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Thea Supervisor Constructions of Cinematic Space: Spatial Practice at the Intersection of Film and Theory by Brian R. Jacobson B.S. Computer Science Appalachian State University, 2002 SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF COMPARATIVE MEDIA STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN COMPARATIVE MEDIA STUDIES AT THE MASSACHUSSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY MASSACHUSETTSINSTTTIJTE OF TECHNOLOGY SEPTEMBER 2005 AUG 18 2005 I I LIBRARtF F3., C 2005 Brian R. Jacobson. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part. Signature of Author: ,epartment of Comparative Media Studies August 1, 2005 Certified by: , '/ 0%1111-- - V./ V William Uricchio Professor and Co-Director of Comparative Mania Studies / TheAHer Supervisorekn Accepted by: I .My ,/t Henry Jenkins III Professor and Co-Director ¢jtomparative Media Studies .ARCHIVES >.-M- Constructions of Cinematic Space: Spatial Practice at the Intersection of Film and Theory by Brian R. Jacobson Submitted to the Department of Comparative Media Studies on August 1, 2005 in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Comparative Media Studies ABSTRACT This thesis is an attempt to bring fresh insights to current understandings of cinematic space and the relationship between film, architecture, and the city. That attempt is situated in relation to recent work by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Saskia Sassen, and others on the importance of the city in the current global framework, along with the growing body of literature on film, architecture, and urban space. Michel De Certeau's threefold critique of the city, set forth in The Practices of Everyday Life, structures a comparative analysis of six primary films, paired as follows, with one pair for each of three chapters-Jacques Tati's Play Time and Edward Yang's Yi Yi, Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves and Wang Xiaoshuai's Beijing Bicycle, and Franqois Truffaut's The 400 Blows and Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay!. Along with De Certeau's notions of spatial practice, walking rhetorics, and the pedestrian speech act, the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze-including work from the Cinema texts and A Thousand Plateaus-is developed in relation to existent film theory on movement, time, and space. The analysis operates as a kind of mediation between an active set of spatial theories-a mediation which uses traditional techniques of film analysis and critical theory to instigate a negotiation around the topic of (cinematic) space. That negotiation implies a common ground on which the film texts and theories are read against and in addition to one another, allowing each to contribute in its own right to the setting up of a series of terms-what I refer to as a "spatial grammar"-proper to both film and theory. The spatial grammar thus comprises a more abstract theoretical plane-a palimpsest on which resides a classic body of work on cinematic space (including Andre Bazin, Stephen Heath, and Kristin Thompson), and on which I layer the work of De Certeau, Deleuze, Fredric Jameson, and others. Thesis Supervisor: William Uricchio Title: Professor and Co-Director of Comparative Media Studies 2 Biographical Note Brian Jacobson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Appalachian State University (1998-2002). Beginning in fall 2005, Brian will be pursuing a PhD in Critical Studies at the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television. Acknowledgements As the culmination of two years of work, not to mention two years of life, this thesis is the product of innumerable sources of influence and inspiration-I would especially like to acknowledge a small set of what is undoubtedly a large group of individuals who have left their mark on my project. First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisors, William Uricchio and Henry Jenkins. For their patience, guidance, and enthusiasm; for pushing me to refine, rework, and rethink; and for helping me to understand my work in ways I had yet to imagine. For their unending support and encouragement, I thank my fellow graduate students in the Comparative Media Studies Program: Lisa Bidlingmeyer, Brett Camper, Joellen Easton, Andrea McCarty, Rekha Murthy, Karen Schrier, and Parmesh Shahani. For our illuminating discussions of Asian cinema, I thank Professor Christina Klein and the students of the Contemporary Asian Cinema course at MIT, spring 2005. For their valuable advice and instruction during the formulation and writing of this thesis, I thank Professor Aden Evens and Professor Edward Baron Turk. I would also like to express my gratitude to Professor Giuliana Bruno for two semesters of insightful lectures which opened my eyes to the intimate relationship between film and architecture. More personally, I would like to thank my friends Seth Wood and Ariel Ross for understanding the specifically spatial aspects of my writing process, and for giving me a home within which to complete it. And finally, to my family-thank you for your patience, understanding, and love, without which, this would all seem somewhat inconsequential. 3 Table of Contents Introduction / 7 Why the City, or Rather, the Global City? / 9 Michel De Certeau - a Tour Guide? / 14 Cinematic Transpositions - a Set of Films / 18 Cinematic and Theoretical Spaces - a Mode of Analysis / 2 0 Moving On - What's Left Out? / 2 5 Chapter One / 2 7 Play Time / 29 Modern Architecture, the Espace Propre, and the Alienated Subject / 30 Alienation of the Modern Subject in Play Time / 32 Play,Time's Spatial Practices / 36 Practices of Cinema: the Spatial Grammar of Film Analysis / 3 8 Play Time on the Cusp of the Postmodern? / 46 Edward Yang and the New Taiwan Cinema / 4 7 Yi Yi and Yang's Urban Taiwanese Spaces / 4 8 An Homage to Play Time? / 4 9 Formal Devices, Visual Style, and Yang's Construction of Cinematic Space / 50 A Return to Modern Glass Architecture and Alienation / 51 Yi Yi: Traversing (post)Modern Taiwan on the Backs of the Family / 5 2 Min-Min: Placelessness, or, Existential Messiness on the Architectural Surface / 53 NJ: The Fragmented Transnational Traveler / 57 Yang-Yang: Artistic Redemption in the Hands of Youth? / 62 Chapter Two / 67 De Certeau's Operational Conception of the City, Part II / 6 8 Bicycle Thieves / 7 0 The Rhetorical City Walk (as Narrative) / 73 Spatial Rhetoric in the Any-space-whatever / 77 Beijing Bicycle / 8 5 Beijing Bicycle (Thieves) / 87 Two Narratives, Two Spaces, Two Bodies / 89 The Clash of Urban Modernization: Enclosure and Openness / 92 Bicycle Negotiations and the Urban Social Framework / 98 Many Stories, Ambiguous Endings / 101 4 Chapter Three / 103 The 400 Blows and Salaam Bombay! / 104 De Certeau's Operational Conception of the City, Part III / 10 8 Disciplinary Places and, or as, Practiced Spaces / 113 Disciplinary Places / 114 School / 114 Home (or family) (-less) / 117 Prison / 119 Practiced Spaces / 121 Street / 121 Cinema / 125 Phenomenological Viewing Spaces? / 126 Filmmaker/Film/(Spectator/Observer) / 127 The Experiential Moment of Modernity / 128 Invocation - Cinematic Potentiality and the Observer / 131 Conclusion / 133 Michel De Certeau - an Operational Conception of the City (and more) / 133 Spatial Grammar - Final Thoughts on Film Analysis / 136 Cinematic Appropriation - Other Models / 13 7 Tapping the Remainder / 14 0 Bibliography / 143 5 6 Introduction Imaginea cinematicarchitecture -a literalhodge-podge of settings;a figurative montageof narratives;a theoreticalabstraction of spaces. The relativefragments which might be called upon to construct such an edifice are endless. You might recall the home of Dorothy Arzner's Craig's Wife, the office towers of Jacques Tati's Play Time, F. W. Murnau 's Haunted Castle, Shawshank Prison, Harry Potter's Hogwarts School, or any number of other architecturalset(ting)s. You might also think of the edited narrative architectures of films such as D. W. Griffith 's Birth of a Nation, Orson Welles's Citizen Kane, Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, Alan Resnais's Last Year at Marienbad, David Lynch 's Mulholland Drive, Christopher Nolan's Memento, ... the list goes on and on. Inasmuch as architecture is about space, movement, and even time, its juxtaposition with cinema seems inevitable. And yet, prior to the recent trend toward that very comparison, the explicit consideration of architecture's relevance to film studies (and the reverse) has been somewhat sparse. I say explicit not only because of the obvious exceptions to that scarcity, but also because we might say that architecture is always already figured into our understandings of film. That, of course, depends on how we define architecture. In relation to film, the term "architecture" becomes increasingly complex as its potential meanings multiply-constructed studio sets; local built environments; edited montages; cinematographic traversals; and more. In a sense, then, it is perhaps not too much to say that film is unthinkable without architecture. Once again, though, this is not a new idea. Recent anthologies include Mark Shiel and Tony Fitzmaurice, eds. Screening the City (London: Verso, 2003), David B. Clarke, ed. The Cinematic City (New York: Routledge, 1997), Mark Lamster, ed. Architecture and Film (New York: Princeton Architectural Press. 2000), Franqois Penz and Maureen Thomas, eds. Cinema and Architecture: Me'lies, Mallet Stevens, Multimedia (London: British Film Institute, 1997), Linda Krause and Patrice Petro,
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