Film Landscapes

This book brings together critical and theoretical essays examining the connections between films and landscapes. It showcases the work of established and emerging academics whose research probes the complex relationships between moving images and the filmed environment, and accounts for the impactful effects of viewing lived spaces and human places on screen. The essays in this collection actively engage with examples of contemporary popular and art cinema, genre films and auteur canon, historical films, propaganda, documentary and animation in their explorations of the meanings with which filmed landscapes are endowed and invested. The breadth of the study is matched by the depth of the interest, with writers here approaching the subject of film landscapes as critics, as film practitioners, and as teachers of film studies and film making. Film Landscapes gives voice to a great many ideas, and includes coverage of a great many films; but it also points forward to ways in which we might revisit discussions of the environments of film and consider ways in which history and creativity, critical understanding and the interaction of human beings and place could be reconsidered and revised to produce new insights.

The notion of landscape is a complex one, but it has been central to the art and artistry of the cinema. After all, what is the French New Wave without Paris? What are the films of Sidney Lumet, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, and Spike Lee without New York? Cinema and Landscape frames contemporary film landscapes across the world, in an exploration of screen aesthetics and national ideology, film form and cultural geography, cinematic representation and the human environment. Written by well-known cinema scholars, this volume both extends the existing field of film studies and stakes claims to overlapping, contested territories in the humanities and social sciences.

This book explores the dynamic landscapes of global youth through spatially grounded chapters focused on film and media. It is a collection of incredible works concerning children and young people in, out, and through media as well as an examination of what is possible for the future of research within the intersections of geography, film theory, and children’s studies. It contains contributions from leading academics from anthropology, sociology, philosophy, art, film and media studies, women and gender studies, Indigenous studies, education, and geography, with chapters focused on a spatial area and the representations and relationships of children in that area through film and media. The insights presented also provide a unique and eclectic perspective on the current state of children’s research in relation to the ever-changing media landscape of the 21st century. Film Landscapes of Global Youth approaches the subjects of children and young people in film and media in a way that is not bound by genre, format, medium, or the on-/off-screen binary. Each chapter offers an insightful look at the relationships and portrayals of children and young people in relation to a specific country, culture, or geographic feature. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the intersections between geography, young lives, and the power of film, television, social media, content creation, and more.

Since its economic boom in the late 1950s, Italy has grappled with the environmental legacy of rapid industrial growth and haphazard urban planning. One notable effect is a preponderance of interstitial landscapes such as abandoned fields, polluted riverbanks, and makeshift urban gardens. Landscapes in Between analyses authors and filmmakers – Italo Calvino, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Gianni Celati, Simona Vinci, and the duo Daniele Ciprì and Franco Maresco – who turn to these spaces as productive models for coming to terms with the modified natural environment. Considering the ways in which sixty years’ worth of Italian literary and cinematic representations engage in the ongoing dialogue between nature and culture, Monica Seger contributes to the transnational expansion of environmental humanities. Her book also introduces an ecocritical framework to Italian studies in English. Rejecting a stark dichotomy between human construction and unspoilt nature, Landscapes in Between will be of interest to all those studying the fraught relationship between humanity and environment.

“The open road”—it’s a phrase that calls to mind a sense of freedom, adventure, and new possibilities that make driving one of our most liberating activities. In Drive, Iain Borden explores the way driving allows us to encounter landscapes and cities around the world. He takes particular notice of how driving is portrayed in film from America to Europe to Asia and from Hollywood to the avant-garde, covering over a century of history and referencing hundreds of movies. From the dusty landscapes of The Grapes of Wrath to the city streets of The Italian Job; from the aesthetic delights of Rain Man and Traffic to the existential musings of Thelma and Louise and Vanishing Point;from the freeway pleasures of Radio On and London Orbital to the high-speed dangers of Crash, Bullitt, and C’était un Rendezvous; this book shows how driving with different speeds, cars, roads, and cities provides experiences and challenges beyond compare. Borden concludes that as an integral part of modern life, car driving is something to be celebrated and even encouraged, making Drive a timely riposte to anti-car attitudes, and those blind to the richness of life behind the wheel.

Western films have often been tributes to place and setting, with the magnificent backdrops mirroring the wildness of the narratives. As the splendid outdoor scenery of Westerns could not be found on a studio back lot or on a Hollywood sound stage, the movies have been filmed in the wide open spaces of the American West and beyond. This book chronicles the history of filming Westerns on location, from shooting on the East Coast in the early 1900s; through the use of locations in Utah, Arizona, and California in the 1940s and 1950s; and filming Westerns in Mexico, Spain, and other parts of the world in the 1960s. Also studied is the relationship between the filming location timeline and the evolving motion picture industry of the twentieth century, and how these factors shaped audience perceptions of the "Real West."

Cinema and audiovisual media are integral to the culture, economy and social experience of the contemporary global city. But how has the relationship between cinema and the urban environment evolved in the era of digital technology, new media and globalization? And what are the critical tools and concepts with which we can grasp this vital interconnection between space and screen, viewer and built environment? Engaging with a rapidly transforming urban world, the contributions to this collection rethink the 'cinematic city' at a global scale. By presenting a global constellation of screen cities within one volume, the book encourages juxtapositions and comparisons across the North and South to capture the global city and its dynamics of exchange, hybridity, and circulation. The contributions examine film and screen cultures in a range of locations spanning five continents: Antibes, Beijing, Buenos Aires, Busan, Cairo, Caracas, Copenhagen, Jakarta, Kolkata, Lagos, Los Angeles, Malmö, Manila, Mumbai, Nairobi, Paris, Seoul, Sète, and Shanghai. The chapters address topics that range across the contemporary film and media landscape, from popular cinema, art cinema, and film festivals to serial television, public screens, multimedia installations, and video art. Contributors: Chris Berry, Yomi Braester, Jinhee Choi, Pei-Sze Chow, Thomas Elsaesser, Malini Guha, Jonathan Haynes, Will Higbee, Igor Krstic, Christian B. Long, Joanna Page, Lawrence Webb.

Western films have often been tributes to place and setting, with the magnificent backdrops mirroring the wildness of the narratives. As the splendid outdoor scenery of Westerns could not be found on a studio back lot or on a Hollywood sound stage, the movies have been filmed in the wide open spaces of the American West and beyond. This book chronicles the history of filming Westerns on location, from shooting on the East Coast in the early 1900s; through the use of locations in Utah, Arizona, and California in the 1940s and 1950s; and filming Westerns in Mexico, Spain, and other parts of the world in the 1960s. Also studied is the relationship between the filming location timeline and the evolving motion picture industry of the twentieth century, and how these factors shaped audience perceptions of the "Real West."