The Cinema Representation of futuristic cities

Résumé du document

Urbanization is a contemporary issue. Today, one person out of two lives in a city, and that figure will sharply increase in the next few decades. Many questions about what cities should be like have arisen due to the fast increase of the urbanization process since the 19th century. Urban planners from the Athens Charter have tried to imagine an ideal city and the best urban organization, in order to resolve urban issues. Global cities such as New-York, Tokyo and Paris have become more powerful than some states, and it seems obvious that the future will be urban. Consequently, a broad majority of science fiction movies are shot in cities. Movie makers try to imagine how cities would look like in the future, and try to present their vision of urban future through their movie. This is a reflection of the fears and feelings of their times. Indeed, movies seem to express dystopias of urbanism rather than utopias, which echo the current preoccupations of urban development. This paper will analyze the different aspects of futurist cities in science fiction movies in order to create a global idea about what cinemas predict about cities in the future.

Extraits

[...] Then Blade Runner by Ridley Scott, Brazil by Terry Gilliam or Luc Besson's Fifth Element and most of science fiction movies has presented futurist cities constituted by many skyscrapers. However some movies as Alfaville by Godard or Tati's Playtime do not present that kind of cities. In fact, these movie makers wanted to show the evolution of current cities towards modernity in close future. Style Futurist style in movies is in fact inspired by the evolution of architecture during the 20th century by Bauhaus and the Architecture School of Chicago. Buildings reproduce very simple geometric figures as parallelepipeds or pyramids for instance. [...]

[...] On the contrary, new Star Wars movies and The Fifth Element present a democratic power but in both cases it is considered as a vulnerable one. Living condition Movie makers have often had a negative vision of futurist cities. The testicular city tends to oppress its inhabitants who live in poor living conditions. Pollution and overpopulation makes the streets dark and dirty. In Metropolis, the working class have terrible living conditions in the underground city while in Blade Runner and in Star Wars, streets are extremely dangerous and unhealthy in opposition with the upper city and the life in skyscrapers' highest floors. [...]

[...] II) Space organisation Huge cities in three dimensions Verticality and urban spreading out model the space organization of futurist cities in three dimensions. It is constituted by plenty of different quarters which could be located by horizontal and vertical factors. Coruscant city in Star Wars is the culmination of the dream or the nightmare of a city as gigantesque as a planet. The planet in its whole is a cosmopolite capital with many different places as residential, industrial and bustling areas mainly composed by great skyscrapers. [...]

[...] In Playtime, buildings made of concrete, steel and glass with large windows could refer to Bauhaus and in particular to Mies van der Rohe's architecture. Symbolism One of the specificities of science fiction movies comparing to reality is that they often depict a symbolic vision of architecture. The symbols often refer to antic civilisations. Pyramid for instance is a common reference for futurist buildings such as the Aztec pyramid standing for the headquarters of the Tyrell Corporation in Blade Runner or the senate in recent Star Wars movies by George Lucas. The Jedi council looks like a mosque or Saint Sophia basilica. [...]

[...] It is possible to make a global image of futurist city through cinema. Indeed, the movie makers' common ideas about tomorrow's city are its high density thanks to the height of its skyscrapers in a huge urban agglomeration which tend to be decentralised and multicultural. It does not seems to be a place where people would live happy and free but rather a place of subservience towards a authoritarian power or just towards boredom and routine in a very monotone environment. [...]