Cem KILIÇARSLAN

2211

Do Tread on My Dreams: The Perception of Cityscape in Science Fiction Films

The city, the urban landscape with its idiosyncratic skyline and bird’s eye presentations, has been one of the most dominant and recurring images of the cinematic representations of the science fiction genre. This preoccupation with the city and its visual depictions is hardly coincidental. An analysis of science fiction films with regards to their utilization of the cityscape and individual works of architecture reveals that there is a correlation between the meaning created by the science fiction film and the works of architecture shown on the screen. The architectural elements used in science fiction films are primarily compelling representatives of the modernist architecture and urban planning. Therefore, they make a visual commentary on the meaning created by the film in parallel with the ideology and mentality of the modernist thinking. Nevertheless, a survey of prominent examples of the science fiction genre reveals that these films make use of modernist architecture and urban planning to depict an inhuman, oppressive and totalitarian world; a view remarkably in contradiction with the basic tenets of the modernist ideal.
PDF

___

  • 2001: A Space Odyssey. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester and Daniel Richter. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1968.
  • Æon Flux. Dir. Karyn Kusama. Perf. Charlize Theron, Martin Csokas, Jonny Lee Miller and Sophie Okonedo. Paramount Pictures, 2005.
  • Albrecht, Donald. Designing Dreams: Modern Architecture in the Movies. New York: Harper&Row, 1986.
  • Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution. Dir. Jean-Luc Godard. Perf. Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina and Akim Tamiroff. Athos Films, 1965.
  • Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Illuminations. Ed. Hannah Arendt. New York: Schocken Books, 1968. 217-251.
  • ---. “On Some Motifs in Baudelaire.” Illuminations. Ed. Hannah Arendt. New York: Schocken Books, 1968. 155-200.
  • Berman, Marshall. All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982.
  • Blade Runner. Dir. Ridley Scott. Perf. Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos and Daryl Hannah. The Ladd Company, 1982.
  • Bowman, James. “Heroism, Modernism, and the Utopian Impulse.” The New Atlantis. 17.2. (2007): 70-78.
  • Bruno, Guliana. Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film. New York: Verso, 2002.
  • de Certeau, Michel. “Walking in the City.” Beyond the Body Proper: Reading the Anthropology of Material Life. Eds. Margaret Lock and Judith Farquhar. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2007. 249-258.
  • Chapman, Michelle. “Modernism and the City.” 1996. Fractal Myth. 24 September 2007 .
  • Clayton, Anna. “CityScope: The Cinema and the City.” Global Built Environment Review 5.1 (2005): 57-68.
  • Clements, David. “From Dystopia to Myopia: Metropolis to Blade Runner.” Culture Wars. 6 December 2003. 11 September 2007 .
  • Dark City. Dir Alex Proyas. Perf. Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Kiefer Sutherland and Jennifer Connelly. Mystery Clock Cinema, 1998.
  • Darke, Chris. Alphaville. Urbana and Chicago: U of Illinois P, 2005.
  • Edelstein David. “Radiant City: The Timely Return of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.” Slate. 18 September 2002. 6 January 2008 .
  • Equilibrium. Dir. Kurt Wimmer. Perf. Dominic Purcell, Christian Bale and Sean Bean. Dimension Films, 2002.
  • Gattaca. Dir. Andrew Niccol. Perf. Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Gore Vidal. Columbia Pictures Corporation, 1997.
  • Hall, Peter. Cities of Tomorrow. New York: Blackwell Publishers, 1990.
  • I, Robot. Dir. Alex Proyas. Perf. Will Smith, Bridget Moynahan and Alan Tudyk. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, 2004.
  • Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Vintage, 1961.
  • Jencks, Charles. The New Moderns. London: Academy Editions, 1990.
  • Johnny Mnemonic. Dir. Robert Longo. Perf. Keanu Reeves, Dina Meyer and Ice-T. TriStar Pictures, 1995.
  • Kaes, Anton. “Metropolis: City, Cinema, Modernity.” Expressionist Utopias: Paradise, Metropolis, Architectural Fantasy. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1993. 146- 165.
  • Kennedy, Harlan. “Blade Runner: Ridley Scott Interviewed.” Film Comment. July-Aug 1982. 6 January 2008 .
  • Knox, Matthew. Rear Window Redux: Learning from the Architecture in Hitchcock’s Film Using 3D Modeling and Animation. ACM SIGGRAPH 2007 educators program. San Diego, California: ACM, 2007. 14. 6 January 2008 .
  • Lamster, Mark. Ed. Architecture and Film. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2000.
  • Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret). The City of Tomorrow and Its Planning. 1929. The Blackwell City Reader. Eds. Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson. New York: Blackwell, 1996. 20-29.
  • ---. Aircraft. 1935. New York: Universe Books, 1988.
  • ---. Towards a New Architecture. New York: Dover Publications, 1986.
  • ---. “New York is not a Completed City.” When the Cathedrals were White: A Journey to the Country of Timid People. Trans. Francis Edwin Hyslop. Detroit: Reynal & Hitchock, 1947. 44-46.
  • Logan’s Run. Dir. Michael Anderson. Perf. Michael York, Richard Jordan, Jenny Agutter, Farah Fawcett and Peter Ustinov. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1976.
  • Mahleb, Eric. “Architectural Representations of City in Science Fiction Cinema.” 30 June 2005, 30 December 2007 .
  • Metropolis. Dir. Fritz Lang. Perf. Alfred Abel, Gustav Fröhlich, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Brigitte Helm. Universum Film (UFA), 1927.
  • Milovanovic, Dragan. “Dueling Paradigms: Modernist v. Postmodernist Thought.” 1997, 7 January 2008 .
  • Mumford, Lewis. “What is a City?” The Lewis Mumford Reader. Ed. Donald L. Miller. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986. 104-107.
  • Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Architecture of Image: Existential Space in Cinema. Helsinki: Rakennustieto, 2001.
  • Penz, Francois. Speech. Evolution 2001 International Conference: SCALE—Screens, Audiences and Spaces. Odeon Cinema, Leeds, UK. 12 Oct. 2001.
  • Raban, Jonathan. Soft City. New York: Picador, 1974.
  • Rabinow, Paul. “Space, Knowledge and Power.” The Foucault Reader. London: Penguin, 1996.
  • 248-49.Schwartz, Vanessa R. “Walter Benjamin for Historians.” The American Historical Review. 106.5 (2001): 50 pars. 15 March 2008 .
  • Scruton, Roger. “After Modernism.” City Journal. 10.2 (2000). < http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_2_urbanities-after_modernis.html>.
  • Simmel, Georg. “The Metropolis and Mental Life.” The Sociology of Georg Simmel, Ed. Kurt Wolff. New York: Free Press, 1950. 409-424.
  • Soylent Green. Dir. Richard Fleischer. Perf. Charlton Heston, Leigh Taylor-Young, Chuck Connors and Joseph Cotten. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1973.
  • Toulmin, Stephen. Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1989.
  • Uluoğlu, Belkıs, Ayhan Enşici and Ali Vatansever, eds. Design and Cinema: Form Follows Film. London: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2006.
  • Woolfolk, Alan. “Disenchantment and Rebellion in Alphaville.” The Philosophy of Science Fiction Film. Ed. Steven M. Sanders. Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 2008. 191-205.
Journal of American Studies of Turkey-Cover
  • ISSN: 1300-6606
  • Başlangıç: 1995
  • Yayıncı: -
Arşiv
Sayıdaki Diğer Makaleler

Ceylan ERTUNG

Sırma Soran GUMPERT

Clifford ENDRES

Jeffrey Baykal ROLLİNS

Gordon J. MARSHALL

Cem KILIÇARSLAN

Mark BOUSQUET

Devrim KILIÇER YARANGÜMELİ

Lewis JOHNSON