter 8
Cities: Real and Imagined, Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, pp. 99-108

‘…not depending on the outside world also meant not learning from it.’ (p.100)

When film sets replaced the real world, filmmaking no longer benefitted from encountering reality. Concept became everything. Of course, there were major advantages of filming in a studio, including weather independency, no unwanted background noise as well as easier application of special effects. What happened, however, was that the city as protagonist disappeared. (Which, unlike humans, is not a fictional character!)  

Chapter 20
Naked: Social Realism and the Urban Wasteland, Mike Mason, pp.244-253

Naked is a 1993 film set in a London of sparse anonymity, blurred boundaries between public and private, deserted streets, alleyways and office blocks. I found the following quote from this chapter very relevant:

“Naked promotes a selective construction of the city to further a particular discourse on the fragmentation of personal and communal identities and the coherent social relations that are assumed to follow from these. Through the selective use of locational and temporal zones in the film, emphasis is placed on the isolation and alienation of characters central to the narrative and, through this, typical themes concerning community and economics that may form a generic base for social realist narratives are given a particularly postmodern inflection.” (p.245)

Fitzmautice, T. and Shiel, M. (eds.)(2001) Cinema and the City: Film and Urban Societies in a Global Context. Oxford: Blackwells

Dead Cities
Chapter 17 - Dead Cities: A Natural History
Mike Davis

Dead Cities is yet another book by Mike Davis relevant to my thesis work. In this chapter, he considers what would happen if people were to disappear from cities and concludes that we currently know more about the ecology of the rainforest than of the city.

As show in studies made in urban disaster zones, war often serves as a catalyst for the expansion of previously rare species of flora. Fire accelerates the transition to this ‘new nature’ - sometimes referred to as Nature II.  An example of this type of flora is the ‘fire flowers’ of London which appeared after the Great Fire in 1666. The London Rocket, Sisymbrium irio, was very rare before the disaster. Bomber ecology, as this type of study is sometimes referred to, has been developed relatively far in Berlin after WW2 due to the abundance of urban dead zones.

London Rocket (Sisymbrium irio)

Not only flowers respond to war and disasters. There have been reports of birds responding to bombs and gunfire as if they were simply particularly rigorous rivals. Imagine how strange that must be, hearing a nightingale singing at the top of his lungs as a war is raging around him!

This chapter is prompted by the works of Jefferies and Stewart, both writing about urban life after human civilisation. I have previously written about the 1996 New Scientist article on the issue, written by Laura Spinney. (also prompted by the aforementioned writers!)

Davis discussed four pieces of work relevant to my thesis in this chapter. They are:
- George. R. Stewart, Earth Abides (1949) novel
- Richard Jefferies, After London (1886) novel
- Camilo Vergara, The New American Ghetto (1995) photographs
- Deborah and Rodric Wallace, various writings, especially their ‘cascading supernova model of urban collapse’, which Davis claims resembles Jefferies’ nightmare of a metropolis killing itself with its own toxins.

- - -

Davies, M. (2002) Dead Cities. New York: The New Press. pp. 361-399

Another Three Chapters from Visualizing the City
by Alan Marcus and Dietrich Neumann

Notes made whilst reading further chapters

 
Chapter 8: The City Being Itself? The case of Paris in La Haine
Francois Penz, pp. 143-157

According to Penz, there are different kinds of cities in films:
- Real Cities (on location)
- Reconstructed Cities (in studio)
- Virtual Cities (produced digitally)

Penz himself is only concerned with the first, the Real Cities, in his analysis of La Haine (1995) and how it represents Paris and its suburb Chanteloup-Les-Vignes. The suburb was built in the 1970’s, designed by architect Emile Aillaud in collaboration with artist Fabio Rieti. Because of the large murals on a number of buildings and oversized sculptures scattered about, Penz suggests that Chanteloup-Les-Vignes presents elements of a utopian architectural vision. Rather poignant, since it became the setting for a dystopia both on film and in real life.

La Haine was filmed in full colour, but the final output is in black and white. This was a conscious decision, where the BW effect has been used to transform and unify the film. Colours were deemed distracting and counteracting the director’s vision. Other visual strategies used to explore the concepts of suburb vs. city and express or deny a sense of belonging include:

- depth of field
- focus/blur
- motion
- use of perspective

An important term used is ‘referential space’, whereby a film often is identified from the outset, and rooted both geographically, socially and historically.

Penz concludes the chapter by elaborating on the impact of architecture in film:

“City planners and decision makers can use the moving image to harness the power of cinema to promote an identity. This makes it crucial for designers, architects and planners to be able to understand better the mechanisms through which they, too, can convey their vision of a future city.” (p. 155)

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Chapter 9: Composing London Visually
Robert Tavernor, pp. 159-178

Tavernor analyses how London is designed from a series of viewpoints around and within the city. Ant planning decisions made include assessments of the development’s visual impact on photographically recorded images of London from fixed viewing points. This approach to planning is unique to London, and is incredibly interesting from a cinematic point of view.

He refers to Camillo Sitte and his statement that city planning could, and should, be seen as art and uses this to argue that all urban planning should be considered in the same fashion. Sitte’s principles are also shown to be present in the 2000 By Design document by DETR.

Is determining the future vision of a city based on (selected!) static views really a good thing? As Tavernor points out;

“We experience cities kinetically” (p. 176)

  - - -

Chapter 12: Rain in the City
Jill Stoner, pp. 217-236

Stoner presents a critique of filmic and cinematic aspects of the city and discusses the architectural potentials of transparency (film) and motion (cinema). Her essay is a call for fantasy, for producing fantastic images and asking them to enter our urban life. But, the inherent problem of the fantastic is, that once it is realised it can no longer be just that - fantastic. The crucial distinction is whether it is in front or behind our eyes. The point of fantasies, according to Stoner, is not to construct them. But:

“Fantasy serves another purpose – to alert us to what is missing in our cities, without necessarily suggesting its form.” (p. 217)

Stoner goes on to talk about rain at length. To her, rain is ‘blurry and imprecise’. Its formlessness can, even in a city, suggest an absence of architecture, setting free our imagination. Perhaps this blur can hold clues to a redefinition of architecture;

“…it acts both literally and metaphorically as an agent of chaos, of emptiness and of chance, and these three qualities offer liberating alternatives to the current conventions of urban design” (p. 219)

Perhaps the rainy, blurry, imprecise dystopia of Blade Runner can act as a starting point of utopian designs of future cities?

Out on a Limb? Urban Traumas on the West Pacific Rim
Stephanie Hemelryk Donald

Chapter 7 in Visualising the City pp. 127-142
Edited by Alan Marcus and Dietrich Neumann

The 9/11 attacks made a bold statement on the cinematic hierarchy of world cities. The attack on the New York skyline was as taken from one of numerous American disaster films. The Western world reacted strongly, as if home had been hit. Has the sheer number of prominent American disaster films conditioned us to think of New York (or Los Angeles, or any other large American city) as a symbol for the entire Western world?

If it can happen in America, can it happen in Europe too?

The main question Donald asks is why American film involves so much destruction of suburban architecture and of city landmarks. She presents three immediate reasons:

-  The pleasure afforded and curiosity caused by illusions of
    destruction and catastrophe (the same reason we slow down to
    look at road accidents)
-  The advanced skills and technological infrastructure available more
    readily available to filmmakers in America
-  The traditions of slapstick in American film comedy

Donald’s essay makes many references to Mike Davis’ books Ecology of Fear (1999) and Dead Cities (2002) and in turn discuss, analyse and critique parts of his work.
(I keep noticing a pattern of cross referencing between a number of authors and cannot help but wonder how legitimate their writings are if they all keep referring to each other’s work in a closed circle of ‘friends’.)

Davis offers another reason to the question about destruction in American cinema. He speculates that disasters can be read as an allegory of contemporary urban character and despair, that film makers express disintegration and despair in urban communities through visions of destruction (and hope for a new beginning?).

Donald recommends the last chapter of Davis’ Dead Cities. I will try to find it at a later date - hopefully it will be useful.

Returning to the main question, Donald writes that “disaster is not necessarily crucial to the grammar of national cinemas, other than American” (p.130, emphasis added). So, in relation to Davis’ comments about destruction being an indicator of despair, are there any other ways in which cities on film can deal with fear and loathing? Often, the city represents or at least acknowledges the chaos and indeterminacy (both in real life and on film!) through the darkness lurking in the backstreets of the modern idyll where its inhabitants may nor may not consider capitalism as a necessary evil. 

If the city itself represents this uneasy atmosphere, when does it stop? The city does not close or rest, and as Donald point ou, the end of the film is often considered a respite and not a final ‘coming to rest’. The city order is itself based on doubt and uncertainty. Does it ever stop?

The final part of Donald’s essay I want to mention is when she draws reference to Freud’s story about a boy who loves playing a game of disappearance and return. (i.e. throwing his toys away into a messy corner of his room and taking great delight in searching for and eventually finding it) She compares this story to American film cinema, with the victim-self is the saviour, interpreter as well as creator of the event. A kind of self-inflicted critical dystopia.

“In American disaster films, the worst is confirmed, the loss of America, on the grounds that the best must still be possible, the continuation of America.” (p.140)

On a slightly different note, Donald writes about how we learn/write most about American films, much because American cinema has established itself as the international standard for commercial genre films. European cities, when they are mentioned or studied, usually include London, Paris and Berlin (and sometimes Rome). If focusing on an European film for my thesis case study, Upside Down may prove a good contender. Based on the trailer (the film is not yet released) there seem to be a number of parallels to Berlin and East/West Germany. Existing case studies on Berlin cinema would, indeed, be useful.

 - - -

Marcus, A. and Neumann, D. (2007) Visualising the City. Abingdon: Routledge.

The VJ of Everyday: Remixing the Urban Visual
Scott Burnham

Chapter 10 in Visualising the City pp.181-196
Edited by Alan Marcus and Dietrich Neumann
(note the Metropolis set design cover image by Erich Kettelhut, Otto Hunte and Karl Vollbrecht. These designs were heavily influenced by Hugh Ferriss. This image also appears on the cover of Annette Kuhn’s Alien Zone II. The edition I have has got an image of the light memorial of the Twin Towers)

In 2005, a conference called ‘Visualising the City’ was held at the University of Manchester. The event brought together some 150 speakers in the space of three days. (Split into groups by subject area – it would have been impossible to hear all of them!)

One of the speakers was Scott Burnham. He describes himself as an ‘urban strategist, creative director and writer, reprogramming our relationship with design and the city’. He has written chapter 10 ‘The VJ of Everyday: Remixing the Urban Visual’ in the book called ‘Visualising the City’. (The book is edited by the chair and a speaker from the Manchester conference – I don’t know if their 2007 book is somehow inspired by the 2005 conference…)

This chapter is a bit farfetched in relation to the rest of my work, but some interesting thoughts came out of it. Burnham writes about a sense of ‘here’ (as in ‘I like it here’ or ‘I live here’) and how this ‘here’ can be very small or rather big. He expresses a personal longing for a big ‘here’ after telling a story about a lady who limits her sense of ‘here’ to her small New York loft apartment.

A sense of belonging, of ‘here’, is about creating a personal relevance within what Burnham calls ‘deeply impersonal urban landscapes’. He speculates that increased urban density increases the desire for personal connectivity. As a result, the definitions of the public/private and legal/illegal blur. (He gives an example where illegal graffiti becomes art when it is accepted/liked/approved by the community)

I wonder if complete disconnection from our immediate (county/city/neighbourhood/street) surroundings could be considered a small scale (or even private?) urban dystopia.

With regard to disconnection, Davies and Parrinder write in their article ‘Part of the Process’:

“Spontaneous social relations are vanishing in the information age as communication becomes restricted to particular areas of consumption: coffee shops, pubs and bars, art galleries and so on.” P.21

Is social isolation part of a developing urban dystopia? And is consumption, previously described as the penultimate utopia (the shopping mall and Disneyland again!) nothing but a restrictive dystopia?

 - - -

Marcus, A. and Neumann, D. (2007) Visualising the City. Abingdon: Routledge.

Davies, C. and Parrinder, M. (2006) ‘Part of the Process’, Eye, 59 (Spring): 18-25

Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and other Science Fictions
Fredric Jameson

In the introduction of his book Archaeologies of the Future, Jameson describes how utopia has always been a political issue. Utopia, especially in literature can be ambiguous, vague and subject to doubt since both the literary form itself and the political values the utopia is founded on are always subject to debate, review and opinion.

The way we view utopia today is very different from how utopia was viewed during the Cold War (an example used by Jameson). During the war, utopia was a synonym for Stalinism. Utopia was imposed on ‘reluctant subjects’. Time is not the only thing changing our views on utopia. Other factors, such as geographical location, history, and personal experiences play vital roles in forming our concept of utopia.

As mentioned in a previous post, Mannheim describes utopia as a ‘complex of ideas directing activity toward the changing of the status quo’, and Jameson makes a good argument regarding the idea of utopia:

“…our imaginations are hostages to our own mode of production (and perhaps to whatever remnants of past ones it has preserved). It suggests that at best Utopia can serve the negative purpose of making us more aware of our mental and ideological imprisonment […] and that therefore the best Utopias are those that fail the most comprehensively.” (p.xii)

So, whatever we imagine, it is based on thing we have already seen or experienced. Like Homer’s chimera (again an example used by Jameson) it is an imagined three-headed animal – a lion’s head where one would expect to find it, a goat’s head protruding from it’s back and finally a serpent’s head on the end of it’s tail. An imaginary creature clearly constituted by parts of existing creatures.

If this is how we imagine other worlds/societies – or even utopia – can we ever reach a valid idea or conclusion? If everything we imagine will always be heavily influenced by our own, private experiences as well as time/culture/world/society we live in, can we ever be sufficiently objective?

(I also don’t know whether I agree with Jameson’s statement that making us more aware of our mental and ideological imprisonment would be a negative thing. Surely, the first step to change (or improve?) this condition is to be aware of it.)

 - - -

Jameson, Fredric (2007) Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. London and New York: Verso.

Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination
Tom Moylan

Moylan’s book Demand the Impossible (named after a Parisian wall slogan in May 1968) starts by introducing the concept of critical utopia both in literature and the imagination. This post will be a summary of relevant quotes from the book.

 - - -

“Utopian writing in its many manifestations is complex and contradictory. It is, at heart, rooted in the unfulfilled needs and wants of specific classes, groups, and individuals in their unique historical context.” (p. 1)

“The literary utopia developed as a narrative form in times of deep change, and it has continued to thrive in tumultuous moments since the sixteenth century. This is not to say that utopias are written only in times of crisis, but the form itself is suited to the sort of discourse which considers both what is and what is not yet achieved.”  (p. 3, emphasis added)

“Utopia grew up with capitalism and the new world [America] as its godparents while the underlying social and personal yearnings and sufferings were its immediate progenitors.”  (pp. 4-5)

“In western industrial societies, utopian longing can be discovered as the underlying stimulus to the machinery of advertising or, perhaps most strikingly, in those living maps of restrictive pleasure which carry the passive consuming audience along in a totally managed environment, Disneyland and Disneyworld.” (p. 8) (Here it is again - Disneyland!)

“Mannheim defines ideology as the complex of ideas directing activity toward the maintenance of the status quo and utopia as the complex of ideas directing activity toward the changing of the status quo.” (p. 18) (reference no 10 - check book)

“Fantasy has a truth value of its own, which corresponds to an experience of its own - namely, the surmounting of the antagonistic human reality. Imagination envisions the reconciliation of the individual with the whole, of desire with realization, of happiness with reason. While this harmony has been removed into utopia by the established reality principle, phantasy insists that it must and can become real.” (p. 25) (reference no 20 - check book!)

“For ‘realistic’ as science fiction and utopian fiction may appear on the surface, they are forms of the romance which are meditations upon deep conflicts in the historical present that are displaces onto the terrain of an other-worldly locus so that the reader, consciously or unconsciously, can see her or his society and its contradictions in a fresh and perhaps motivating light.” (p. 32)

“Simplistic reading of these genres speak of their ‘predicting’ or ‘planning’ the future as though they were the narrative tools of some futurological technocrat. On the contrary, utopia and science fiction are most concerned with the current moment of history, but they represent that moment in an estranged manner.” (p. 35)

“Utopia is literally out of this world, a negation of reality.” (p. 40)

“Science fiction demonstrated our incapacity to imagine the future and brings us down to earth to apprehend out present in all its limitations.” (p. 42)

“The critical utopian imagination seems to have learned from Mao The Tung’s dictum that contradictions would persist in society even after the revolution or, indeed, from Derrida’s arguments for continual deconstruction.” (pp. 44-45, emphasis added)

“Utopian desires for a just and free society were suppressed and redirected into the static products of consumer capital - perhaps best imaged in those twin architectural figures that signify affluent society: the shopping mall and Disneyland.” (p. 47)

“The critical utopia, read at the level of the ideologeme, becomes a meditation on action rather than on system. The false utopia created by postwar consumerism which required a passive consumer is deconstructed in favor of the more radical utopia that re-engages the gears of active human resistance and creation.” (p. 49)

 - - -

Moylan also offers a range of definitions of utopian texts, too many and too lengthy to be quoted here. If curious, refer to chapter 3: The Literary Utopia (pages 32-33 and 36)

Moylan, Tom (1986) Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination. London: Methuen.

Cities on the Edge of Time: the urban science-fiction film
Vivian Sobchack

Chapter 6 (pp.123-143)  in Annette Kuhn’s book Alien Zone II: The Spaces of Science-Fiction Cinema is an analysis of cityscapes in American science-fiction films. Sobchack rejects the perspective of classical urbanism, where the city is seen as an object distinct from the people who inhabit it. Instead, she expresses a desire to let the city emerge from the relationships between its physical materials and its inhabitants.

The relation between the real and the imagined is sometimes apparent, as when Sobchack points out that ‘Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1926) […]futuristic bi-level city was inspired by Bauhaus architecture and the German director’s 1924 visit to New York’ (p. 126).  Sometimes, her writing (and indeed the films studied!) is not quite as straightforward.

Similarly to Baccolini’s 2004 article The Persistence of Hope in Dystopian Science Fiction, Sobchack deals with her analysis chronologically and with similar time intervals. In the 1930’s there are three distinct fantasy images of the city; the aspiration towards the future (as in Just Imagine, 1930), transcendence in the present (as in King Kong, 1933) and the utopian view of city as the eternal ideal. (p. 128)

aspiration towards the future - Just Imagine displays an upper level of a liberating and beutiful New York. There is no dark base or pedestrian street level, but people move in little one seater planes between buildings. Traffic is intense, but moves freely in three dimensions and is somehow ‘uplifted’.

transcendence in the present - Sobchack uses King Kong to explain the idea of transcendence. ‘In the image, the fifty-foot-tall great ape ‘towers’ over Manhattan, momentarily triumphant and forever poetically transcendent atop what once could be called ‘New York’s tallest phallus’. The primitive ape vs. the most modern civilized architectural presence.

eternal ideal - Films portraying cities visualised in aspiring architecture and explicitly located in transcendent space. Lost Horizon (1937) is placed in the highest reached of the Himalayas and The Wizard of Oz (1939), as we all know, ‘somewhere over the rainbow’. Sobchack writes  that this ‘idealized and lofty city signifies a utopian reach always in excess of modern man’s venal grasp, an eternal ideal always already ephemeral and lost’.

These three fantasy images share a few ideas. They all emphasise the vertical, lofty and aerial quality of the city. The horizontal base level is not as important, often not even mentioned. Sobchack concludes that ‘equating ‘height’ with the active reach of human aspiration, the ‘loftiness’ of the city stands concretely as its most aesthetically significant social value’ (p.128).

As Sobchack moves toward more modern films, such as Strange Days (1995), Twelve Monkeys (1996) and The Fifth Element (1997)  she notices that the idea of urban dystopia has changed dramatically. The only element remaining is the idea of an upper level city without a horizontal ground plane, as portrayed in Just Imagine.

“Radically different from the ordered urban airways envisioned by both Metropolis and Just Imagine, this city is a dizzying and densely layered labyrinth of architecture and motion: it has neither skyscrapers (there is no visible sky as such) nor ground. This is a city that seems to have no boundaries and yet, at the same time, is peculiarly hermetic.” (p. 141)

 - - -

Kuhn, Annette (1999) Alien Zone II: The Spaces of Science-Fiction Cinema. London and New York: Verso.

The Persistence of Hope in Dystopian Science Fiction
Raffaella Baccolini

“It is widely accepted today that, whenever we receive or produce culture, we do so from a certain position and that such a location influences how we theorize about and read the world.” (p.518)

In her article, Baccolini is focusing on subjectivity in culture, mainly from a feminist perspective. She also discusses how utopia has developed through time and gives examples of changes every couple of decades. Critical dystopia, then, is a relatively recent idea. It implies a sense of utopian horizon, a hope that not everything is lost or hopeless as in traditional dystopian imagination.  

“In classical dystopia, memory remains too often trapped in an individual and regressive nostalgia, but critical dystopias show that a culture of memory - one that moves  from the  individual to the collective - is part of a social project of hope.” (p. 520)

The critical dystopia can be useful to us - it can, similarly to any science fiction or traditional utopia, be used to critically explore our contemporary society. Since the critical dystopia is a product of our time,  what has prompted the sudden utopian horizon? Baccolini presents the idea of today’s society, based on consumption, has become anti-utopian. Since utopia has become considered equivalent to materialist satisfaction it has consequently been commodified and devalued.

“In a society where consumerism has come to represent the contemporary modality of happiness, utopia has become an outmoded value. The pursuit of individual happiness, which is none other than material success, corresponds to what Darko Sonvin has called the ‘Disneyfication strategy’.” (pp. 518-519)

Disney seems to be cropping up everywhere. Throughout our book review seminar ‘Cities and Urban Ideologies’, Disney has been mentioned more often than not. In my book All Over the Map by Michael Sorkin (to be presented in a couple of weeks) Disney plays a central role in a number of chapters, often in conjunction with New Urbanism and Philip Johnson. Is Disney really that central to our modern lives?

To return to, and conclude, this brief review, a critical dystopia is not inherently positive.  As Baccolini points out:

“…the presence of Utopian hope does  not necessarily mean  a happy ending. Rather, awareness and  responsibility are the conditions of the critical dystopia’s citizens.” (p. 520)

Is this what we have to become? Do we have to recreate mankind as critically aware, responsible citizens to avoid our urban futures turning into dystopian worst case scenarios?

 - - -

Baccolini, Raffaella (2004) The Persistence of Hope in Dystopian Science Fiction. PMLA, Vol. 119 No. 3 (May 2004), pp. 518-521.

Gomorrah (2008)

Gomorrah (Gomorra in Italian) is a film by Matteo Garrone. It is based on the 2006 book Gomorrah: Italy’s Other Mafia  by Italian journalist and writer Roberto Saviano, which caused much upset within the mafia. Saviano has since been granted a permanent police escort by the Italian Minister of the Interior.

Gomorrah is set in the area around Naples and follows five separate stories connected by the mafia’s dealings. The film presents the workings of the Casalesi clan, a crime syndicate within the Camorra, and it is soon clear that everyone is involved, willing or not.

Scampìa, a suburb north of Naples

Many scenes are filmed in and around a public housing area in Scampìa, run by the Di Lauro clan (also a Camorra syndicate). The story incorporates the Faida di Scampia, the Scampia Feud, a gang war between the Di Lauro clan and the ‘secessionists’ (scissionisti in Italian), a breakaway group.  

A review of Gomorrah written by Christoph Huber for Cinema Scope can be read here.

Children of Men

Children of Men is a 2006 film by Alfonso Cuarón. Set in London year 2027, women have been infertile for nearly 20 years and widespread chaos has gripped the country. It emerges that England is the only country that soldiers on, that is still controlled by a government. The influx of immigrants is overwhelming and the country has taken to make immigration illegal. All immigrants are captured and killed. 

Although the film is set in the future, not much seems to have changed in the built environment (apart from the addition of LCD screens to building facades). Vehicles are equipped with plastic bumpers and bonnets and suttle impact warning lights in the windscreen. Everything looks old, dirty and worn out. Britain, although soldiering on, is a country in chaos.

Children of Men is one of the case studies used in Mariano Paz’s 2010 thesis Ideology and Dystopia: Political Discourse in Contemporary Science Fiction Film. Other British films studied in the thesis include Code 46 (2003) and 28 Weeks Later (2007). (He also studies American and Argentinian films, which are not as relevant to my thesis project) Paz’s work is providing me with many good points of reference, not only in terms of critical film reviews, but also new angles on the definition of dystopia (such as the idea of a critical dystopia) and how the topic can be expanded further. 

Worst Cases: Terror and Catastrophe in the Popular Imagination
Lee Clarke

It may sound rather morbid, but this is what you currently find on my bedside table. Looking for academic writing on urban dystopia, I stumbled across this and couldn’t leave the library without it. Clarke discusses issues ranging from the theoretical probablilism vs possibilism and ‘what if’s to a more practical application of worst case scenarios; to prepare ourselves for worst cases or even prevent them from happening.I wonder if, by imagining our own dystopian futures, we can prevent them from happening? 

The blurb reads:

Al Qaeda detonates a nuclear weapon in Times Square during rush hour, wiping out half of Manhattan and killing 500,000 people. A virulent strain of bird flu jumps to humans in Thailand, sweeps across Asia, and claims more than fifty million lives. A single freight car of chlorine derails on the outskirts of Los Angeles, spilling its contents and killing seven million. An asteroid ten kilometers wide slams into the Atlantic Ocean, unleashing a tsunami that renders life on the planet as we know it extinct.

We consider the few who live in fear of such scenarios to be alarmist or even paranoid. But “Worst Cases” shows that such individuals - like Cassandra foreseeing the fall of Troy - are more reasonable and prescient than you might think. In this book, Lee Clarke surveys the full range of possible catastrophes that animate and dominate the popular imagination, from toxic spills and terrorism to plane crashes and pandemics.

Along the way, he explores how the ubiquity of worst cases in everyday life has rendered them ordinary and mundane: very real threats like a killer flu or an American Hiroshima have become so common that they have lost their ability to shock us. Fear and dread, Clarke argues, have actually become too rare: only when the public has more substantial information and more credible warnings will it take worst cases as seriously as it should.

A timely and necessary look into how we think about the unthinkable, “Worst Cases” will be must reading for anyone attuned to our current climate of threat and fear.