Metropolis : at the Origin of Modern Urban Imagination / A la source de l’imaginaire urbain moderne

We announced here the  Cinematheque Française exhibition  from October 19, 2011 to January 29, 2012 about  Metropolis, the Fritz Lang’s film . On this occasion, the new version of the film, restored in 2010, will be shown to the public. This version  is 150 minutes long with the 30 minutes extra discovered in Buenos Aires in…

Enemy of the State: a location-based conspiration / Ennemi d’Etat: une conspiration géolocalisée

In  Enemy of the State,  Tony Scott addresses the topic of spying and global watch  of citizens by US security forces when they are suspected to represent a threat to internal security. This is a recent film version of a classic theme, that George Orwell had already taken as the central subject of his book…

Deep in Space, Corner of No and Where (Firefly)

Firefly is a TV series from 2002, wrote and directed by Joss Whedon (Buffy, Doll House, …). In Serenity, the film the same director released in 2005,  the action takes place some time after the series. Firefly joyfully mixes and shakes up different film genres: science fiction, space odyssey, western, gangster and swashbuckler movies. It depicts in…

Des plans sur des cartes sur des bandes

Thomas Klimowski is an artist who publishes his french blog « a kind of virtual workshop which outlines some work and some research workshops. » These posts of July 6th, July 7th and August 8th display screenshots of films of spatial machineries (mostly maps). Thomas Klimowski est un artiste qui publie sur son blog « une sorte d’atelier…

Minority Report : is Big Brother already watching us ? / Big Brother nous surveille-t-il déjà ?

Minority Report is a Steven Spielberg film (2002) adapted of the eponymous short story that Philip K. Dick published in 1956. More than fifty years after being written, and although widely modified in the film version, the short story of Dr. K. Dick is still of a troubling modernity. When it was released, the film…

The Monster Club / Le Club des monstres – Ward Baker

The Monster club is a 1980 horror movie directed by Roy Ward Baker. Eramus (Vincent Price) is a vampire. He approaches  Ronald Chetwyn-Hayes (a real horror writer) who let him drink a little of his blood. In gratitude, the vampire invites his victim to the Monster club where he tells him 3 stories. A spatial…

Real Properties: Fake Estates – Matta-Clark

Gordon Matta-Clark was a conceptual artist from the downtown New-York art scene during the 1970s whose work focused on the physical changes affecting New-York during the post-war decades. His work Real Properties : Fake Estates (RPFE) (1973-1974) documents some of these changes and their consequences on the urban fabric of the city. The course of…

Geodigital tools in « 24 » Season 8/ Les outils géonumériques dans « 24 heures chrono » saison 8

The inventory of geodigital tools used in the final season of theTV series « 24 » was released on Monde Géonumérique. It is added to the inventories of seasons 4 to 7  (self-promotion). L’inventaire des outils géonumériques utilisés dans l’ultime saison de la série télévisée 24 est paru sur Monde Géonumérique. Il rejoint l’inventaire des saisons 4…

Synecdoche NewYork – Kaufmann

In Synecdoche, the first film he directed, Charlie Kaufman offers us a crazy game based on the impossible paradox of the perfect representation of reality. Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a depressive and hypochondriac theater director. He wants to create the absolute play by putting on stage an exact and faithful reproduction of his…

Stanley Kubrick : War Room and Space Rationality / salle de commandement et rationalité de l’espace

Stanley Kubrick, who died in 1999, is considered as a genius film director. He made only 13 films in 46 years, mainly because of his perfectionism and because of his insistence to gather a very high level of details before beginning to make the film.  However,  he was also the writer and the producer of…

RoboCop – Verhoeven

RoboCop is a 1987 science fiction and action film directed by Paul Verhoeven. The Detroit Police Departement is, by contract, under the control of a private consortium, OCP (Omni Consumer Product). But the hidden objective of OCP is to destroy the old town of Detroit and replace it with a new urban complex, Delta City.…

Eric Rohmer, an « urban cine-geographer » ? / un « cinégéographe » de la ville ?

Eric Rohmer was part of the  « Nouvelle Vague » movement that radically changed the French cinema at the end of the ’50s and during the ’60s. He filmed the French urban landscapes and its profound transformation during these years. He has always been attentive in his films to the importance of urban places  and more generally to…

Siodmak, The Killers : where are we? / Les Tueurs : où sommes nous?

The Killers (Siodmak,1946) is truly a classic of film noir. The opening scene is famous. Two men are sitting in front of a car driving at high-speed through the night. Then the camera scans the road and a sign shows up in the headlights: Brentwood, New Jersey. And below, in an ironic mode considering what…

Le mani sulla città / Main basse sur la ville – Rosi

The Italian movies of 50s, 60s and 70s invented a new way to depict geography of Italy after second world war, especially urban landscapes. By describing what was supposed to become the geography of the new Italy, as well as its new architecture, urbanism and land planning, the Italian filmmakers wanted to show future face…

Site

Site collaboratif de cartographie littéraire de « Paris en toutes lettres »

« Paris en toutes lettres »  that will take place between the 5th and the 8th of May 2011 proposes a literary mapping web site  to set up a collaborative inventory of the places where lived some fictitious characters of literature. Le site de la 3ème édition de « Paris en toutes lettres » a lieu du 5 au…

Mississippi Mermaid / La sirène du Mississipi – Truffaut

Mississippi Mermaid is a 1969 movie directed by François Truffaut. It is an adaptation of a William Irish’s novel, Waltz into Darkness. It tells the story of the absolute love of Louis Mahé (Jean-Paul Belmondo) for Marion Bergamo (Catherine Deneuve) and takes the form of a long pursuit in suffering and passion. The movie is…

Carte des environs de Twin Peaks dessinée par David Lynch

Real and Imaginary Geographies – Twin Peaks of David Lynch – Géographies réelles et imaginaires

Ces jours-ci la chaîne de télévision franco-allemande ARTE diffuse les épisodes de la série Twin Peaks, réalisée à la fin des années 80 par David Lynch et Mark Frost. Cette série, comprenant un pilote de 90 minutes, un épisode de 90 minutes et 28 épisodes de 45 minutes, fut diffusée pour la première fois entre…