MIDTERM ON CHAPTER CAPTIONS , HEADLINES ,DIGITAL JOURNALISM

Film, Nature, and the City MCM253-Visual Culture

Lecture points

• Introduction: Revisiting Representation

• Culture and the city

• Nature and culture

• Nature in Films

• Representation of the City in Films: • City as a panorama.

• City as anthropological space • City as subject for actions

• Conclusion

Introduction: Revisiting Representation

• There are two relevant meanings for the term representation:

• To represent something is to describe it, to call it up in the mind by description or portrayal or imagination.

• To represent also means to symbolize, to stand for, to substitute.

Introduction: Culture and the city

• The city is a purely cultural product, it is constructed by the people, and it reflects their taste, the conditions they live in.

• Overtime visual culture has changed how we look at the city.

Nature and Culture

• Nature is not a cultural product; human being does not produce it. Nature changes over time, once human being re- produces it, it becomes a cultural product, often a commodity.

Nature in Films

• Cinema often employs nature as a threat, as an object that human can exploit and abuse. ‘King Kong’ was produced twice in 1933 & 2005 to show how nature is abused an offended.

• Godzilla 2014 shows how an animal destroys the city. Showing creatures destroying culture (the city) has become iconic, and more particularly as sort of cliché.

Nature in Films

Nature in Films

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Representation of the City in Films

•The city is presented in films as: • A panorama.

• An anthropological space

• As subject for actions

Representation of the City in Films

The City as a Panorama : Several photographs and movies show cities with drone camera shots. These movies attempt to show the city as a ‘panorama’.

Representation of the City in Films

• When the city is represented as a panorama, it meditates the temptation inherent in such a panorama. The city in this sense is depicted as a Utopian place.

• When Images, whether they are still or moving, show the city as a panorama, it indicates what a city should look like.

City as a Panorama

Representation of the City in Films

The City as an anthropological space: Against the panoramic view of the city is seeing the city as a space for ‘people experience’. Films that represented the city as anthropological space shows how people live in the city. In this context, films focus on parts of the city. A good example of how city can presented as anthropological space is showing street life.

City as an Anthropological Space

Representation of the City in Films

City as a subject for actions: Films used the city as a place for actions. Similar to films that represent nature as a threat, films that represent the city as subject for actions show events that happen in the city that becomes a part of the story and often the main element of the story.

City as a Subject for Actions

Conclusion

• Both nature and city were influenced by the representation of the development of videography and film techniques.

• Visual culture in this sense changed how to we ‘see’ the city, and often how the city should look like.

QUESTIONS Reminder: Virtual office hours on Microsoft Teams: Thursday, March, 12 – 1:00pm. 3:00pm