Screening The City

In this provocative collection of essays, a diverse selection of films are examined in terms of the relationship between cinema and the changing urban experience in Europe and the United States since the early 20th century.

Vienna has been the locale for nearly one hundred and fifty films and television productions in English, from 1920s through the first years of this century, with imaginative representations of Freud, Strauss, Franz Josef, Mozart, Beethoven, and Klimt; mad scientists, assassins, spies, refugees, romantics, and American professors; historical dramas, cartoons, documentaries, and Hitchcock's only musical comedy. The "City of Dreams" has appeared as an imperial court, a center of scientific and medical research, a Jewish and Catholic homeland, a locus of international espionage and domestic crime, the destination for innocents abroad, the birthplace of the waltz, a stage for performances and performers, and the site for romantic rendezvous. For many in English-language audiences, such productions have constituted the most significant representations of Vienna, a city that historically has been the capital of one of Europe's largest empires, one of the most important centers for classical music and opera, both a victim and an accomplice of Nazi Germany, and the home of international diplomacy. Cultural historians and Austrian writers have provided significant commentary on the city, but their influence has seldom reached such an extensive audience as the films and television productions screening Vienna for English-language audiences. Screening Vienna thus analyzes the representation of Vienna and the Viennese in English-language film and television, reviews the critical reception of these productions, and measures the representations against the cultural and historical contexts and the writings of contemporary Austrian writers.The book is unique in its scope (over one hundred and fifty productions from the 1920s to 2013) and in its inclusion of leading reviews of many films, references to cultural and historical studies of Vienna, and references to modern and contemporary Austrian fiction.Thus the analysis is more extensive in its coverage and more intensive in its analysis of each film than any previous study, with a focus on scene, language, plot, characterization, and the reception of these films. Scholars and students in American cultural studies, film studies, Austrian and Viennese history, and popular culture will find the book informative and essential for studies of Vienna in the American and British imagination. Given the extensive coverage and filmography, many libraries should also view the book as a reference work, in addition to its status in cultural and film studies. The book will also be useful for film studies and American popular culture studies courses at advanced or graduate level.

This is the first volume of essays published on the television series Troy: Fall of a City (BBC One and Netflix, 2018). Covering a wide range of engaging topics, such as gender, race and politics, international scholars in the fields of classics, history and film studies discuss how the story of Troy has been recreated on screen to suit the expectations of modern audiences. The series is commended for the thought-provoking way it handles important issues arising from the Trojan War narrative that continue to impact our society today. With discussions centered on epic narrative, cast and character, as well as tragic resonances, the contributors tackle gender roles by exploring the innovative ways in which mythological female figures such as Helen, Aphrodite and the Amazons are depicted in the series. An examination is also made into the concept of the hero and how the series challenges conventional representations of masculinity. We encounter a significant investigation of race focusing on the controversial casting of Achilles, Patroclus, Zeus and other series characters with Black actors. Several essays deal with the moral and ethical complexities surrounding warfare, power and politics. The significance of costume and production design are also explored throughout the volume.

Vienna has been the locale for nearly one hundred and fifty films and television productions in English, from 1920s through the first years of this century, with imaginative representations of Freud, Strauss, Franz Josef, Mozart, Beethoven, and Klimt; mad scientists, assassins, spies, refugees, romantics, and American professors; historical dramas, cartoons, documentaries, and Hitchcock's only musical comedy. The "City of Dreams" has appeared as an imperial court, a center of scientific and medical research, a Jewish and Catholic homeland, a locus of international espionage and domestic crime, the destination for innocents abroad, the birthplace of the waltz, a stage for performances and performers, and the site for romantic rendezvous. For many in English-language audiences, such productions have constituted the most significant representations of Vienna, a city that historically has been the capital of one of Europe's largest empires, one of the most important centers for classical music and opera, both a victim and an accomplice of Nazi Germany, and the home of international diplomacy. Cultural historians and Austrian writers have provided significant commentary on the city, but their influence has seldom reached such an extensive audience as the films and television productions screening Vienna for English-language audiences. Screening Vienna thus analyzes the representation of Vienna and the Viennese in English-language film and television, reviews the critical reception of these productions, and measures the representations against the cultural and historical contexts and the writings of contemporary Austrian writers.The book is unique in its scope (over one hundred and fifty productions from the 1920s to 2013) and in its inclusion of leading reviews of many films, references to cultural and historical studies of Vienna, and references to modern and contemporary Austrian fiction.Thus the analysis is more extensive in its coverage and more intensive in its analysis of each film than any previous study, with a focus on scene, language, plot, characterization, and the reception of these films. Scholars and students in American cultural studies, film studies, Austrian and Viennese history, and popular culture will find the book informative and essential for studies of Vienna in the American and British imagination. Given the extensive coverage and filmography, many libraries should also view the book as a reference work, in addition to its status in cultural and film studies. The book will also be useful for film studies and American popular culture studies courses at advanced or graduate level.

Near to one billion people call slums their home, making it a reasonable claim to describe our world as a 'planet of slums.' But how has this hard and unyielding way of life been depicted on screen? How have filmmakers engaged historically and across the globe with the social conditions of what is often perceived as the world's most miserable habitats?Combining approaches from cultural, globalisation and film studies, Igor Krstic outlines a transnational history of films that either document or fictionalise the favelas, shantytowns, barrios poulares or chawls of our 'planet of slums', exploring the way accelerated urbanisation has intersected with an increasingly interconnected global film culture. From Jacob Riis' How The Other Half Lives (1890) to Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire (2008), the volume provides a number of close readings of films from different historical periods and regions to outline how contemporary film and media practices relate to their past predeccesors, demonstrating the way various filmmakers, both north and south of the equator, have repeatedly grappled with, rejected or continuously modified documentary and realist modes to convey life in our 'planet of slums'.

Paris and the Musical explores how the famous city has been portrayed on stage and screen, investigates why the city has been of such importance to the genre and tracks how it has developed as a trope over the 20th and 21st centuries. From global hits An American in Paris, Gigi, Les Misérables, Moulin Rouge! and The Phantom of the Opera to the less widely-known Bless the Bride, Can-Can, Irma la Douce and Marguerite, the French capital is a central character in an astounding number of Broadway, Hollywood and West End musicals. This collection of 18 essays combines cultural studies, sociology, musicology, art and adaptation theory, and gender studies to examine the envisioning and dramatisation of Paris, and its depiction as a place of romance, hedonism and libertinism or as ‘the capital of the arts’. The interdisciplinary nature of this collection renders it as a fascinating resource for a wide range of courses; it will be especially valuable for students and scholars of Musical Theatre and those interested in Theatre and Film History more generally.

‘The City on Screen: Modern Strangers of Cinematic Istanbul’ attempts to analyze how Istanbul is captured through the projector; in other words, the ontological relationship between city and film and how it is elaborated within the context of Istanbul and the sense of strangerhood. This book shifts the axis of Istanbul, typically known as a touristic city, to its underlying details through the strangers in the modern city. Five different films set in this region are analyzed in the text that help to reveal and clarify the socio-urban life of modern Istanbul. The characters and stories in these films tell how Istanbul has socially and architecturally become a city of strangers. The films analyzed include ‘A Touch of Spice’ (2004), ‘Men on the Bridge’ (2009), ‘A Run for Money’ (1999), ‘Distant’ (2002), and ‘10 to 11’ (2009). The theoretical framework of this book is based on the works of Georg Simmel, Zygmunt Bauman and Richard Sennett. These three thinkers have all attempted to look for answers to the sociological question of strangerhood in urban living. This book accomplishes this connection by discussing the similarities and differences between each of their theories regarding the city, cinema and strangerhood.

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.