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Films reflect the remarkable changes in urban life that have occurred since the turn of the twentieth century and represent both the promises and failures of the city, including the excitement of living with strangers together in concentrated centres of politics, economy, and the arts, as well as the unequal access to green spaces, schools, and housing that residents who live in segregated spaces face. As an aesthetic form, film emerged at the turn of the last century and soon became a new way of representing and imagining the urban built environment. As early as the 1920s, film also reflected urban theories, influenced planning practices in many countries, and was critical of urban inequalities. As a social scene, cinema created new viewing publics through a shared leisure experience (‘going to the movies’) and urban form (the movie house on main street or in the mall). Visions of the modern city also reflect (and sometimes reinforce) societal desires and fears, from idealistic utopian hopes (socially just and beautiful worlds), to fears of ‘the Other’ (aliens, foreigners, nature, women, persons of colour) or of unchecked government power or corrupt corporate control. In this module, students will view and discuss films from 1908 to the present-day, with a focus on early European films, and more recent U.S. and Irish films. Students will gain an understanding of such themes as: race and gender in the city; chronic urban trauma; social and cultural conflict in cities; urban environments, technologies, and economies; and utopian and dystopian views of urban futures.
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THE CITY IN FILM
Semester 1
