The European City in Contemporary Film How Are Stereotypes and Images of European Cities Revisited and Challenged in the Films of American Director Woody Allen?
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The European City in Contemporary Film How are stereotypes and images of European cities revisited and challenged in the films of American director Woody Allen? Master Thesis European Studies Identity and Integration Graduate School for Humanities Dr. K.K. Lajosi-Moore Prof. Dr. J.T. Leerssen The 1st of July 2016 Raisa van Nieuwenhuize 10306242 2 Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 3 Chapter 1 Theoretical Framework .................................................................................. 7 Cultural Constructions of Images ................................................................................... 7 The City and Film ........................................................................................................... 9 Chapter 2 Paris Midnight in Paris (2011) ..................................................................... 12 Locations ...................................................................................................................... 14 Themes and Characters ................................................................................................. 19 Chapter 3 Barcelona Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)……………………………… . 20 Locations ...................................................................................................................... 22 Themes and Characters ................................................................................................. 26 Chapter 4 Rome To Rome with Love (2012) .................................................................. 26 Locations ...................................................................................................................... 27 Themes and Characters ................................................................................................. 38 Chapter 5 London Match Point (2005) .......................................................................... 32 Locations ...................................................................................................................... 32 Themes and Characters ................................................................................................. 34 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 38 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 41 Cinematography ............................................................................................................. 46 3 Introduction As numerous studies have shown, images have a strong impact on peoples’ minds, and therefore, it is important to understand how images are represented to the public and what the aim of the images are. We see this in how national identity, national characters, and national stereotypes are represented, and therefore, we have certain prejudices about nations, cities, and social groups. These images are hetero-images, how we see others, but also auto-images, how we see ourselves. The study of Imagology looks into these images. Imagology is the study of national characterizations and national, cultural or ethnic stereotypes. Imagology looks at the origin and historical development of these images and how they are represented.1 Just like a nation has a national character, a city has a city character, and both nation and city characters consist of cultural features that construct the cultural identity of the nation or city.2 For example, when one thinks of Paris, he or she usually immediately thinks of a city of love and fashion, of the Eiffel tower and the Louvre, and of artistic people eating croissants. When one thinks of London, he or she usually thinks of the Tower Bridge, Big Ben, the financial centre, red double-deckers, and people who are snobbish, love the royal family and like to drink tea. These characters are used to emphasize the differences among nations and, in this case, among cities as well. For that reason, the focus in this thesis will be on the representation of European cities. Nowadays, more than fifty per cent of the population lives in cities. Cities, most of all, represent innovation, modernity, and industrialisation, but they also represent cultural heritage and history. In addition, representations of cities have an influence on people’s visual and cultural perceptions of those cities, which is called the urban mindscape.3 However, it not only addresses the external appearance of the city, but also its internal activities. That consists of local and external images of a city (auto and hetero images). That is why all these features form the character of the city. However, why do we always have the same images about these cities? What kind of influence does the (cultural) history have on the perception of the city? And are these hetero-images the same as their auto-images? These are questions in which the discipline of imagology may have an answer. European cities were chosen for this research because nowadays cities have a significant influence on their nations and on Europe as well. Cities are part of a nation’s economic development and are used for promotion of the national identity.4 However, 1 M. Beller & J. Leerssen, Imagology: The Cultural Construction and Literary Representation of National Characters – A Critical Survey, ed. Manfred Beller and Joep Leerssen (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2007), xiii. 2 J. Leerssen, “The Rhetoric of National Character: A Programmatic Survey”, Poetics Today, 2, (2000): 267. 3 G. Weiss-Sussex, G. & F. Bianchini, “Urban Mindscapes of Europe”, Special number of European Studies, 23, (Amsterdam, 2006): 13-14. 4 H. Kim & S.L Richardson, “Motion picture impact on Destination Images”, Annals of Tourism, 1, (2003): 217. 4 imagology focuses largely on the representations of images in literature, and since the beginning of the 20th century, there have been new media developments through the emergence of cinema and television. People are now constantly influenced by television, social media, which make it easier and faster to represent and spread certain images and to influence a large audience. Therefore, the main theme of this thesis is how stereotypes and images of European cities are represented in contemporary films. Nowadays, film is used to promote positive images of European cities because authorities became aware of the potential that the creative industries have for a city’s economic and image development.5 Soffier described film “as a medium that shows landscapes throughout the world, cinema helps to increase the media coverage of an area.”6 The main research question of this thesis is as follows: How are stereotypes and images of European cities revisited and challenged in the films of American director Woody Allen? Woody Allen was chosen because, in the last ten years, he has made several films that were set in European cities. These films can be seen as an example of the effect that public policies can have on the contemporary film industry because Woody Allen was mainly filming in these cities for practical and financial reasons.7 The Europeans financed Woody Allen’s films because they knew what kind of benefits these films could have on their cities’ images. Still, Woody Allen could represent the cities in his film like he wanted from his own American perspective.8 For that reason, it is of interest to examine how Woody Allen visualizes stereotypes and images, as well as what kind of influence that visualization has on the European cities and on people’s perception of those cities. Therefore, I will examine how certain images, related to people’s expectations of a city, are represented in film. The image formed by films is of importance for certain destinations because it works as a mode for the promotion of cities.9 For that reason are “movies extremely influential in promoting, confirming, and reinforcing images, opinions, and the destination’s identity, as well as playing a significant role in the image construction of touristic destinations like certain European cities” according to Rodriguez Camp and Rodiguez-Toubes Muniz.10 5 A. Soffier, “How European Cities are fighting over Cinema”, InalgloBal, last modified on June 21, 2016: http://www.inaglobal.fr/en/cinema/article/how-european-cities-are-fighting-over-cinema. 6 Ibid. 7 J. Matloff, “Woody Allen’s European Vacation” last modified on June 21, 2016: http://jasonmatloff.com/selected-articles/woody-allens-european- vacation/. 8 Ibid. 9 L. Rodriguez Campo, J.A Fraiz Brea, D. Rodiguez-Toubes Muniz, “Tourist Destination Image formed by the Cinema: Barcelona positioning through the feature film Vicky Christina Barcelona,” European Journal of Tourism, Hospitality and Recreation, 1, (2011): 137. 10 Ibid. 5 To examine how stereotypes and images of European cities are revisited and challenged in the films of American director Woody Allen, the first chapter will outline the theoretical framework of the thesis, which consists of both literature and films. The selected literature will survey how cultural constructions of images and stereotypes are represented, how cinema contributes to people’s understanding of cities, and how filmmakers make use of urban space. The imagology theories in the literature are mostly based on the research applied to literary books, but with the rise of cinema, television, and internet, these theories will be used for the analysis of the selected