Kirchner, Carolin
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UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Cinemascapes: Cinematic Sublimity and Spatial Configurations - or - Learning from Los Angeles Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1xr6v757 Author Kirchner, Carolin Publication Date 2018 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Cinemascapes: Cinematic Sublimity and Spatial Configurations ¾ or ¾ Learning from Los Angeles A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Film and TV by Carolin Kirchner 2018 ã Copyright by Carolin Kirchner 2018 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Cinemascapes: Cinematic Sublimity and Spatial Configurations ¾ or ¾ Learning from Los Angeles by Carolin Kirchner Doctor of Philosophy in Film and TV University of California, Los Angeles, 2018 Professor Kathleen A McHugh Due to the shift in production practices and the availability of lighter camera equipment in the mid-1960s, filmmakers began to cinematically explore Los Angeles (LA) many environments. Utilizing the city’s diverse neighborhoods, unique architectural styles, and geographical topography, their films created imaginary spaces that sought to specifically represent LA, but also reflected post-war American urban restructuring processes in general. European filmmakers John Boorman, Jacques Demy, Agnès Varda, and Michelangelo Antonioni seemed to be especially perceptive regarding the specificity of the spaces they encountered in Los Angeles, and their films illustrate ambivalent feelings toward the built environment¾feelings that seem to run parallel to cultural and theoretical investigations taking place in the academy. Aided by the founding of the UCLA School of Architecture and Urban Planning, a new wave of scholars and theorists utilized ii Los Angeles in their writing as the most important case study for the postmodern megalopolis. Like Boorman, Demy, Varda, and Antonioni, neither of the leaders of this theoretical interest in Los Angeles¾ Kevin Lynch, Jane Jacobs, Reyner Banham, and Edward Soja ¾were native Californians. Thus, the films in question need to be considered within the broader framework of a developing critical spatial awareness characterized by the re-evaluation of lived environment and built space, which was shaped by an outsider’s perspective. The main concern of this dissertation is to establish a connection between artistic depictions of space and the socio-cultural analysis of spatial realities, landscape and lived environment, the sublime and the everyday. The concept of the sublime landscape constitutes the theoretical framework for my analysis of cityscapes. While the sublime as both theoretical and aesthetic concept serves as the lynchpin of this project, I do not provide a definitive genealogy of the sublime. Rather I situate Boorman’s Point Blank (1967), Demy’s Model Shop (1969), Varda’s Lions Love (1969), and Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point (1970) as engaging with tropes that can be found in theorizations of the sublime landscape, while speaking to an entirely different spatial experience—one that is entirely postmodern. iii This dissertation of Carolin Kirchner is approved. Chon A Noriega Stephen D Mamber Dell Upton Kathleen A McHugh University of California, Los Angeles 2018 iv Dedication For Ajus, who is as charming as Don Ameche as witty as William Powell and as firm a believer in dialogic ethics as Martin Buber. To the man who continues to challenge me and always asks the ‘right’ questions. v Abstract of Dissertation ……………………………………………………………………….. ii Contents ………………………………………………………………………………………... vi Acknowledgments ……………………………………………………………………………. viii List of Figures …………………………………………………………………………………... x Vita ……………………………………………………………………………………………... xi Foreword ………………………………………………………………………………………... 1 Introduction: Cinematic Spatiality and the Question of the Sublime Landscape …………. 2 Chapter 1: Preliminary Considerations - Construing the Sublime …………………………. 7 The Kantian Sublime ……………………………………………………………………. 9 Presenting the Unrepresentable - Sublime Content vs. Sublime Form ………………… 11 Sublime Cities and Los Angeles ……………………………………………………….. 13 ‘Native’ vs. European Sublime ……….………………………….……………………... 16 The Technological Sublime ……………………………………………………………. 19 A Note on Gender and the Sublime - or the Feminine Sublime ……...………………... 21 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………... 24 Chapter 2: An Outsider’s Perspective ……………………………..………………………... 25 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………… 34 Chapter 3: The Picturesque vs. the Sublime Cityscape - John Boorman’s Point Blank …. 36 Spatial Itineraries: New York - San Francisco - Los Angeles …………………………. 39 Memory, Place, and the Picturesque …………………………………………………… 46 Sublime “Non-Places” …………………………………………………………………. 51 The Camera’s Gaze, Surveillance, and the Panopticon ………………………………... 57 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………... 61 vi Chapter 4: Flânerie and the Sublime Spectator - Jacques Demy’s Model Shop …….……. 63 Real and Imaginary Places, Sites and Non-sites ……………………………………….. 67 Driving Cures …………………………………………………………………………... 75 Unveiling Los Angeles - The Sublime Vernacular …………………………………….. 82 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………... 88 Chapter 5: Fragmentation, Excess, and a Feminine Sublime - Agnès Varda’s Lions Love … …………………………………………………………………………………………………... 90 The Specter of Old Hollywood…and a Commentary on a New……………………….. 94 Hollywood vs. Los Angeles…and the Rest of the Country …………………………... 103 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………. 112 Chapter 6: Toward a Revolutionary Sublime - Counter-Aesthetic and Counter-Culture in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point ……………………………………………...... 114 “Aim for the point of no return” - The Virtual and the Actual Revolutionary Act …... 116 The Void between - The Sublime Connsumerscape ……….…………………………. 125 The Sublime Void - The Desertscape ………………………………………………… 133 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………..... 142 Some Remarks at the End ………………………………………………………………….. 144 Bibliography ……………………………………..………………………………………….. 149 vii Acknowledgments Funding I have been fortunate to benefit from a variety of funding by way of grants and fellowships during my time at UCLA. Fellowships from the Graduate Division in the first two quarters allowed me as well as after having been advanced to doctoral candidacy enabled me to conduct archival research. In my last academic year, I was fortunate enough to have been awarded a Dissertation Year Fellowship and could focus on the final stages of research and writing. Furthermore, while a graduate student at UCLA, I have also benefitted from a variety of teaching assistantships in the Departments of Cinema and Media Studies and Germanic Languages in terms of funding, but even more so in terms of pedagogical training and mentorship. Finally, this project could not have come about without the tireless administrative assistance of Brian Clarke, Barrett Korerat, Barbara Dube, Joyce Estrada, Dianne Roberts, Cheri Smith, Kerry Allen, Fleur Salisbury, Kenny Than, and, of course, Rand Soares. More than funding, I am grateful to the faculty and administration of both departments for providing me with a home for the past six years of my academic development. Individuals Through my connection with UCLA, I have been fortunate to meet and be mentored by scholars and friends who have contributed to my understanding of film, aesthetics, and theory. Of course, this includes the professors with whom I have worked in Cinema and Media Studies: Kathleen McHugh, Chon Noriega, Stephen Mamber, Vivian Sobchack, Janet Bergstrom, and Greg Cohen. The tutelage of my committee chair Professor McHugh has been particularly influential as she supported my project from the beginning and encouraged me throughout the process. Furthermore, I am grateful to Chon Noriega for always making time to talk about aesthetics and viii encouraging my development while making me feel like a colleague. Outside of my department at UCLA, I am grateful to Dell Upton in the Department of Art History for valuable guidance. And finally, there are two very special people to whom I am eternally grateful. First, my mum has supported me financially and emotionally not just throughout the dissertation process, but for all my life. Without her I would not have moved to the US to pursue my dream of an academic career (or at least a doctoral degree). And then there is the most wonderful man on the planet, my beyond perfect and unendingly supportive husband, Ajus, who has been finishing his dissertation this year as well. Without him I can almost say for certain that I would not have survived the past few years. And Mona, thank you for your support, friendship, and close reading of my dissertation. ix List of Figures Figure 3.1: Walker (Lee Marvin) is set up at a money-drop along the bleak, canalized Los Angeles River in Boorman’s Point Blank (1967). ……………………………….. 3 Figure 4.1: George (Gary Lockwood) behind the wheel in Demy’s Model Shop (1969). ….….. 67 Figure 5.1: Varda foregrounds Hollywood’s self-celebration in Lions Love (1969). ………….. 96 Figure 6.1: Antonioni depicts Los Angeles as a threatening asphalt jungle that confines subjects within built structures in Zabriskie Point (1970). …………………………………………….. 121 x Vita EDUCATION 2012 San Francisco State University: M.A. in Cinema Studies, Thesis: “Aesthetics, Apathy, and the Myth of the Genius in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Lili Marleen (1981)” 2010 Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz: M.A. in