The Lord of the Rings is the first film of a trilogy directed by Peter Jackson based on the eponymous books of JRR Tolkien. The film relies heavily on cartographic representations of imaginary worlds, among which Middle-earth, the main land where the trilogy takes place. To trace the origins of Middle-earth, we must refer to…
Nobody Else But You (Poupoupidou) is an amazing film directed by Gerald Hustache-Mathieu that tells in a very original and subtle manner the tragic fate of Candice Lecoeur, a small-town woman and aspiring model who thought she was the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe. Deeply rooted in Mouthe region in the Jura, famous for holding the…
Kiki’s Delivery Service is an animated film directed in 1989 by Hayo Miyazaki, based on a book by Eiko Kadono and illustrated by Akiko Ayashi. The story is about a young witch who, at the age of 13, must leave her home, as all young witches do, and has to go to a new city for…
About 800 American films evoke Paris, making the French capital by far the most represented foreign city in American cinema. One could almost speak of « Film about Paris » as a specific genre (Antoine de Baecque). The exhibition Paris vu par Hollywood presents this cinematographic American outlook on Paris, between tourist clichés, cultural stereotypes and the invention…
The fourth animation movie of the Ice Age series offers us a very fancy version of the theory of continental drift! Here, the upper mantle convection currents are no longer responsible for the movements of the crust. The cause is the rotation of a tiny core similar to a wheel in a hamster cage. Some other…
In 1994 and 1995, the artist and engraver Marc Jurt and the writer Michel Butor initiated an artistic collaboration inspired by maps; all kind of maps : city maps or aerial photographs, world maps or topographic maps, aeronautical maps or meteorological maps. Marc Jurt started with geographical documents and juxtaposed or superimposed engravings or paintings…
The exhibition Paris en Chansons is now closed but the interactive map is still on line : http://www.chansons.paris.fr/carto. Dans le cadre de l’exposition, maintenant terminée, Paris en Chansons, une jolie carte interactive des lieux évoqués dans les chansons françaises est en ligne : http://www.chansons.paris.fr/carto.
On (e)space and fiction we already have written about tattoos (Prison Break, Waterworld). But we present here a non fictional example. The Long March was a military retreat undertaken by the Red Army of the Communist Party of China to escape Tchang Kaï-chek’s Kuomintang army, during the Chinese Civil war. From 2002 to 2005, 250…
About a Mountain is an essay by John d’Agata about nuclear waste issue. The book has another title in the French edition (Yucca Mountain) and the cover represents a face drawn with the traditional cartographic symbols. The illustration does not exist on the original book’s cover. Why ? Publié en 2012 en France, Yucca Montain…
The Conquest is a biographical film about Nicolas Sarkozy’s rise to power. La conquête est un film biographique qui évoque l’ascension au pouvoir de Nicolas Sarkozy.
The exhibition « Circuler. Quand nos mouvements façonnent les villes » held at the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris from April 4, is ending August 26, 2012. This exhibition deals with urban spaces and with space between cities. It also presents how cities have evolved, both in their principles…
Ni à vendre ni à louer is a French comedy by Pascal Rabaté. Several stories intertwine in this offbeat film without a word. A spatial machinery can be found in this film that we already mentioned twice (Dogville et Bob la flambeur): a 1:1 scale plan. Ni à vendre ni à louer est une comédie…
The filmmaker Chris Marker, born in 1921 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, died July 29, 2012, the day of his 91st birthday. In the work she has devoted to Chris Marker (*), Catherine Lupton evokes his « desire to see and show the world« . Above all, she makes him « one of the most extraordinary and influential filmmakers of our…
Matthiew Cusick is an American artist born in New York in 1970 and currently working in Dallas. Among other techniques he uses acrylic with inlaid map fragments from different kinds : school atlases, topographic maps or road maps. He also simply sticks maps as overlaid layers. He composes beautiful landscapes viewed from above or at…
The mysterious tool of the Quiz # 2 is a wire that John (Kieffer Sutherland) made for his sun to visually measure the progressive enlargement of the planet Melancholia that is approaching Earth. It is an archaic version of the telescope also used in the movie and it symbolize in some way the regression to…
« La cour secrète des Arcanes » is an animation film directed by Pascal Morelli in 2001. This is a free adaptation of one of stories of Corto Maltese, the famous adventurer invented by Italian designer Hugo Pratt. The film includes scenes from several albums, mainly « La maison dorée de Samarkand « . In this album, maps are…
Quiz n°2. The answer on this site on 2012/07/20 : / La réponse sur ce site le : 20/07/2012
Æon Flux is a 2005 science fiction movie directed by Karyn Kusama. It is an adaptation of the animated television series created by Peter Chung. In 2011, a mortal virus eliminated 99 % of population on the Earth. Goodchild, a scientist, managed to create a vaccine and 400 years later, the survivors inhabit Bregna, a…
La Grande Vadrouille (literally « The Great Stroll »; originally released in the United States as Don’t Look Now… We’re Being Shot At!) is a 1966 Franco-British comedy film about how the crew of a Royal Air Force bomber shot down over Paris must then make their way through German-occupied France with the main help of two…
Atanarjuat, the legend of fast runner is the first of a series of three Inuit films, called the trilogy « The fast runner« : Atarnajuat (2000), The journals of Knud Rasmussen (2006), Before Tomorrow (2009). This film evokes space and other aspects of Inuit culture through one of its legends. Atanarjuat is Canada’s first feature-length fiction film…
Those who have seen Une chambre en ville the movie by Jacques Demy (1982) probably remember the creepy televisions shop run by the scary Edmond Leroyer (Michel Piccoli), jealous and crazy husband of the beautiful Edith (Dominique Sanda). As part of Le voyage à Nantes, artistic event held in Nantes from 15 June to 18…
The Seven Year Itch is an American comedy released in 1955 that was adapted by Billy Wilder from a play by George Axelrod. Despite the strong intervention of the censor board during the writing the script and the filming, the movie caused a scandal when it was released in American Puritan circles. Billy wilder uses…
La baston is a 1985 french movie directed by Jean-Claude Missiaen. René Levasseur, ex-safecracker, accepts a last burglary to collect funds in order to bring his sick son to an US hospital for cardiac surgery. Unfortunately, things do not happen as expected. La baston est un film réalisé en 1985 par Jean-Claude Missiaen. René Levasseur,…
A Self-Made Hero was directed by Jacques Audiard in 1996 from Jean-François Deniau’s book. It won the best screenplay award from Cannes Film Festival. Un héros très discret a été réalisé par Jacques Audiard en 1996 d’après le roman de Jean-François Deniau. Il a obtenu le Prix du Meilleur Scénario au Festival de Cannes.
« On the Road » is a film by Walter Salles, adapted from the novel by Jack Kerouac. This film was presented at the 65th Cannes Film Festival and was released on screens on May 23, 2012. Kerouac’s novel, published in 1957, and one of the best known of this author, relate trip Kerouac between the east…
Moonrise Kingdom is an American film directed by Wes Anderson, which was presented during the opening session of the 65th Cannes Film Festival 2012. The screenplay was written by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, son of Francis Ford Coppola. Moonrise Kingdom is an unusual film, at once funny, touching and quirky. One can easily find…
Game of Thrones is an American television series adapted from the G.R.R Martin’s series of fantasy novel A song of Ice and Fire, and has been broadcast since April 2011. Set in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, Game of Thrones chronicles the violent dynastic struggles among the kingdom’s noble families for control of the Iron…
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…
Paris Noir is an anthology of short stories located in Paris and written by French authors. Published in 2008 English as part of the Noir Series of Akashic Books, the original texts are now available in French. The Noir Series bring together all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the…
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…
(e)space & fiction 