Valella 1 Daniel Valella 7 May 2010 Architecture and Set Design in the Films of Godard, Antonioni, Almodvar and

Campion Post-1960 cinema is characterized not only by its extensive use of real locations but its blending of preexisting architectures with newly constructed sets. On-location filming lends itself well to a more genuine filmic sequence, though on-set filming often makes it easier to portray a sequence realistically. Accordingly, Jean-Luc Godard, Michelangelo Antonioni, Pedro Almodvar, and Jane Campion pay close attention to the relationship between architecture and set design in their post-1960 films Vivre sa vie, Leclisse, La ley del deseo, and Sweetie, respectively; for sure, these four pictures owe a great deal of their cinematic dynamism to the combination of on-location and on-set sequences within them. Vivre sa vie is mystifying in its mise-en-scne, mostly because it is often unclear whether the on-screen visuals are preexisting structures or configurations built specially for the film. Without a doubt, the myriad cafs, hotels, record shops, movie theaters, and pool halls appear to be longstanding Parisian landmarks, though the famous sequences of Nanas witnessing of Carl Theodor Dreyers The Passion of Joan of Arc and of her dance around the billiard room feel just a bit too constructed. Donning a childish bowl haircut and a smile on her face, Nana hops around the pool hall to the rock-n-roll of the jukebox with a self-designed, jubilant choreography that not a single one of the surrounding menall of them with their cues or their drinks or their booksseems to appreciate. What appear to be point-of-view shots show bleak walls, half-open windows, and bodiless chairs in front of the dancer. So, even if these walls and windows and chairs

Valella 2 really did exist in an early-1960s French pool hall, they likely were modified or rearranged for the purposes of hiding Nana behind the camera. Vivre sa vie, then, asks us to question how real these preexisting structures really are, if they can be so manipulated to create realistic but nonetheless artificial filmic sequences. The relationship between set design and architecture in Antonionis Leclisse is most prominent in the obvious differences between the films beginning and end. The opening sequence starts with a still close-up of Riccardos deska lit lamp and a stack of books, the white-sleeved arm of Riccardo resting atop them. The camera soon cuts to his now ex-girlfriend, Vittoria, moving objects through the hole of a broken picture frame. All of the cinematic frames in the films opening take place in Riccardos apartment, almost certainly a set designed specifically for Leclisse. Vittorias transference of props through the broken picture frame is quite symbolic of Antonionis filmic manipulations of objects and space, of the fictional and the real. The end of Leclisse, on the other hand, is entirely different. An extended montage of crosswalks, buildings, buses, running water, sprinklers, rain, traffic lights, tree-lined streets, and city denizens features almost exclusively real-world locations. The shift from the set design at the opening to the architecture at the closing is analogous to the shift in Vittorias thoughts over the course of the film. For this reason, Antonionis employment of the counteracting shot styles is of the utmost importance. Almodvars La ley del deseo makes a point of comparing and contrasting reallife architecture with made-for-the-film set composition. As Ernesto Acevedo-Muoz writes of La ley del deseo in his book Pedro Almodvar, Almodvar often uses the exact names and/or addresses of places or firms in Madrid, emphasising the citys provincial

Valella 3 quality and spirit (83). The filmmakers attention to real-world architecture is incredibly relevant here in that the provincial city of Jerez de la Fronterain Cdiz, the residence of protagonist Pablos boyfriend, Juanis a place where Pablo must deny his homosexuality, while Pablos home in the Spanish capital of Madrid is more the center of free expression, free sexuality, and free creative authority (Acevedo-Muoz 86). On the other hand, the mise-en-scne at the end of La ley del deseoPablos bedroom and apartment, his nieces neatly arranged altar candles, conspicuously moody lighting, and Pablos extremely important typewriter on which he writes all of his letters and screenplaysserves as a strong contrast to the trash receptacles, the paved roadways, and the lights of the police cars outside. When the angered Pablo throws his typewriter out the window, it blows up into a ball of smoke and fire the second it hits the floor of a dumpster on the street. The second an object of the films set design hits a natural location, it explodes. The mise-en-scne of Campions Sweetie features a plethora of cracked pavement, floral carpets, amber lighting, teacups, chair legs, clotheslines, and backyard swimming poolsall very normal, household things. The camera also emphasizes a garden hose, a small school of china-horse statuettes, and what appears to be Western Australias rendition of an American dude ranch. Sweeties amalgamation of preexisting architectures and added props strengthens its focus on the quizzical real-world relationship of the normal and the abnormal. Wallpaper, sidewalks, and human foreheads are ubiquitous in our modern world, but how often do they feature, respectively, such obscure art patterns, crevasses with trees growing from them, or question-mark shapes? Campions blending of set design with real-world structures, of artificial cinematic

Valella 4 creations with longstanding architectural constructions is what makes Sweetie the intricate and challenging work of art that it is. In Vivre sa vie, Leclisse, La ley del deseo, and Sweetie, Godard, Antonioni, Almodvar, and Campion are able to manipulate reality for the silver screen by mixing architecture with set design in particularly creative ways. Nearly everything about their films is ingrained deeply within their mise-en-scnesreal-world structures juxtaposed by for-the-set constructions. Such a modernist series of conglomerates allows for these pictures cinematic complexity and dynamism, a multilayered composition that makes them not fully real, not fully fictional, but enveloped in an inter-dimensional world that exists only in the movies.

Valella 5 Works Cited Acevedo-Muoz, Ernesto R. Pedro Almodvar. London: BFI Publishing, 2007. Print.