Imagine that the lines of the New-York subway system became the strings of a cello plucked by the trains. You would have the musical map of Alexander Chen. Et si les lignes du métro new-yorkais devenaient les cordes d’un violoncelle que viennent pincer les trains qui les croisent ? Cela donnerait la carte musicale d’Alexander…
Released in 1965 Le corniaud is a French road-movie directed by Gérard Oury. Leopold Saroyan, godfather of a syndicate of gangsters, persuades Antoine Maréchal to drive a Cadillac from Naples to Bordeaux. He does not know that various illicit substances are hidden in the vehicle in order to cross illegally the border. During a meeting,…
Filmed in 1966, The Swimmer by Frank Perry was a commercial failure when it was released in 1968 and has long been misunderstood. However, it is an intense and disturbing masterpiece. One morning between late summer and early autumn, a man in a bathing suit (B. Lancaster) enters the garden of a beautiful house and…
In Evil Dead, Sam Raimi uses two ways to indicate where the characters of his movie are coming from and where they are. Dans Evil Dead, Sam Raimi nous donne indirectement deux informations : d’où viennent les protagonistes et où ils se trouvent.
Created in collaboration between Yona Friedman, a theoretician of architecture and Jean-Baptiste Decavèle, a photographer and a videographer, this exhibition transposed the fictitious geography of an island situated in the far north of Canada to the middle of the Lake of Vassivière in Limousin. Visitors were invited to discover the mapping of the imaginary Balkis…
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…
Predator is a 1987 movie directed by John McTiernan. In Val Verde, a country bordering Guatemala, a joint task force, led by Major Alan « Dutch » Schaefer (Arnold Schwarzenegger), is assigned to rescue hostages in the jungle. The group is hunted by an extraterrestrial creature: the Predator. Two spatial machineries appear in the movie. One is…
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:…
Short Cuts, another movie of Robert Altman (see this post about The Gingerbread Man), is adapted from short stories of Raymond Carver transposed to Los Angeles. When the stories of Carver about several couples were independent, Altman connects them by inventing family or neighborhood links or by making a character the cause of events that…
The Gingerbread Man (1998) is a thriller directed by Robert Altman. The lawyer Rick Magruder (Kenneth Branagh) helps young and pretty Mallory Doss, harassed by his father. He launches a procedure to confine him to a mental institution. Several maps are shown in the movie. The Gingerbread Man est un thriller réalisé par Robert Altman…
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…
The Potemkin Stairs are a giant stairway in Odessa, Ukraine. This stairway marks the formal entrance into the city from the direction of the sea and is the most famous symbol of Odessa. It was constructed between 1837 and 1841. Originally known as Richelieu Steps, because of the monument located at the top of the…
Lola is a sort of abstract ballet movie whose the scene is the town of Nantes. The film is about wait and boredom, planned departures and expected returns . There are two world maps in the film, both of them related to the character Roland Cassard. Both are a bit mysterious and fully cinematic. Both…
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…
Patrick Galbraith (graphic designer) and Nick Grant (metal historian) drew a Map of Metal with some pieces of leather, chains, nails, skulls … This interactive map lists all the sub-genres and the links between them. It does not forget other associated sub-genres as punk, hardcore… We note a main continent and many small islands. The…
The latest novel by Michel Houellbecq deals not only with art and society, but also with places and their representations. The title « The map and territory » can be interpreted as a synthesis of the artistic journey of the hero, Jed Martin. The international career of this visual artist starts in the 2010s through a series…
As already shown in this post, geographic space plays a fundamental role in the work of Hergé. In The ‘Manitoba’ No Reply, first volume of The Secret Ray from The Adventures of Jo, Zette and Jocko, published in 1952, the liner SS Manitoba indicates its position by radio, remains silent for 20 hours and send…
Suggestion proposed by M. Miller in this comment. In John Wyndham’s science fiction novel, The Midwich Cuckoos, 1957 (later filmed as The Village of the Damned, 1960) a circular line is plotted on a map to determine the area around the village of Midwich in which people are mysteriously falling unconscious. One watching private stepped forward…
Suddenly is an American movie directed by Lewis Allen and released in 1954. In the late 40’s, Tod Shaw, the sheriff of Suddenly in California learns that a special train with the President of the United States on board is going to stop in the small town. Shortly afterwards, a Secret Service team arrives, led…
Kendama is the second short-movie of Jam Films, a project bringing together seven Japanese directors. A kendama is a Japanese cup-and-ball game… In this film, a company director offers his employee one of this object to show his gratitude … But it is actually hiding the plan of a treasure hunt that leads to the…
The Beach is a 2000 drama film by Danny Boyle based on The Beach, a 1996 novel by Alex Garland. Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio), a young American backpacking in Thailand, came to Southeast Asia with the intention of experiencing something radically different from his familiar life. He meets Daffy a crazy man (Robert Carlyle) who is…
Company man is a 2000 movie directed by Peter Askin and Douglas McGrath. Washington, 1962: the CIA agent Alan Quimp assisted by is immediate superior, the Officer Hickle are heard by two American Senators: Biggs and Farwoods. Quimp has to explain his implication in the crisis of Bay of Pigs. Two maps appear in the…
National Treasure (released in 2004) and National Treasure: Book of Secrets (released in 2007) are two movies directed by Jon Turteltaub. Both films have the same narrative structure : Benjamin Gates (starring Nicolas Cage) goes to treasure hunt. By solving different clues he finds a treasure map. He succeeds in deciphering it to finally discover…
« The Social Network » . Excerpt of the trailer – Extrait de la bande-annonce How to visualize a virtual network in a movie? It is the question the director David Fincher had to answer with his new film The Social Network, that tells the story of the young and famous Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg. There is…
The Hitch-Hiker is a film noir directed in 1953 by Ida Lupino. Two men in a car give a man a lift but the hitch-hiker turns out to be a psychopath who kidnaps them. The police tracks the criminal. Several maps are used in this movie. Le voyage de la peur est un film noir…
Garri Bardine is a Russian animation director. In 1990 he created Grey Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood (Russian: » Серый волк энд Красная Шапочка, Krasnaya Chapotchka seriy Volk i »), a claymation film. The movie was adapted from the famous children’s story Little Red Riding Hood as a musical. Living in Moscow, the mother of…
The Movie Map is a website created in 2008 as a depository of films locations and other informations related to those locations. It uses Google’s Map API and users and movie fans can contribute. Another website lists films locations: the Movie Locations Guide. It presents maps of 3 towns at this time: New York, Los…
The Parallax View is a 1974 thriller film directed by Alan J. Pakula. Newspaper reporter Joe Frady (Warren Beatty) is investigating a secret organization, the Parallax Corporation, whose objective is political assassination. A cause d’un assassinat est un thriller dirigé par Alan J. Pakula en 1974. Le reporter de presse Joe Frady (Warren Beatty) enquête…
16th June 2010 : the British PM David Cameron apologized to the families of victims for the killings that occurred on 30th January 1972 in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. The film Bloody Sunday directed in 2002 by Paul Greengrass narrates the events that occurred this day. Several scenes depict British officers annotating the progression of the…
(e)space & fiction 