Cinematic urbanism: a history of the modern from reel to real

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 se...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: AlSayyad, Nezar 1955- (Author)
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: New York Routledge 2006
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Online Access:Table of contents only
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Inhaltsverzeichnis
Summary: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.
Item Description:Includes bibliographical references and index
Physical Description:xiii, 256 S. Ill.
ISBN:0415700485
0415700493
9780415700481
9780415700498
9780203413036

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