Using Popular Film in the Architectural History Classroom
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University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity Architecture Program 9-2010 Using Popular Film in the Architectural History Classroom Rumiko Handa University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/arch_facultyschol Part of the Architecture Commons Handa, Rumiko, "Using Popular Film in the Architectural History Classroom" (2010). Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity. 13. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/arch_facultyschol/13 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Architecture Program at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. field notes Using Popular Film in the Architectural History Classroom rumiko handa University of Nebraska–Lincoln n 1945 Béla Balázs, the Hungarian author, film director, Buildings in Popular Films and critic, observed that motion pictures had revived the To place actors in an actual building instead of on a set is a language of the human body and facial expressions, I comparatively new trend in filmmaking, and in the begin- which had been subdued by print culture: “The first new ning it was a debatable proposition.4 The director Marcel world discovered by the film camera in the days of the silent L’Herbier (Veille d’Armes, 1935) reacted against the incor- film was the world of very small things visible only from very poration of the real into filmic fiction. However, Virgilio short distances, the hidden life of little things. By means Marchi, the art director of Italian Neorealist films Umberto( of the close-up the camera in the days of the silent film re- D., 1952; Stazione Termini, 1951) argued for the realistic vealed also the hidden mainsprings of a life which we had representation of daily life, to be attained by location shoots, thought we already knew so well. In the days of the silent film and questioned the use of spectacular studio sets. The pro- [the close-up] not only revealed new things, but showed us duction designer Jean André (La Vérité, 1960) similarly con- the meaning of the old.”1 More than half a century later, and demned the construction of “excellent” studio sets for more than a century and a half after Victor Hugo’s statement diverting resources and attention away from scripts and that the printed book had surpassed architecture in com- actors. municative efficacy (“This will kill that”), Balázs’s observa- In recent years, directors increasingly have shot impor- tion of the revelatory character of film cannot be taken tant popular films in real buildings, and in this they have been lightly by those who teach architecture and architectural his- aided by the caretakers of many sites, who are eager to offer tory.2 While film uses mechanisms that are unfamiliar and filming locations. For instance, forThe Da Vinci Code (2006, even counterintuitive to us, it can present the dramatic power based on Dan Brown’s 2003 bestseller), the Louvre agreed to of architecture. Used carefully, popular films can enliven ar- accommodate the film crew, and museum director Henri 3 chitectural history classes. Loyrette said, “There is really a very strong desire to see the film adaptation of this book . shot at the Louvre.”5 Such moviemaking has led to an increase in film tour- 6 Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 69, no. 3 (September 2010), 311–19. ISSN ism, which began to surge in the mid-1990s. The Da Vinci 0037-9808, electronic ISSN 2150-5926. © 2010 by the Society of Architectural Historians. Code attracted people to a number of sites, from the already All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions web- popular Louvre and Westminster Abbey to the less- site, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/jsah.2010.69.3.311. frequented St. Sulpice in Paris, and even less-known Rosslyn JSAH6903_01.indd 311 7/15/10 11:45 AM Chapel near Edinburgh.7 Each location experienced a sig- nificant increase in visitors, many of whom came expecting to examine in the building the themes relating to the novel, such as the Holy Grail legend or Mary Magdalene’s role in the history of Christianity. In the year following the release of the filmLittle Women (1994) there was a 65 percent increase in visitors to Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts. After Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell’s first night inFour Weddings and a Funeral (1994), the Crown Hotel, a quaint Elizabethan coaching inn about 30 miles northwest of London, was booked full for at least three years. In 1996 the Wallace Monument outside Stir- ling, Scotland, saw its visitation quadruple in the wake of Braveheart (1995), while Lyme Park in Cheshire, England, saw Figure 1 Gladiator, Ridley Scott, 2000, Commodus at play with Coli- a 150 percent increase after standing in for Pemberley in the seum model (see JSAH online for film clip) BBC/A&E production of Pride and Prejudice (1995). The Harry Potter series (2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007, and 2009) and telephoto lenses for the purpose of fitting our subject caused an increase in visitors of at least 50 percent at many precisely within the field of vision, and we intuitively avoid locations, including Oxford University’s Christ Church Col- people or cars, which not only obstruct the view of the build- lege, the Bodleian Library, and Gloucester cathedral, while ing but also distract the viewer by inviting speculation about Troy’s tourism shot up 73 percent after the 2004 release of the when the photograph was taken. Film does the opposite, film with the same title. Guided tours may be offered based on spilling over the edges of the projection surface and filling particular films, from the Harry Potter tours in Oxford and space with human action. Gloucester to the “official”Angels and Demons tour of Rome, The filmGladiator (2000) uses both these mechanisms and guidebooks are published for those interested, such as The to maximum effect in portraying the Roman Coliseum Making of Pride and Prejudice, based on the BBC series.8 (Figure 1). The sequence begins with black-and-white foot- Popular film’s unprecedented success in attracting large age in which Emperor Marcus Aurelius’s son Commodus audiences to historical sites translates into increased and fo- plays with toy figures on a model of the amphitheater, enjoy- cused student interest in buildings that are physically and ing his recently acquired power as the emperor. When the culturally distant and that otherwise would seem to have camera moves up and above the outer wall, Commodus is little relevance to their studies. This is a powerful tool for no longer in the picture, and the model is replaced by a full- teachers, but its effects will be superficial unless students are scale depiction of chariots, horses, and gladiators. A com- led to understand the film techniques that imitate architec- puter-generated Coliseum then takes over, by now in full tural reality. color, and its enormity is stressed first by our realization that even the large screen cannot capture the building entirely, as the camera’s angle moves slowly upward in search of the Scale and Three-Dimensionality top of the building, and second in comparison to Russell Some of the alluring power of popular films rests on the Crowe and his colleague gladiators who are marshaled on sense of being there. The mechanisms of film instill in the the ground outside. audience a sense of affinity for the building through the vir- Architects, of course, long have had ways of depicting tual experience of inhabiting filmic space. Film may thus three-dimensionality on two-dimensional surfaces, with per- complement other means of representation traditionally spective and other graphic constructions. In still photogra- used in architectural history classes. phy the perception of depth also was made possible, through In demonstrating a building’s scale, film not only con- the use of stereography. Invented by Sir Charles Wheatstone trasts it with human figures or other objects to which the in 1838, the stereograph uses two stationary photographs audience easily can relate, but also allows the building to with binocular discrepancy. The viewer, with the help of overflow the screen, which is already larger than the audi- equipment, sees one image with the right eye and the ence’s field of vision. These mechanisms differ from our own other with the left, and the brain combines the two im- habits in taking architectural photographs. Anticipating ages to create a three-dimensional perception. Stereography classroom use, we equip ourselves with wide-angle was a popular entertainment for Victorians, who enjoyed 312 jsah / 69:3, september 2010 JSAH6903_01.indd 312 7/15/10 11:45 AM three-dimensional visions of exotic places and unfamiliar the king disappears from view, we are left with the space filled objects that were available at London’s shops and expositions. with the sun’s rays reflected in the mirrors, floor, and chan- The principles of stereoscopy still are used for 3-D films, deliers. The scene demonstrates, much more effectively than which consist of two overlapping images that are viewed by any still images, the location and orientation of the hall and an audience wearing polarized eyeglasses. the organization of the canals, which were constructed by Film, not unlike perspectives or photographs, is an Louis XIV with designs provided by Jules Hardouin Mansart image projected on a flat screen.