What to Do in Case of Fire? (Was tun, wenn’s brennt? in German) is a 2001 German film directed by Gregor Schnitzler. In 1987, in Kreuzberg, Berlin, 6 young squatters fight for their anarchistic ideals, making propaganda films under the name of « Group 36 ». In one of these movies, they show how to make a bomb that…
Cleopatra is an american movie from John Mankiewicz released in 1963 with Elisabeth Taylor in the main role. This 4 hours long sword-and-sandal movie recounts the tumultuous relationships between Cleopatra and Julius Caesar first, and then with Marc Antony. Cleopatra uses a model to run the battle from her ship. Cléopâtre est un film américain…
« A girl is trapped in the map and desperately needs your help to escape. Have you got what it takes to navigate her out of this dangerous photographic maze. The clock is ticking. » This is the pitch for an advertisment campain that was organized in 2011 by Mercedes around a interactive commercial produced by an…
Face/Off is a thriller movie directed by John Woo in 1997. Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage), a dangerous terrorist, fell into a coma after a fight with Sean Archer, an FBI agent played by John Travolta . Thanks to a plastic surgery operation, Archer takes the face of Troy in order to make Troy’s brother confess where…
Duel, le premier film de Spielberg, qui raconte la poursuite d’une voiture par un camion fou est entièrement tourné au niveau du sol. Aucune vue aérienne, très peu de recul. La caméra est à hauteur des pare-chocs et de l’habitacle des véhicules, plus rarement sur un bas-côté à peine surélevé. Ce filmage tangentiel participe du…
Mélodie en sous-sol is a 1965 movie directed by Henri Verneuil. Just brought out of jail, Charles (Jean Gabin) decides to organize a last bigrobbery. He joins forces with Francis (Alain Delon) and Louis (Maurice Biraud) to burgle the Palm Beach casino in Cannes. There are 2 very original spatial machineries : a plan and…
The dark lens series of the photographer Cédric Delseau (a book at Editions Xavier Barral) is an artistic kind of materialization of fiction. The photographer takes pictures in contemporary urban sites of different countries (France, Dubai …) and add them characters and spaceships from the movie Star Warsby George Lukas. This is not just a collage…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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, 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 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 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…
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…
Elective Affinities (1996) is a movie directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani based on the novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Edouard (Jean-Hugues Anglade) and Charlotte (Isabelle Huppert), a couple of aristocrats, invited a childhood friend of Edouard (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) to join them in their villa in Tuscany. This friend is an architect. In the…
Just a short notice about an update of the post « Did you hear about the Morgans ». The Making Of on the DVD gives more information about the map of Google that appears in the movie. Une simple annonce à propos du billet sur « Où sont passés les Morgan » dont le contenu a été actualisé grâce…
The X-Men are a group of superheroes created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. There adventures were published in X-Men # 1 by Marvel Comics in September 1963. The book was adapted for three movies released in 2000, 2003 and 2006 (plus a prequel in 2009 telling the story of one of the main characters:…
NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) is striving for over fifty years to locate Santa Claus. You can follow his route on their website. It proposes a real-time tracking of Santa Claus on google map and google earth, and a detailed methodology. Le NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) s’évertue depuis plus de cinquante ans…
Braveheart is an American historical movie directed by and starring Mel Gibson and released in 1995. The film refers to the life of William Wallace, hero and symbol of Scottish independence. In the late thirteenth century, Wallace united the Scottish clans and fought the forces of King Edward Ist of England, who attempted to invade…
After the Nakatomi Plaza (see this post), the Washington Dulles International Airport is the new John McClane’s playground in this second opus of the Die Hard series directed in 1990 by Renny Harlin. Terrorists try to exfiltrate Ramon Esperanza, a general in exile from Val Verde, awaiting his trial in the United States. There are…
With the release of their new album The Suburbs and the beginning of their new concert tour, the Montreal band Arcade Fire offers an interesting geospatial and interactive experience. By entering a place of your choice on the site, ideally your childhood home address, you generate a custom clip based on images from Google Maps…
M (dir. Fritz Lang 1931) tells the story of a serial killer who preys on children in 1930s Berlin, and who is on the run from police and an organized crime syndicate. The film begins with the murder of Elsie, the eighth child to be murdered. At the crime scene police find a paper bag…
Between Toy Story 2 and 3, eleven years have passed and mapping techniques have tremendously changed. The inevitable G* Maps has replaced the paper map. Incidentally, is it possible to localize Tri County, the place of the movie, in the United-States ? Entre Toy Story 2 et 3, onze ans ont passé et les techniques…
In 1974, French Director Jean Yanne revisits the period of the occupation in France with a comedy where the Chinese army invades Europe. From Beijing, the ‘Central Revolutionary Committee is setting up its strategy. In committee’s premises, two types of maps are presented. En 1974, Jean Yanne revisite la période de l’occupation dans cette comédie…
Avatar – James Cameron’s film released in 2009 – takes place on the planet Pandora. The human coveted ore located beneath the natives’ village ground. At a briefing, soldiers try to localize their position with an interactive 3D holographic maps. Its handling is rather technical and tricky. The head of the crew fails to navigate…
A really great idea ! Luke Lewis locates famous Rock ‘n’ roll album sleeves with Google Street View and begins a musical mapping of London. Une très jolie idée de Luke Lewis : localiser sur Google Street View les albums des groupes des années 60 et proposer ainsi un début de lever cartographique musical de…
The stylistic innovations that made the success of the TV series 24 are now influencing movies. A very clear example is Greenzone, the movie of Paul Greengrass. It is saturated with maps, navigation softwares, satellite images and many other representations of the space of action. Of course Green Zone is based on a true story…
(e)space & fiction 