Design Community Architecture Discussion : film and architecture

Design Community Architecture Discussion
reader's comment:   

title: my thoughts on film and architecture
Posted by  shruti on June 20, 2001 at 08:44:06:

  
Here�s a question...what about film and architecture, they are obviously very different fields?....they represent lives time and space....in different ways...film has the knack of portraying reality....or stating it....or better still enhancing its image. architecture on the other hand represents it by building it and giving it physically to the people and the city.... now the question is how do they relate to each other....do they relate at a metaphorical level or a physical....or both or none......does film only use architecture to enhance the narrative...or does it do more like represent it or does it use architecture to represent life.....now the way i look at it, it uses architecture to represent life. architecture is a good indication of what is real...and what is now....or what was...or what can be.... but is it possible that film is informing architecture these days.....or is it that they are together creating a way of being....does the architecture today do anything different from what it did...ten years back.....haven't the filmmakers( a few conscious ones who are doing more than just another movie) changed their 'modus operandi'....are they more conscious of what they are shooting and how they are representing....???
    the word 'space' used and overused and misused time again is essentially the whole point of film and architecture....it has different connotations in both...maybe.... but both attempt to represent it....space cannot be created...it can at the most be used or enhanced...or represented....space is supremely absorbent of metaphor...it would be interesting to know how space articulates meaning.....space could also embody abstract or ideological ideas providing them with a physical obviousness that belies their dependence on social/ political construction.

    �Space, then, has a history�.it is a product of representations.�
    -Burgin, 1990: 180.

    The cities of postmodernity are suggestive places for thinking through connections between spatial categories and dominant structures: the postmodern city has been conventionally theorized as a site of difference, fragmentation, conflict, and plurality.

    Obviously with all this emphasis on spatiality and its part in film and architecture, I do not intend to undermine the effect and importance of the temporal aspect: time.
    Although what bothers me is how do you discuss the issue of time�.should it be discussed metaphorically�or realistically�.in actual time�.
    One point that has become obvious to me is that space and time can be discussed in abstraction, metaphorically�..and as an event�in real time.
    Their part in film and architecture, hence also has a two-fold manifestation�..
    abstraction and real physicality.

    What if I look at films/ architecture, filmmakers/ architects, study the work/ creator to understand how the work/ creator represents/ states/ makes a metaphorical statement on the condition/ the life / the city / the people.

    � spatial juxtapositioning used to structure the narrative . e.g.: falling down. /
    � spatial and temporal abstraction to structure the narrative. e.g.: blade runner /
    � the use of a certain narrative which spatially and temporally abstracts reality.
    e.g.: run Lola run.

    Now having used these words and phrases�I would need to first define them universally�and for myself�.before attempting any kind of work on the thesis.

    when I make a statement such as:
    � film and architecture today transcend the traditional concepts of time and space and due to their inevitable congruence influence this age (the city and people) of the 21st century.�
    what exactly do I mean?