Professional Documents
Culture Documents
From L’Inhumaine and Metropolis to Blade Runner, and beyond, this lecture course will
endeavour to sketch the main thrust of both the history of architecture in films and the
creation of an architecture in films that later becomes an imaginary model sometimes even
taken up by reality.
By creating sets in which architecture is fundamental and constructs the main space of a film,
the great directors, together with their set designers, have brought “models” to the public’s
notice that have very quickly become part of the collective memory. The street in a western,
the dreamlike palace, the city symbolising the industrial age, the mythical city, the historical
city or even a real city recreated as a set, are just some of the many references. Cinema has
also, time and time again, used real cities – New York, Paris, Rome, London, Vienna and
Madrid, and many others – as a set, or even as the “protagonist”, such that sometimes our
memory confuses the image on the screen and that which we ourselves might see. And
sometimes in recreating a city in a set, it points out the essential part or cliché of that city.
Moreover, the cinema has aggrandised the major architects either by giving them a leading
role in a film or by turning their key works into the main setting of a scene, thereby enhancing
the architecture itself. And make it a common use.
As architecture is part of an everyday life and part of a political, philosophical, social, cultural
ideals, and cinema so much essential for our imagination and our history and memory … so
architecture in cinema belongs to our historical, political and cultural mind.
Architecture cannot be dissociated from the cinema – or is it the other way around?
Pierre Léglise-Costa
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Syllabus
Each student has to do an exposé chosen among the topics for each lesson. Any other good
suggestion will be welcome.
At the end of the semester, an examination on comments of photos will be an important part
of the final credit; but oral debates, and students’ involvement will also be considered.
1– Preliminary approach.
Cinema - beginnings. The first studios. France, Italy, U.S. The first architectures. The
first images of cities, real or invented.
2- Invention of historical cities – from Roman Empire and to the “western”, that is the
beginning of how cinema influences American history and American memory, and
“world vision”.
5 - Paris : from the studio - Hotel du Nord, An American in Paris - to real A Bout de
Souffle. What cinema shows. Why? How French want us to see Paris, connected to a
cultural and historical moment, or how and why Americans chose clichés that sometimes
seems more real than reality?
6- New York – King Kong to Manhattan and the notion of the city. New York center of
the world. How cinema contributes to that notion. Our vision is still the same
nowadays?
8- Architects in movies. A great example : Frank Lloyd Wright and the cinema :
Fountainhead and North by Northwest.
The role of architects. And now?
9- Jacques Tati – architecture as a prime part of the movie. Architecture as the main
character in the movie. Philosophy and politics behind his choices.
10- Urbanism through cinema : San Francisco, Chicago, Rome, Berlin… is the “vision”?
Connection between History and theses cities.
11- Historical architecture and its use in cinema : Octobre, L’Année dernière à Marienbad,
Charade, Ludwig II, Eva…..films in S. Petersburg, Rome, Venice, and other places.
P.L.-C.
December 2007
Choose a topic in the syllabus and among all these films and evntually
New York
Safety Last - Harold Lloyd 1923
Downtown – Murnau – 1926
King Kong – Schoedsack - 1933
The Rope – Alfred Hitchcock 1948
The Naked City – Jules Dassin - 1948
West Side Story - Robert Wise - 1961
Manhattan – Woody Allen – 1979
Smoke –Wayne Wang and Paul Auster – 1995 (Brooklyn)
Chicago
Scarface – Howard Hawks - 1932
Some like it hot – Billy Wilder - 1959
San Francisco
Vertigo – Alfred Hitchcock – 1957
Los Angeles
Just Imagine - David Butler – 1930
Sunset Boulevard – Billy Wilder – 1950
Invasion of Los Angeles – John Carpenter – 1988
Collatéral – Michael Mann – 2004
American architecture
Western, many films
Citizen Kane – Orson Welles 1941
The Amberson – Orson Welles – 1942
Fountainhead – King Vidor – 1949
Rear Window – Alfred Hitchcock - 1954
North by Northwest - Alfred Hitchcock - 1959
Psycho – Alfred Hitchcock – 1960
Strangers when we meet – Richard Quine -1960
The Birds – Alfred Hitchcock – 1963
Gloria – John Cassavetes – 1980
Barcelona
Profession : reporter – Michelangelo Antonioni – 1975
All about my Mother (Todo sobre mi Madre) – Pedro Almodovar - 1998
Food of Love – Ventura Pons – 2002
Madrid
Mourir à Madrid – Frédéric Rossif – 1963
Mujeres al bordo de una crise de niervos – Pedro Almodovar - 1988
Rome
Roma, città aperta – Roberto Rossellini – 1944
La Dolce Vita – Federico Fellini - 1960
Mamma Roma – Pier Paolo Pasolini – 1962
Roma – Federico Fellini -1972
Una giornata particolare – Ettore Scola – 1977
Milan
Miracolo a Milano – Vittorio de Sica – 1951
Rocco ei suoi fratelli – Luchino Visconti – 1960
Venice
Trouble in Paradise – Ernst Lubitsch - 1932
Senso – Luchino Visconti - 1954
Eva – Joeph Losey - 1962
Mort à Venise – Luchino Visconti – 1971
Italian Architecture
Vaghe stelle dell’Orsa – Luchino Visconti – 1965
Il Gattopardo – Luchino Visconti - 1963
Le Mépris – Jean Luc Godard – 1963
Paris
Le Coupable – André Antoine - 1917
Fantômas or Judex – Louis Feuillade (several films before 1925)
Le Petit Parigot – René Le Somptier - 1926
L’Argent – Macel L’Herbier – 1929
Sous les toits de Paris – René Clair - 1930
Hotel du Nord – Marcel Carné – 1939
Les enfants du Paradis – Marcel Carné - 1945
Monsieur Verdoux – Charles Chaplin -1948
An American in Paris - Vicente Minelli – 1951
French Cancan – Jean Renoir – 1954
A bout de souffle – Jean Luc Godard - 1959
Paris nous appartient – Jacques Rivette – 1960
Zazie dans le métro – Louis Malle – 1960
Irma la Douce - Billy Wilder – 1963
Charade – Stanley Donen – 1963
Last Tango in Paris – Bernardo Bertolluci – 1972
Nantes
Lola – Jacques Demy – 1960
Arts Déco
L’Inhumaine – Marcel L’Herbier – 1924
Die Büchse der Pandora (Lulu) – G.W. Pabst - 1929
Lost Horizon – Frank Capra – 1937
and many films
Lisbon
Dans la ville blanche – Alain Tanner - 1982
Lisbon Story – Wim Wenders – 1995
Berlin
The Last Laugh – F.W. Murnau - 1924
A Foreign Affair – Billy Wilder - 1948
Germania, anno zero – Roberto Rossellini - 1948
Wings of Desire – Wim Wenders – 1987
Good Bye Lenin – Wolfgang Becker - 2003
Brême
Nosferatu – F.W. Murnau – 1922
Vienna
The Third Man – Carol Reed – 1949
Or…
Sissi - Ernst Marischka – 1955-1956-1957
Welcome in Vienna – Axel Corti - 1986
London
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – Victor Fleming - 1941
My Fair Lady – George Cukor - 1963
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes – Billy Wilder - 1970
Russie
Octobre - - Sergueil Eisenstein – 1927
Ivan – Serguei Eisenstein – 1945
Industrial Architecture
M – Fritz Lang – 1931
Il Grido – Michelangelo Antonioni – 1956
Deserto Rosso – Michelangelo Antonioni - 1964
Richard III – Richard Loncraine – 1995
Middle Ages…
Niebelungen- Fritz Lang – 1924
Faust – F.W. Murnau – 1926
Robin Wood – Michael Curtiz – 1938
Henry V – Laurence Olivier – 1944
Othello – Orson Welles – 1952
Hotels
Grand Hotel – Edmund Goulding – 1932
Shining – Stanley Kubrick – 1980
and many other films
Roman Empire
Cabiria - Giovane Pastrone – 1914
Intolerance - D. W. Griffith - 1916
Ben Hur - Fred Niblo – 1925
Quo Vadis – Merwin Le Roy - 1951
Ben Hur – William Wyler – 1959
Cleopatra – Joseph Mankiewicz – 1963
The Fall of the Roman Empire – Anthony Mann - 1964
and many « peplum »…
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Bibliography
ALBRECHT, Donald , Architecture in the Movies, Harper and Row, New York, 1986
JOUSSE Thierry & PAQUOT, Thierry, La ville au cinéma, Cahiers du Cinéma, Paris, 2005
TASHIRO, Charles S, Production Design and History of Film, University of Texas Press,
1998
and of course,
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