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The Explosion of Space: Architecture and the Filmic ImaginaryAuthor(s): Anthony VidlerSource: Assemblage, No. 21 (Aug., 1993), pp. 44-59Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3171214
Accessed: 16/01/2010 16:58
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8/21/2019 Anthony Vidler_the explosion of space.pdf
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nthony
i d l e r
h e Explos ion
o S p a c e
rchitecture a n d
t h e
F i l m i c
Imaginary
Anthony
Vidlers
Chairman f the
Department
fArt
History
t the
University
f
California,
os
Angeles.
1.
Babette
Mangolte,
What
Maisie
Knew, 1975,
film still
Assemblage
1
?
1993
by
the Massachusetts
Instituteof
Technology
I
am
kino-eye.
am
a builder.
have
placed ou,
whom
'vecreated
today,
n
an
extraordinary
oomwhichdidnot
existuntil
ust
now
when
I
alsocreatedt. In
thisroom here
are welvewalls
hot
by
me
in
various
arts
f
the
world. n
bringingogether
hotsofwalls nd
details,
've
managed
o
arrange
hem
n
an
order hat s
pleasing
nd
to
construct ith
ntervals,
orrectly,
film-phrase
hich
s the
room.
Dziga
Vertov,
923'
Since
the late nineteenth
century,
ilm has
provided
a
labora-
toryforthe definitionof modernism n theoryandtechnique.
As the modernist
art
par
excellence, t has also
servedas a
point
of
departure
orthe redefinition
of the
other
arts,
a
para
digm by
which the
different
practices
of
theater,
photography
literature,
and
paintingmight
be
distinguished
rom each
other. Of all the
arts,
however, t is architecture
hat has
had
the
most
privileged
nd
difficult
relationship
o film. An obvi-
ous role model
for
spatial
experimentation,
ilm
has also been
criticized or
its
deleterious
effects on the architectural
mage.
At a
moment when
interest
n
film
has
reemerged
n
much
avant-garde
rchitectural
work,
rom the
literal
evocationsof
Bernard
Tschumi
in
his Manhattan
Transcripts
nd
projects
for La
Villette to
more
theoreticalwork
on the
relationsof
space
to visual
representation,
he
complex question
of
film's
architectural
ole is
again
on
the
agenda.
And
the
more
so,
because
in
the search
or
ways
to
represent
movement and
temporal
succession
n
architecture,
"deconstructivist"
esign-
ers
have turned
naturally
o the
images forgedby
the
first,
constructivist,
vant-garde
images
themselves
deeply
marked
by
the
impact
of
the new filmic
techniques.
In
their
new
incarnation,
uch
constructivist nd
expressionist
mages
45
-
8/21/2019 Anthony Vidler_the explosion of space.pdf
3/17
-A
, I
,
I -
-
s
..
I
I
-
I
S--
"t,
***-i-**^
^F^.,
;A
-
8/21/2019 Anthony Vidler_the explosion of space.pdf
4/17
assemblage
21
seemto reframe
many
earlier
questions
about the
proper
place
for
images
of
space
and time
in
architecture:
uestions
that resonate
or
contemporary ritiques
of the
"image"
nd
the
"spectacle"
n
architecture nd
society.
When,
in
1933,
Le Corbusier alled for a
film
aesthetics
that
embodied the
"spirit
of
truth,"
he was
only
asserting
what
many
architects
n the 1920s
(like
those more
recently
n
the
1980s)
saw to be the
mutually
nformativebut
properly
epa-
rate realmsof architecture
nd film. While
admitting
that
"everythings Architecture"n its architectonicdimensions
of
proportion
nd
order,
Le Corbusierneverthelessnsisted
on the
specificity
of
film,
which "fromnow on
is
positioning
itself on its own terrain ..
becoming
a form of art
in
and of
itself,
a kind of
genre,
just
as
painting,
sculpture,
iterature,
music,
and theater are
genres."2
n
the
present
context,
de-
bates about the nature
of "architecturen
film,"
"filmic
architecture,"
r
filmic
theory
n
architectural
heory
are
interesting
ess as
guiding
the
writing
of some
new Laocoon
that would
rigidly
edraw he boundariesof the
technological
artsthan
as
establishing
he
possibilities
of
interpretation
or
projects
hat
increasingly
eem
caught
in the
hallucinatory
realmof a filmic or screened
maginary,
omewhere,
hat
is,
in the
problematic
ealmof
hyperspace.
Cineplastics
The
obvious role of architecture
n
the construction
of sets
(and
the
eager
participation
f architects
hemselves
n
this
enterprise),
and
the
equally
obvious
ability
of
film
to "con-
struct"
ts own architecture
n
light
and
shade,
scale and
movement,
from
the outset allowed
for a mutual
intersection
of these two
"spatial
rts."
Certainly,many
modernist
ilm-
makers
had little doubt
of the cinema's
architectonic
proper-
ties. From
Georges
Melies's
careful
description
of the
proper
spatialorganization f the studioin 1907 to EricRohmer's
reassertion
f
film
as "the
spatial
art" ome
fortyyears
ater,
the architectural
metaphor,
f
not its
material
reality,
was
deemed
essential
to the
filmic
imagination.3
Equally,
archi-
tects like Hans
Poelzig
(who,
together
with
his
wife,
the
sculptor
Marlene
Poelzig,
sketched
and modeled the sets for
Paul
Wegener's
Der Golem:
Wie er
in die Welt
kam
of
1920)
and Andrei
Andrejev
who
designed
the sets for Robert
Weine's
Raskolnikoffof
1923)
did not hesitate
to collaborate
with filmmakers
ust
as
they
had
previously
erved heater
producers.4
s the architectRobertMallet-Stevensobserved
in 1925,"itis undeniable hat the cinema has amarked nflu-
ence on modern
architecture;
n
turn,
modern architecture
brings
ts artisticside to the cinema.... Modernarchitecture
not
only
serves he
cinematographic
et
[decor],
but
imprints
its
stamp
on
the
staging
[mise-en-scene],
t breaks
out of its
frame;
architecture
plays.'"'5
nd,
of
course,
for
filmmakers
originally
rainedas architects
(like
Sergei
Eisenstein),
the
filmic art
offeredthe
potential
to
develop
a new architecture
of time and
space
unfettered
by
the materialconstraintsof
gravity
and
daily
ife.
Out of this intersectionof the two artsa theoretical
apparatus
was
developed
hat at once
held architecture s the funda-
mental site of
film
practice,
he
indispensable
ealand ideal
matrixof the filmic
imaginary,
nd, at the same time,
posited
film
as the modernistart of
space par
excellence
-
a vision of
the fusion of
space
and time.
The
potential
of
film
to
explore
this new realm
(seen
by
Sigfried
Giedion
as
the basis
of
mod-
ernistarchitectural
esthetics)
was
recognized
early
on. Abel
Gance,
writing
n
1912,
was
already
hoping
for a new "sixth
art" hat would
provide
"thatadmirable
ynthesis
of the
movement of
space
and time."6But it was the art historian
Elie
Faure,
nfluenced
by
Fernand
Leger,
who
first coined a
term for the cinematic aesthetic that
broughttogether
the
two dimensions:
cineplastics.
"The
cinema,"
he wrote n
1922,
"is firstof all
plastic.
It
represents,
n
some
way,
an
architecture
n
movement
that shouldbe
in
constant
accord,
in
dynamically ursued
equilibrium,
with the
setting
and the
landscapes
within which it risesand falls."7
n Faure's
erms,
"plastic" rt was that which
"expresses
orm at rest and
in
movement,"
a mode common to the artsof
sculpture,
bas-
relief,
drawing,painting,
resco,
and
especially
dance,
but that
perhaps
achieved ts
highest
expression
n
the
cinema.8For
"the
cinema
incorporates
ime to
space.Better, ime, through
this,
really
becomes a dimensionof
space."9By
means of the
cinema,
Faure
claimed,
time becomes a veritable nstrument
of
space, "unrolling
nderour
eyes
its successivevolumes
ceaselessly
eturned
o us
in
dimensions
that allowus to
grasp
their
extent
in
surfaceand
depth."i?
The "hitherto
unknown
plasticpleasures"
hereby
discovered
would,
finally,
createa
new
kind
of architectural
pace,
akin to that
imaginary
pace
"within he wallsof the brain."
46
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8/21/2019 Anthony Vidler_the explosion of space.pdf
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Vidler
The notionof
duration
ntering
s a constitutive
lement nto the
notionof
space,
we
will
easily
magine
n artof
cineplastics
los-
soming
hatwouldbe no more
hanan ideal
architecture,
nd
where the
'cinemimic'
will
. ..
disappear,
because
only
a
great
artist
couldbuild
edifices hat
constitute
hemselves,
ollapse,
ndre-
constitute hemselves
gain
easelessly y
imperceptible
assages
of
tonesand
modeling
hatwill
hemselves e
architecturet
every
instant,
withoutour
being
able o
grasp
he
thousandth
art
of a
second
n
which he
transitionakes
place."
Such an
art,
Faure
predicted,
would
propel
he world nto
a
new stageof civilization,whoseprinciple orm of expression
would be an
architecture
based on the
appearance
f
mobile
industrial
onstructions,
hips,
trains,
cars,
and
airplanes,
together
with their
stable
ports
and
harbors.Cinema would
operate,
he
concluded,
as a kind
of
privileged"spiritual
rna-
ment" to this
machinecivilization:"the
most useful
social
play
for
the
development
of
confidence,
harmony,
and co-
hesionin
the masses."12
Spaces
of Horror
Criticsof the
first
generation
of German
expressionist
ilms
had
already xperienced uch a "cineplastic"evolution n
practice.
The
spate
of immediate
postwarproductions
n 1919
and 1920
(including
Paul
Wegener's
Der
Golem,
KarlHeinz
Martin'sVon
Morgens
bis
Mitternacht,
nd,
of
course,
Robert
Weine's Das
Kabinettdes Dr.
Caligari)
demonstrated
hat,
in
the wordsof
the German
art critic and New
YorkTimescorre-
spondent
HermanG.
Scheffauer,
new
"stereoscopic
ni-
verse"
was
in
the
making.
In
a
brilliant
analysis
published
at
the end of
1920,
Scheffauerhailed
the end of
the
"crude
phan-
tasmagoria"
f earlier ilms and
the birth
of a new
space.13
Space
hitherto
onsidered nd
treated
s
something
eadand
static,
amere nert
creenor
frame,
ften of no
more
ignificance
than
he
painted
balustrade-background
t the
village
photog-
rapher's hasbeensmitten nto ife,intomovement ndcon-
scious
expression.
fourth
dimension as
begun
o
evolveout of
this
photographic
cosmos.14
Thus
film
began
to
extend
what
Scheffauer alled"the sixth
sense of
man,
his
feeling
for
space
or
room
-
his
Raumgefiihl,"
in
such a
way
as to
transform
eality
tself.
No
longer
an inert
background,
rchitecture
ow
participated
n
the
very
emo-
tions of
the
film;
the
surroundings
o
longer
surrounded
ut
entered
the
experience
as
presence:
"The frown
of a
tower,
he
scowlof
a sinister
alley,
he
pride
and
serenity
of a
white
peak,
the
hypnotic
draught
of a
straight
oad
vanishing
o
point
these
exert their
nfluencesand
express
heir
natures;
heir
essencesflow over
the
scene and
blend with the
action."'5An
advance
on the
two-dimensionalworldof the
picture,
he
"scenic
architect" f films
such as
Caligari
could,
he
wrote,
dominate
"furniture,
oom,
house, street,
city,
landscape,
universe "
he "fourth
dimension"
f time
extended
space
n
depth:
"the
plastic
s
amalgamated
with
the
painted,
bulk
and
form
with the simulacra
f bulkand
form,false
perspective
and violent
foreshadowing
re
ntroduced,
eal
ight
and
shadow
combat or
reinforce
painted
shadowand
light.
Einstein's nvasion
of the law
of
gravity
s
made visible n
the
treatmentof
wallsand
supports."'6
Scheffauer
provided
a veritable
phenomenology
of the
spaces
of
Caligari.
A
corridor n an
office
building,
a street at
night,
an
attic
room,
a
prison
cell,
a
white and
spectral
bridge,
a
marketplace
all are
constructedout of
wallsat
once solid
and
transparent,
issured
and
veiled,
camouflaged
and
end-
lessly
disappearing,
resented
n
a
forcedand
distorted
per-
spective
that
pressesspace
both
backward
nd
forward,
inally
overwhelming
he
spectator's
own
space,
incorporating
t into
the vortexof
the whole
movie. In
his
description
of the
film's
environments,
Scheffauer
anticipated
all
the
later
common-
places
of
expressionist
riticism
rom
Siegfried
Kracauer
o
Rudolf
Kurz.
A
corridorn
an
office
building:
Wall
veering
utwardrom
he
floor,
raversed
y
sharply
efined
parallel
trips,
mphasizing
he
perspective
and
broken
violently by
pyramidal
openings,
streaming
with
light,
marking
he
doors;
he shadows
between
them
vibrat-
ing
as darkcones of
contrast,
the
furtherend of
the
corridor
murky,
giving
vast
distance. In the
foreground
a
section of
wall
violently
tilted
over
the heads
of the
audience,
as
it were.
The floor
crypticallypaintedwith errant ines of direction,the floor in front
of
the doors shows
cross
lines,
indicating
a
going
to and
fro,
in
and
out.
The
impression
s one of
formal
coldness,
of
bureaucratic
regularity,
of
semipublic
traffic.
A
street at
night:
Yawning
blackness
n
the
background
empty,
starless,
abstract
space,
against
it a
square,
opsided
lantern
hung
between
lurching
walls.
Doors
and
windows
constructed or
painted
n
wrenched
erspective.
ark
egments
n
the
pavement
accentuate the
diminishing
effect. The
slinking
of a
brutal
figure
47
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assemblage
21
2.
Robert
Weine,
Das
Kabinett
des Dr.
Caligari,
1920,
film
still
3. Paul
Wegener,
Der Golem:
Wie er
in
die Welt
kam, 1920,
film still
pressed
gainst
he wallsandevil
spots
and
shadings
n the
pave-
ment
give
a sinister
xpression
o the
street.Adroit
diagonals
ead
and
rivet he
eye.
An
attic: t
speaks
f
sordidness,
ant
andcrime.Thewhole
composition
vivid
ntersection f
conesof
light
and
dark,
f
roof-lines,
haftsof
light
and
slanting
walls.
A
projection
f white
and
black
patterns
n
the
floor,
he whole
geometrically
elt,
cubistically
onceived.This
attic s out of
time,
but
in
space.
The roof
chimneys
f
anotherworld riseand
scowl
hrough
he
splintered
indow-pane.
A
room;
rrather room hathas
precipitated
tself ncavern-like
lines,
n inverted
ollows f frozenwaves.Here
pace
becomes
cloistralnd
encompasses
he human
a manreads t a desk.A
triangular
indow
lares
nd
permits
he
livingday
a voice
n
this
composition.
A
prison-cell:
criminal,
roned
o a
huge
chainattached o
an
immense
rapezoidal
ball.'
The
posture
f the
prisoner
itting
on
his folded
egs
s
almostBuddha-like. ere
pace
urns
upon
tself,
encloses
nd
ocusesa human
destiny.
A
small
window,
ighup
and
crazily
arred,
s likean
eye.
The
walls,
loping
ikea tent's
o
an
invisible
oint,
areblazonedwithblackand
white
wedge-
shaped
ays.
These
blendwhen
hey
reach he floorand
unite
n
a
kindof
huge
cross,
n
the centerofwhich he
prisoner
its,
scowl-
ing,unshaven. hetragedyf therepressionf the human n
space
ina
trinity
f
space,
ate,
and
man.
A
whiteand
spectral ridge
awning
nd
rushing
ut of the fore-
ground:
t is an
erratic,
rregularauseway,
uchas blind
ghouls
might
havebuilt.It climbsand
strugglespward
lmostout of the
picture.
n
the middledistance t rises
nto
a
hump
andreveals
arches
taggering
ver
nothingness.
he
perspective ierces
nto
vacuity.
This
bridge
s the sceneof a wild
pursuit....
Several
spects
f the
marketplace
f a
small own:
..
the town
criesout its
will
hrough
ts
mouth,
his
marketplace.17
Caligari,
hen,
has
produced
an
entirely
new
space,
one that
is both
all-embracing
nd
all-absorbing
n
depth
and move-
ment.'8But the filmic medium allowed he explorationof
other kinds of
space
than the
totalizingplasticity
modeled
by
Walter
R6hrig,
Walter
Reimann,
and HermannWarm for
Weine's film. Scheffauer
also identified the "flat
space"
of
Martin'sVon
Morgens
bis
Mittemacht.
Rather
han
artificially
constructed
n
the round ike
Caligari,
he
space
was
sug-
gested
by
its
designer,
Robert
Neppach,
in
tones
of
blackand
white as "a
background,
ague,
nchoate,
nebulous."19 bove
and
around his
inactive
space
that makes the universe nto a
48
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Vidler
flat
plane
there is
only
"primeval
arkness";
ll
perspective
s
rendered
n
contrastsof white
planes
against
blackness.
n
Reimann's1920
film
fantasy
of
Paul
Scheerbart's
Algol,
Scheffauer
ound a
"geometrical pace."
In
this
meditation
on the
space
of
the
stars,
"the
forms arebroken
up expres-
sionistically,
but
space
acts
and
speaksgeometrically,
n
great
vistas,
n
grandiose
architectural ulminations.
Space
or
room
is divided
nto
formal
diapers,patterns, quares, pots,
and
circles,
of
cube
imposed upon
cube,
of
apartment
opening
into
apartment."20inally,
Scheffauernoted
what
he termed
"sculptural"
r
"solid"
pace,
as modeled
by
the
Poelzigs
for
Wegener's
Der
Golem.
Professor
oelzig
onceives
f
space
n
plastic
erms,
n solid
concretions
ongealing
nder he
artist's
and o
expressive
nd
organic
orms.He
works, herefore,
n
the
solid
masses
of the
sculptor
ndnot
with he
planes
of
the
painter.
Underhis
caress-
ing
handsa
weirdbut
spontaneous
nternal
rchitecture,
hell-like,
cavernous,omber,
as
been evolved
n
simple,
lowing
ines,
instinct with the bizarre
spirit
of the tale .... The
gray
soul
of
medieval
Prague
asbeen molded nto these
eccentric
nderrant
crypts....
Poelzig
eeks
o
give
an
eerie
and
grotesque
uggestive-
ness
to
the
flights
of housesand
streets hat are o furnish he
external
etting
of this
film-play.
he willof this
master rchitect
animating
acades
nto
faces,
nsists hat thesehousesare o
speak
in
jargon
and
gesticulate 21
Pan-Geometries
In
assimilating
ilmic
space
to
the
theoretical
ypes
of
Raum
adumbrated
n
German
philosophy
and
psychology
ince
Theodor
Vischer,
and
in
proposing
he
relativity
f
spatial
forms
n
the face
of
continuous
optical
movement
in
a
way
reminiscentof the
historical
relativity
f
optical
forms
demonstrated
by
Alois
Riegl,
Scheffauer eems also to have
anticipated
he
more
scholarly
ccount of
perspectival
is-
tory developed
between 1923and 1925
by
Erwin
Panofsky.
Panofsky's ssay
"Perspective
s
Symbolic
Form" et out
to
show that the various
perspective ystems
from Roman times
to
the
present
were not
simply
"incorrect"nstancesof
repre-
senting reality,
but
rather,
were endowed with
distinct and
symbolic
meaning
of
their
own,
as
powerful
and
as
open
to
reading
as
iconographicalypes
and
genres.
Panofsky
ven
took
note
of
the modernist
will
to break
with the conventions
of
perspective,
eeing
it as
yet
another
stage
of
perspective
vision itself. He cited
expressionism's
esistance o
perspec-
tive as the last remnant
of
the
will
to
capture
"real,
hree-
dimensional
space,"
n
particular,
El
Lissitzky's
esire
to
overcome he bounds of finite
space:
Older
perspective
s
supposed
o
have limited
pace,
made t
fi-
nite,
closed t
off,'
conceived f
space
according
o
Euclidian
e-
ometry
s
rigid hree-dimensionality,'
nd
t
is
these
very
bonds
which
he most recentarthas
attempted
o
break.Either t has
n
a sense
exploded
he
entire
paceby'dispersing
he centerof
vi-
sion'
('Futurism'),
r t has
sought
no
longer
o
representepth
intervals
extensively'y
meansof
foreshortenings,
ut
rather,
n
accordwith he most modern
nsights
f
psychology,
nly
o cre-
ate an illusion
intensively'y
playing
olor urfaces ff
against
each
other,
each
differently
laced,differently
haded,
nd
only
n
this
way
urnished
withdifferent
patial
alues
Mondrian
nd
n
particular
Malevich's
Suprematism').
heauthor
El
Lissitzky]
believes
he
can
suggest
third
olution: he
conquest
f
'imagi-
nary pace'
by
meansof
mechanically
otivated
odies,
which
by
this
very
movement,
y
their
rotation r
oscillation,
roduce re-
cise
figures
for
example, rotating
tick
produces
n
apparent
circle,
or
in
another
osition,
n
apparent ylinder,
ndso
forth).
In
this
way,
n
the
opinion
of El
Lissitzky,
rt s elevated o the
standpoint
f a
non-Euclidian
an-geometry
whereas
n
factthe
spaceof those imaginary'otating odies s no less Euclidian'
than
any
other
empiricalpace.)22
DespitePanofsky'skepticism,
t
was,
of
course,
such a
"pan-geometric"pace
that architecture
hoped
to construct
through
abstraction nd
technologically
nduced
movement.
Architects rom
El
Lissitzky
o Bruno
Taut were to
experi-
ment
with
this
new
pan-geometry
s
if
it would enable them
finally,
n
ErnstBloch's
words,
"to
depict
empirically
n
imaginarypace."
For
Bloch,
the
underlying
Euclidiannature
of
all
space
offeredthe
potential
for
architecture o
approach
pan-geometry
n
reality.
Basing
his
argument
on
Panofsky's
essay,
he
commended
expressionists
or
havinggenerated
rotating
and
turning
bodies
that
produced"stereometric
figures
.. which at least have
nothing
in
commonwith the
perspective
visual
space
(Sehraum)";
ut
of
this
procedure
emerged
"an
architecture
f the
abstract,
whichwants to be
quasi-meta-cubic."23
or
Bloch,
this
potential
allowedmod-
ern
architecture
o
achieve ts own
"symbolic
allusions,"
ven
if
these were
founded
on
the "so-called
un-Euclidian
pan-
geometry"
riticized
by
Panofsky.24
n
this
illusion,
the archi-
tects
were
encouraged
by
the
cinematographers
hemselves,
49
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assemblage
21
who,
at least
in
the 1920s ed
by
Fritz
Lang
and F.
W.
Murnau,
accepted
the
practical ulings
of
the Universum
Film
A.G.,
or
UFA,
whose
proscription
gainst
exterior ilm-
ing supported
he
extraordinaryxperimentation
n
set
design
of
the Weimar
period.
Psycho-Spaces
But
the
attempt
to
construct hese
imaginary
ew worlds
was,
as
Panofsky
had
noted,
not
simply
formalistic
nd deco-
rative;
ts
premise
was
from the outset
psychological,
ased
on what Rudolf Kurzdefined as the
"simple
aw of
psycho-
logical
aesthetics
that when we feel our
way
into certain
formsexact
psychic
correspondences
re
set
up."25
Hugo
Miinsterberg,
n
his 1916 workFilm:
A
Psychological
tudy,
had
already
et out the terms of the
equation,
film
equals
psychological
orm.26For
Miinsterberg,
ilm
differed rom
drama
by
its
appeal
to the
"innermovements of the
mind."
To be
sure,
he events nthe
photoplay appen
n the real
pace
with ts
depth.
But
he
spectator
eels hat
they
arenot
presented
in
the
threedimensions f the outer
world,
hat
they
are lat
pic-
tureswhich
only
he
mind
molds
nto
plastic
hings.Again
he
eventsareseen ncontinuousmovement;ndyetthepictures
break
p
the movement nto a
rapid
uccession
f instantaneous
impressions....
The
photoplay
ellsus
the human
tory
by
over-
coming
he forms f the outer
world,
amely, pace,
ime,
and
causality,
nd
by
adjusting
he events o the
forms f the
inner
world,
amely,
ttention,
memory,magination,
ndemotion.27
Only
two
years
ater,
n
one of his
first
critical
essays,
Louis
Aragon
was to note this
property
f the
film
to focus atten-
tion and reformulate
he real
nto
the
imaginary,
he
ability
to fuse the
physical
and
the
mental,
later to become a surreal-
ist
obsession.
Seeminglyanticipating
he mental states of
AndreBreton'sNadja
or of his
own
Paysan
de
Paris,
but
re-
vealed
n
film,
Aragon
meditatedon the "the door
of a bar
that swingsandon the window the capital etters of unread-
able
and marvelous
words,
or the
vertiginous,
housand-eyed
facade
of the
thirty-story
ouse."28
he
possibility
of
disclos-
ing
the
inner
"menacing
or
enigmatic
meanings"
of
everyday
objects
by simple
close-up techniques
and camera
angles,
light,
shade,
and
space
established,
or
Aragon,
he
poetic
potential
of the
art:"To endow
with a
poetic
value that
which does not
yet possess
t,
to
willfully
estrict he field
of
vision so
as
to
intensifyexpression:
hese are
two
properties
that
help
make cinematic decor the
adequate
setting
of mod-
ern
beauty."29
For
this, however,
ilm had no need of an
artificially
on-
structed
decor that simulated he
foreshortening
f
perspec-
tive
or
the
phobic
characteristics f
space;
he
framings
and
movements
of the
camera tself
would
serve
o
construct
reality
armore
freely.
In his later 1934
essay "Style
and
Medium
in
the Motion Pictures,"
Panofsky
himself
argued
againstanyattemptto subjectthe world o "artisticpre-
stylization,
as
in
the
expressionist ettings
of The Cabinet
of
Dr.
Caligari,"
s "no more than an
exciting experiment."
"To
prestylize ealityprior
o
tackling
t amounts
to
dodging
the
problem,"
he
concluded:"The
problem
s
to
manipulate
and
shoot
unstylizedreality
n
such
a
way
that
the
result
has
style.-30
The Lureof the Street
In
such
terms,
from the mid-1920s
on,
critics
ncreasingly
denouncedwhat
they
saw as the
purely
decorativeand
staged
characteristics
f the
expressionist
ilm
in
favorof a more
directconfrontationwith the "real."
f,
as
Panofsky
sserted,
"these
unique
and
specific possibilities"
f
film
could
be
"defined
as
dynamization
f
space
and,
accordingly,
patiali-
zation
of
time,"
hen it was the lens of the
camera,
and not
any
distorted
set,
that inculcateda sense of motion
in
the
static
spectator,
and thence a mobilizationof
space
itself:
"Not
only
bodies move
in
space,
but
space
itself
does,
ap-
proaching, eceding, urning,dissolving
and
recrystallizing
s
it
appears hrough
he
controlled ocomotion and
focusing
of
the cameraand
through
he
cutting
and
editing
of the
vari-
ous shots."3'
And
this led
to
the
inevitableconclusion
that
the
proper
medium
of the movies was
not
the idealization
of
reality,as
in
the
other
arts,
but
"physical eality
as
such."32
MarcelCarne's rustrated
question,
"When
Will
the Cinema
Go Down into the
Street?"
alling
for an end to artificeand
the
studio
set and a confrontation
of the "real," s
opposed
to
the "constructed"
aris,
was
only
one
of a numberof increas-
ingly
ritical ttacks n the
architecturalet
in
the
early
1930s.33
Among
the most
rigorous
f
the
new
realists,
Siegfried
Kracauer,
imself a former
architect,
was
consistent
in
his
50
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Vidler
argumentsagainst
he
"decorative"
nd artificial
and
in
favor
of the critical
vision of
the realthat
film allowed.
From his
first
experience
of
film as a
pre-World
War I child
to his
last
theoretical
workon
film
published
n
1960,
Kracauer
ound
the
street to
be both site and vehicle
for his social
criticism.
Recalling
he first
filmhe sawas a
boy
-
entitled,
signifi-
cantly enough,
Film as the
Discoverer
f
the Marvels
f
Every-
day
Life
-
Kracauer
emembered
being
thrilled
by
the
sight
of "an
ordinary
uburban
treet,
filled with
lights
and shad-
owswhich
transfigured
t. Several
rees stood
about,
and
there
was
in
the
foreground
puddle
reflecting
nvisible
house
facades
and a
piece
of
sky.
Then a
breeze moved
the
shadows,
and the
fatades
with the
sky
below
began
to waver.
The
trembling
upper
world
n
the
dirty
puddle
-
this
image
hasnever eft
me."34 or
Kracauer,
ilm
was
first and
foremost
a
materialrather
han
purely
ormal
aesthetics that
was es-
sentially
suited to the
recording
of the
fleeting,
the
tempo-
rally
ransient,
he
momentary mpression
that
is,
the
modern
-
and a
quality
hat made the
"street"
n
all
its
manifestations
an
especially
avored ubject
matter.
If the
snapshot
stressed he
randomand the
fortuitous,
hen its
natural
development
n
the
motion-picture
camera
was
"par-
tial to the leastpermanentcomponentsof ourenvironment,"
rendering
"the street
in
the
broadestsense
of the word" he
place
for chanceencounters
and social observation.35
ut for
this to
workas a
truly
critical
method of observation
and
recording,
he street
would first
have to be offered
up
as an
"unstaged
eality";
what Kracauer
onsidered
ilm's "declared
preference
or nature
n
the
raw"was
easily
defeated
by
artifi-
ciality
and
"staginess,"
whetherthe
staged "drawing
rought
to life" of
Caligari
or the more
filmic
staging
of
montage,
panning,
and
cameramovement.
Lang's
Metropolis
f
1926
was
an
example
of this latter kind
of
staging,
where
"a
film
of
unsurpassable taginess"
was
partially
edeemed
by
the
way
in
which crowds
were treated "and
rendered
hrough
a combi-
nation of long shotsandclose shotswhichprovideexactlythe
kind of random
mpressions
we would
receivewere
we to
witness this
spectacle
n reality."36
et,
for
Kracauer,
he
impact
of the
crowd
mages
was obviated
by
the architectural
settings
that remained
entirelystylized
and
imaginary.
A
similar
case was
representedby
Walter Ruttmann's
Berlin:
Die
Symphonie
iner
Groszstadt
f
1927,
where
n a Vertov-
like
manipulation
of shot and
montage
the director ried to
.^^^^^
M
...llM^
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
rum
^r^r--p
jAuiAi
JWp
-
-
FW
4a-b. Walter
Ruttmann,
Berlin:
Die Sinfonie einer
Groszstadt,
1927,
film
stills
51
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assemblage
21
capture
"simultaneous
henomena
which,
owing
to
certain
analogies
and
contrasts
between
them,
form
comprehensible
patterns....
He cuts
from human
legs
walking
he street to
the
legs
of a
cow and
juxtaposes
he lusciousdishesin
a de-
luxe restaurant
with
the
appalling
ood
of the
very
poor."37
Such
formalism,
however,
ended to
concentrateattention
not on
things
themselvesandtheir
meaning,
but on
their
formal
characteristics. s
Kracauer oted
with
respect
to the
capturing
of
the
city's
movement
in
rhythmic
hots,
"tempo
_
i
"
is also
a formal
conception
if
it is not defined with
reference
:
to
the
qualities
of the
objects
through
which it
materializes."38
-
For
Kracauer,
he
street,
properly
ecorded,
offereda
virtually
inexhaustible
ubject
for
the
comprehension
of
modernity;
ts
-'H
special
characteristics
osterednot
only
the chance
and the
random,
but
more
importantly,
he
necessary
distance, f
not
:
alienation,
of the
observer or
whom the
camera
eye
was a
precise
surrogate.
f in
the
photographs
f Charles
Marville r
EugeneAtget
we
might
detect a
certain
melancholy,
hiswas
because the
photographic
medium
intersecting
with
the
street
as
subject
fostereda kind of
self-estrangement,
llow-
ing
for a closer
dentificationwith
the objects
being
observed.
"The
dejected individual s
likely
o lose
himself
in
the inci-
dental
configurations
f his environment,
absorbing
hem
with a
disinterested
ntensity
no
longer
determined
by
his
previous
preferences.
His is a kind of
receptivity
which re-
sembles that of
Proust's
photographer
ast
in
the role of a
stranger."39
ence,
for Kracauer
nd his friend
Walter Ben-
jamin,
the close
identificationof the
photographer
with the
flaneur,
and
the
potential
of
flanerie
and its
techniques
to
furnishmodels for
the modernist
ilmmaker:
The
melancholy
haracters
seen
strolling
bout
aimlessly:
s he
proceeds,
is
changing
urroundings
ake
shape
n
the formof
numerous
uxtaposed
hotsof
house
acades,
eon
ights, tray
5.
Eugne
Atget,
entrance o
passers-by,
nd he like.
It is
inevitablehat the
audience hould
the
passage
de
la
Reunion,
trace heir eemingly nmotivatedmergenceo hisdejection nd Paris, 908
the alienation
n
its wake.40
In
this
respect,
what Kracauer aw as Eisenstein's"identifi-
cation
of life with the
street" ook on new
meaning
as the
flaneur-photographer
oved to
capture
he flow
of
fleeting
impressions
hat
Kracauer'seacher
Georg
Simmel
had char-
acterizedas
"snapshots
f
reality."
When
history
s made
in the
streets,
the streets
tend to move onto
the screen,"
concluded Kracauer.
52
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Vidler
Filming
the
City
Other critics
were more
optimistic
about the
potential
of
filmic
techniques
to rendera
versionof
reality
hat
might
otherwise
go
unrecorded,
r
better,
to reconstrue
eality
n
such
a
way
that
it
might
be
critically pprehended.
Thus
Benjamin's
elebrated
eulogy
of filmas
liberty
of
perception
in
"The Work of
Art in the
Age
of Mechanical
Reproduction"
was a first
step
in
the constitution of the
filmic as the modern
criticalaesthetic:
Byclose-ups
f
the
things
around
s,
by focusing
n hiddendetails
of familiar
bjects,
by exploring ommonplace
milieusunder
he
ingenious uidance
f the
camera,
he
film,
on the one
hand,
ex-
tends
our
comprehension
f the necessitieswhich
ruleour
ives;
on the other
hand,
t
manages
o assure
s of an immense
ndun-
expected
ield
of action.Our averns ndour
metropolitan
treets,
ourofficesand
urnished
ooms,
urrailroadtations
ndour ac-
tories
appeared
o
haveus locked
up hopelessly.
hen came
he
filmandburst his
prison-world
sunder
y
the
dynamite
f the
tenth of
a
second,
o
that
now,
n
the midstof its
far-flung
uins
and
debris,
we
calmly
nd
adventurouslyotraveling.
With the
close-up, paceexpands;
withslow
motion,
movements ex-
tended ....
An
unconsciously penetrated space
is substituted
for
a
space consciously explored by
man.
....
The camera introduces
us to unconscious
ptics
as does
psychoanalysis
o unconscious
impulses.41
Unconscious
optics
-
the filmic unconscious
was,
for
Benjamin,
tself a
kind of
analysis,
he closest aesthetic
equivalent
o
Freud's
own
Psychopathology
f
Everyday
ife,
in
its
ability
o focus and
deepen perception.
In
this
characteristic,
ilm
obviously
outdistanced
architec-
ture;
Benjamin's
emark hat
"architecture
as
always
repre-
sented the
prototype
of
a
work
of
art the
reception
of
which is
consummated
by
the
collectivity
n a
state of distraction"was
made
in
this
very
context: the assertionof the "shockeffect"
of the film as that which allows he public,no longerdis-
tracted,
o be once more
put
in
the
position
of the critic.
Thus
the
only way
to renderarchitecture ritical
again
was to
wrest
t
out
of
its
uncritically
bserved
context,
its distracted
state,
and offer it to a now attentive
public
-
that
is,
to
make
a
film
of the
building.
Or of the
city.
In
an evocative
remark
nserted
apparently
t
random
among
the
unwieldy
collection
of
citations
and
apho-
risms hat
make
up
the unfinished
Passagen-Werk,
enjamin
opened
the
possibility
of
yet
another
way
of
reading
his unfin-
ished work:was it not
perhaps
he sketch of a
screenplay
or a
movie of
Paris?
Couldone not shoota
passionate
ilm
of the
city
plan
of Paris?Of
the
development
f its differentorms
Gestalten]
n
temporal
succession? f
the
condensation
f a
century-long
ovement f
streets,boulevards,
assages,
quares,
n
the
space
of half
an
hour?
Andwhat
else
does
he
flaneur
o?42
In
this
context,
might
not the endless
quotations
and
apho-
risticobservations f the
Passagen-Werk,
arefullywrittenout
on hundredsof
single
index
cards,
each
one
letter-,
number-,
and
color-coded o cross-referencehem to all the
rest,
be
construedas so
many
shots,
ready
o be
montaged
nto
the
epic
movie
Paris,
Capital
of
the Nineteenth
Century
a
prehistory
f
modernity, inally
realized
bymodernity's
wn
special
form
of
mechanical
reproduction?
While
obviously
no
"film"
of this
kind
was ever
made,
an
attempt
to answer
he
hypotheticalquestion,
what would
Benjamin's
ilm
of Parishave looked ike?would
clarify
what
we
might
call his "filmic
maginary."
uch an
imaginary,
overt
in
the
Passagen-Werk
nd the
contemporary
ssay
"The
Workof Artin the Ageof MechanicalReproduction"nd
covert
n
many
earlier
writings
rom
those
on
Germanba-
roque allegory
o those on historical
orm,
might,
in
turn,
reveal
mportantaspects
of
the theoretical
problems
nherent
in
the filmic
representation
f the
metropolis.
For
in
the
light
of
Benjamin's
heoriesof the
political
and
social
powers
of
mechanical
reproduction
s outlined
in
his
"Conversations
with BertoltBrecht," t is clearfrom the outset that
any
project
or a film of
Pariswould
in
no
way
have resembled
other urban ilms of the
interwar
period,
whether
dealist,
expressionist,
r
realist.
Rather,
t would have
involved
Ben-
jamin
n
an act of theoretical
elaboration
hat,
based
on
pre-
viousfilm
theory
and
criticism,
would have constructed
new
kinds of
optical
relationsbetween
the
camera
and the
city,
film
and architecture.These
would no doubt have been
establishedon the
complex
notion of
"the
optical
uncon-
scious,"an
intercalation f Freud and
Riegl,
that
appears
n
Benjamin's
writings
on
photography
nd film in
the late
1920s and
early
1930s.
On one
level,
Benjamin's
ragmentary
emark
s
easily
deci-
pherable:
what he had
in
mind was
evidently
an
image
of the
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assemblage
21
combined resultsof the
flaneur's
peripatetic
vision
montaged
onto the
history
of the nineteenth
century
and
put
in
motion
by
the movie camera.No
longer
wouldthe
implied
move-
ment
of
Bergsonian
mental
processes
or the turns of
allegori-
cal text
have to make
do
as
pale
imitationsof
metropolitan
movement;
now the real
movement
of
the
film
would,
finally,
merge technique
and content as a
proof,
so to
speak,
of the
manifest
destiny
of
modernity.
n
this
sense,
Benjamin's
metaphor
of a
Parisian ilm remains
just
that:
a
figure
of
modernist
echnique
as the fullest
expression
of modernist
thought,
as
well as the
explanation
of
its
origins.
Certainly,
t is not too difficult to
imagine
the
figure
of
Benjamin's
ldneur,
Vertov-like,
arrying
is cameraas a third
eye,
framing
and
shooting
the
rapidlymoving pictures
of
modern ife. The
etchings
of
Jacques
Callot,
the thumbnail
sketches
of
Augustin
Saint-Aubin,
he tableauxof
Sebastien
Mercier,
he
rapidrenderings
f Constantin
Guys,
the
prose
poems
of
Charles
Baudelaire,
he
snapshots
of
Atget
are all
readily
ransposed
nto the
vocabulary
f
film,
which then
literally
mimics the
fleeting
impressions
f
everyday
ife
in
the
metropolis
n
its
very echniques
of
representation.
ndeed,
almost
every
characteristic
Benjamin
associateswith
the
flineur
might
be associated
with
the
film
director
with
little
or no distortion.An
eye
for
detail,
forthe
neglected
andthe
chance;
a
penchant
for
joining
reality
and
reverie;
distanced
vision,
apart
rom
that distracted
and
unself-conscious
xist-
ence
of
the
crowd;
a
fondness
for the
marginal
and the
forgot-
ten: these are traitsof
flaneur
and filmmaker
like.
Both share
affinitieswith the detective
and the
peddlar,
he
ragpicker
and
the
vagabond;
oth aestheticizethe
roles and materials
with which
they
work.
Equally,
he
typical
habitats
of
the
flaneur
end
themselves
to filmic
representation:
he
banlieue,
the
margins,
he
zones,
and outskirts
of the
city;
the deserted
streetsand
squares
at
night;
the crowded
boulevards,
he
phantasmagoric assages,arcades,anddepartmentstores; he
spatialapparatus,
hat
is,
of the consumer
metropolis.
On
another
evel, however,
f
we take the
image iterally
rather han
metaphorically,
numberof
puzzling
questions
emerge.
A filmof Paris s
certainly
onceivable,
but what
would a
film of
"the
plan
of Paris"ook like?
And
if
we
were to
succeed
in
filming
this
plan,
how then
might
it
depict
the
development
of the
city's
"forms" its
boulevards, treets,
6.
Atget,
Au
Tambour,63, quai
de
la
Tournelle, Paris,
1908
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Vidler
squares,
and
passages
at the same time
as
"condensing"
century
of their
history
nto half an hour?How
might
such a
film,
if
realized,
be
"passionate"?
f,
as
Benjamin
ntimates,
the model of the
film
directorwasto be foundin the
figure
of the
flaneur,
how
might
this
figure
ranslate
his
essentially
nineteenth-century
habits
of
walking
and
seeing
into cine-
matographic
erms?
It
seems
that,
step by
step,
within the
very
movement of
Benjamin's
wn
metaphor,
he ostensible
unity
of
the
image
is
systematically
ndermined;
as
though
the result
of
making
a film
of the
plan
of Pariswere to
repli-
cate the
very
ragmentation
f
modernity
hat the
metropolis
poses,
the
flaneur
sees,
andthe
film
concretizes.
Benjamin's
image
thus
emerges
as a
complex
rebus
of
method and form.
Its
very
self-enclosed
elegance,beginning
with the
film
and
ending
withthe
flaneur
as director
a
perfectexample
of a
romantic
ragment urning
n
on itself
according
o Friedrich
Schelling's
rules),
seems
consciously
structured o
provoke
ts
own
unraveling.
t
is
as if
Benjamin
nsertedhis cinemato-
graphic
conundrum nto the formlessaccumulationof
the
citations
and
aphorisms
of
the
Passagen-Werk
o
provoke,
n
its
deciphering,
a self-conscious
ambiguity
about the
implied
structure
of his
text, and,
at
the
same
time,
a
speculation
on
the theoryof filmthathe neverwrote.
For
it was not
simply
that the
flaneur
and
the filmmaker
shared
spaces
and
gazes;
or
Benjamin,
hese
characteristics
were
transferred,
s
in
analysis,
o the
spaces
themselves,
which became
vagabonds
n
their own
right.
He
spoke
of the
phenomenon
of
the
"colportage,
r
peddling
of
space,"
as
the fundamental
experience
of
the
flaneur,
where a kind
of
Bergsonian imultaneity
allowed"the
simultaneous
percep-
tion of
everything
hat
potentially
s
happening
n
this
single
space.
The
space
directs
winks
at the
flaneur."43
hus
the
flaneur
as
ragpicker
nd
peddlar
participates
n
his surround-
ings,
even as
they
cooperate
with
him in
his unofficialarchae-
ology
of
spatialsettings.
And,
to
paraphrase enjamin,
what
else does the filmmakerdo? for
a viewernow
opened
up
"in
his
susceptibility
o the
transientreal-life
phenomena
that
crowd he screen."44
Architectural
Montage
Here we are returned o
Eisenstein's
"street,"
eminded,
in
Benjamin's
desireto have
shot
a
"passionate"
ilm,
of
Eisenstein's
own
long analyses
of the
notion of
filmic
"ecstasy,
the
simultaneouscause and
effect
of
movement in the
movie.
For
Eisenstein,
the "ecstatic"wasin
fact the
fundamental
sharedcharacteristic f
architecture nd film. Even
as architec
tural
styles,
one
by
one,
"exploded"
nto each
other
in a kind
of
inevitable
historical
process,
so
the filmmaker
might
force the
shot
to
decompose
and
recompose
n
successive
explosions.
Thus the
principles
f the
Gothic .
.
seemto
explode
he balance f the Ro-
manesque tyle.And,within he Gothic tself,we could race he
stirring icture
f
movement
f
its lancetworld rom
he firstal-
most ndistinct
teps
oward
he ardent
models
of
the mature nd
postmature,
flamboyant'
ate Gothic.
We
could,
ike
Wolfflin,
on
trast
he
Renaissance
nd
Baroque
nd
nterpret
he excited
pirit
of
the
second,
winding
ikea
spiral,
san
ecstatically
ursting
em-
perament
f a
new
epoch,
exploding receding
orms
f
art
n
the
enthusiasmsora new
quality, esponding
o a newsocial
phase
of a
single
historical
rocess.45
But Eisenstein
goes
further. n an
essay
on
two Piranesi
ngrav
ings
for the
early
and late states of
the Carceri
eries,
he
com-
pares
architectural
omposition
itself to
cinematic
montage,
an
implicit
"flux
of
form"
hat
holds
withinitself the
potential
to explodeinto successivestates.6Buildingon his experience
as
architectand set
designer,
Eisenstein
developed
a
compre-
hensive
theory
of what he called
"space
constructions"
hat
found
new
meaning
in
the
romantic ormulation
of architec-
ture
as
"frozenmusic":
At thebasisof the
composition
f its
ensemble,
t the basisof the
harmony
f its
conglomerating
asses,
n
the
establishmentf the
melody
f the futureoverflow f
its
forms,
nd
n
the
execution f
its
rhythmic
arts,
ivingharmony
o the reliefof
its
ensemble,
ies
that same
dance' hat s alsoatthe basisof the
creation f
music,
painting,
nd
cinematic
montage.47
For
Eisenstein,
a kind
of
relentless
vertigo
s set
up by
the
play
of architectural orms n space,a vertigo hat is easilyassimi-
lable to
Thomas De
Quincey's
celebratedaccount of
Samuel
Coleridge's
reaction o Piranesi's
Carceri,
r
better,
to
Nikolai
Gogol's reading
of
the Gothic as a
style
of
endless movement
and
internal
explosions.48
And
if
Eisensteincan
"force,"o use
ManfredoTafuri's
erm,
these
representations
f
architectural
pace
to
"explode"
nto
the successive
stages
of
their
"montage" ecomposition
and
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assemblage
21
recomposition,
as
if
they
were so
many
"shots,"
hen it is be-
cause,
for
Eisenstein,
architecture tself embodies the
prin-
ciples
of
montage.
Indeed,
its
especial
characteristics f a
spatial
art
experienced
n
time render t the
predecessor
f
film in
more than
simple analogy.
In
the article
"Montage
and
Architecture,"
written
n
the
late
1930sas a
part
of the
uncompleted
workon
montage,
Eisen-
stein
sets out this
position, contrasting
wo
"paths"
f the
spatialeye:
the
cinematic,
where a
spectator
ollowsan
imagi-
nary ine amonga seriesof objects,through he sightas well
as
in
the
mind
-
"diverse
mpressionspassing
n
front
of
an
immobile
spectator"
and the
architectural,
where "the
spectator
moved
through
a seriesof
carefullydisposedphe-
nomenawhichhe absorbed
n
orderwith his visualsense."49
In
this transition
rom real
to
imaginary
movement,
architec-
ture is film's
predecessor.
Where
painting
"remained
nca-
pable
of
fixing
the
total
representation
f
a
phenomenon
in
its full
multi-dimensionality"
nd
"only
he
film camerahas
solved the
problem
of
doing
this on
a
flat
surface,"
its
un-
doubted ancestor
n
this
capability
s
...
architecture."50
Eisenstein,
as is well
known,
used
Auguste
Choisy'sperspec-
tive views
of
the
Acropolis
o
demonstratehis
theory
of
movementand
montage
in
space, following
Le Corbusier's
own
reproduction
f these
images
in
Vers
une architectureo
exemplify
he
notion of the
promenade
rchitecturale.i
But
in
their use of a common
source
to
demonstrate
architecture's
otential
for
a
staging
of
movement,
neither
Eisenstein
nor Le Corbusierwere
admitting
any
lesser
au-
tonomy
for their
respective patialdisciplines.
For
Eisenstein,
the
Acropolis
implyproved
hat architecture
was a
fitting
"ancestor"o
film;
for
Le
Corbusier,
t
permitted
a return o
the
"original"
odily
and sensational ources
of the
plan.52
Both
would have
agreed
with
Robert
Mallet-Stevens,
who
was troubled
by
the invasionof the decorative
nto filmic
architecture,he potentialto create"imaginary"ormsthat
illustrated ather
han
provided ettings
for human
psycho-
logical
emotions. Mallet-Stevens
warned
against
he
ten-
dency
to view architecture sa
photogenic
aid to
film,
thereby
creating
a "foreseen"
ynamic
hat
in
real
space
would be
provided
by
the
human
figure:
"the
ornament,
he
arabesque,
s the mobile
personage
who creates
hem."53
Rather
han
expressionistbuildings mitating
their
cinematic
counterparts,
e called for a radical
implification
of architec-
ture that would,
in
this
way,
offer itself
up naturally
o the
filmic
action,
always
preserving
he distancebetween the real
and the
imaginary.
Real ife is
entirely
different,
he house is
made to live, it should first
respond
o our needs."54
roperly
handled,however,
architecture nd film
might
be
entirely
complementary.
He cited a
screenplay y
Ricciotto
Canudo
that would
perhaps
realize his ideal:
It concernedhe
representation
f a
solitary
woman,
righteningly
alone nlife,surroundedythevoid,andnothingness. he decor:
composed
f
inarticulate
ines,
mmovable,
epeated,
withoutor-
nament:
o
window,
o
door,
no furnituren the "field" ndat the
centerof these
rigid
parallels
womanwhoadvanced
lowly.
ub-
titlesbecome
useless,
rchitecture
ituates he
person
nddefines
herbetter
han
any
ext.55
In
this vision of a cinematic architecture
hat would
through
its own laws
of
perspective
eturn o the essentialcharacteris-
ticsof
building,
Mallet-Stevens choed Le Corbusierand
anticipated
Eisenstein.
In
his
depiction
of a
decor framedas
the
very mage
of
isolation,
agoraphobic
r
claustrophobic,
e
also answered hose
in
Germany
who were
attempting
to
"express"
n
spatial
distortion
what a
simple manipulation
of
the camera n
space might accomplish.
Such
arguments
over
the
potentialities
of a "filmicarchitec-
ture"have
hardly
ceased
with the
gradual
demise of cinema
and the rise
of
its
own
"natural"uccessors video
and
digital
hyperspatialmaging.
That the influence
of
these new
forms
of
spatialrepresentation
n
architecture
might
be as
disturbing
as those observed
by
Le Corbusier
and Mallet-
Stevens
is
at
least
possible
o
hazard,
as
buildings
and their
spatialsequences
are
designed
moreas illustrations f
implied
movement,
or
worse,
as
literal
fabrications f the
computer's-
eye
view.
7.
Rebecca
Horn,
Der Eintanzer,
1978,
film
still
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r
t
<
..
Os
i
Y
??~~~~
ft
?
:
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21
Notes
1.
Dziga
Vertov,
Kino-Eye:
The
Writings
of
Dziga
Vertov,
d.
Annette
Michelson,
trans. Kevin
O'Brien
(Berkeley:University
of
California
Press,
1984),
17.
2.
Le
Corbusier,
"Esprit
de
verite,"
Mouvement
1
(June
1933):
10-13,
translated
n
Richard
Abel,
French
Film
Theory
nd Criticism:
A
His-
tory/Anthology,
vols.
(Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press,
1988),
2:111-13.
3. See
Georges
Melies,
"LesVues
cinematographiques"
1907),
in
Marcel
L'Herbier,
L'Intelligence
u
cinematographe
Paris:
Editions
Corea,
1946),
179-87,
and
Eric
Rohmer,
"Cinema:
The Art of
Space"
(1948),
in
Eric
Rohmer,
The
Taste
for
Beauty,
rans. Carol
Volk
(Cambridge:Cambridge
University
Press,
1989),
19-29.
4. The best
discussion of the
archi-
tectural
contribution to set
design,
in the context of the
expressionist
twenties,
is still Lotte H.
Eisner's
L'Ecran
demoniaque
Paris:
Eric
Losfeld,
1965).
5. Robert
Mallet-Stevens,
"Le
Cinema et les arts:
L'Architecture,"
Les Cahiers
du
Mois-Cinema
1925);
reprinted
n
L'Herbier,
L'Intelli-
gence
du
cinematographe,
88.
6. Abel
Gance,
"Qu'est-ce
que
le
cinematographe?
Un
sixieme
art,"
Cine-Journal
95,
no.
9
(March
1912);
reprinted
n
L'Herbier,
L'In-
telligence
du
cinematographe,
2.
7. "Le cinema
est
plastique
d'abord:
il
represente,
en
quelque
sorte,
une
architecture
en mouvement
qui
doit
etre
en accord
constant,
en
equilibre
dynamiquement
poursuivi
avec
le
milieu
et les
paysages
ou
elle
s'eleve
et
s'ecroule"
Elie
Faure,
"De la
cineplastique,"
n L'Arbre 'Eden
[Paris:
Editions
Cres,
1922];
re-
printed
in
L'Herbier,
L'Intelligence
du
cinematographe,
68).
8. "La
plastique
est l'art
d'exprimer
la forme en
repos
ou en mouve-
ment"
(ibid., 268).
9. "Le cinema
incorpore
e
temps
a
l'espace.
Mieux. Le
temps, par
ui,
devient reellement une dimension
de
l'espace"
(ibid., 275).
10. "Nous avons
deja
faitdu
temps
un
organe
qui
joue
son role dans
l'organisme patiale
meme,
deroulant
sous nos
yeux
ses volumes
successifs ramenes sans cesse
pour
nous aux dimensions
qui
nous
permettent
d'en
embrasser eten-
due en surface
et en
profondeur"
(ibid.).
11. "Lanotion
de la
duree
entrant
comme element
constitutif dans
la
notion de
l'espace,
nous
imaginerons
acilement un art de
cineplastique
epanoui qui
ne
soit
plus qu'une
architecture
deale et
d'oiu e cinemime, et je le repete,
disparaitra, arce
qu'un
grand
ar-
tiste
pourra
batir seul des 6difices
se
constituant,
s'effondrantet
se reconstituant
sans cesse
par
insensibles
passages
de tous
et de
modeles
qui
seront eux-memes
ar-
chitecture
a
tout instant
de la
duree,
sans
que
nous
puissions
saisir a
millieme seconde oO
s'opere
a tran-
sition"
(ibid., 276).
12. "La
cineplastique,
sans
doute,
en sera
'ornement
spirituel
e
plus
unaninement recherche
le
jeu
social
le
plus
utile
au
developpe-
ment dans las foules,du besoin de
confiance,
d'harmonie,
de cohesion"
(ibid., 278).
13. Herman
G.
Scheffauer,
"The
Vivifying
of
Space,"
Freeman
24
November-I December
1920);
re-
printed
in Lewis
Jacobs,
ed.,
Intro-
duction to the
Art
of
the Movies
(New
York:
Noonday
Press,
1960),
76-85. Scheffauerwas
the
author
of
The New
Spirit
in
the German
Arts.
14.
Ibid.,
77.
15.
Ibid.,
78.
16.
Ibid.,
79.
17.
Ibid.,
79-81.
18. Scheffauer's
analysis
was
echoed
by
the art critic Rudolf Kurz:"Per-
pendicular
ines tense
towards
he
diagonal,housesexhibitcrooked,
angular
outlines,
planes
shift
in
rhomboid
fashion,
the
lines of force
of normal
architecture,
expressed
n
perpendiculars
nd
horizontals,
are
transmogrified
nto a chaos of bro-
ken forms....
A
movement
begins,
leaves its natural
course,
is inter-
cepted
by
another,
ed
on,
distorted
again,
and broken.
All
this is
steeped
in a
magic play
of
light, unchaining
brightness
and
blackness,
building
up, dividing, emphasizing, destroy-
ing"
(Expressionismus
nd Film
[Berlin,
1926],
123;
cited
in
Siegbert
Salomon Prawer,Caligari'sChil-
dren:The Film as Tale
of
Terror
[New
York:Da
Capo
Press,
1988],
189).
19.
Scheffauer,
"The
Vivifying
of
Space,"
82.
20.
Ibid.,
83.
21.
Ibid.,
84.
22.
Erwin
Panofsky,Perspective
s
Symbolic
Form,
rans.
Christopher
S.
Wood
(New
York:Zone
Books,
1991),
154 n.
73.
"Die
Perspektive
als
'symbolische
Form"'
was first
published
in the
Vortrdge
er
Bibliothek
Warburg,
924-1925
(Leipzig
and
Berlin,
1927),
258-330.
23. Ernst
Bloch,
"Building
n
Empty Spaces,"
n The
Utopian
Function
of
Art and Literature:
e-
lected
Essays,
trans.
Jack
Zipes
and
Frank
Mecklenburg Cambridge,
Mass.:
MIT
Press,
1988),
196. "Die
Bebauung
des Hohlraums"
was first
published
in Das
Prinzip
Hoffnung
(Frankfurt
m Main:
Suhrkamp,
1959).
24. Ibid. Bloch referred
directly
to
Panofsky's ssay.
25.
Kurz,
Expressionismus
nd
Film,
54;
cited
in
Prawer,
Caligari's
Chil-
dren,
189.
26.
Hugo
Muinsterberg,
ilm:
A
Psy-
chologicalStudy
(New
York:
Dover,
1969).For a generalstudyof his
theory,
see Donald L.
Fredericksen,
The Aesthetic
of
Isolation n Film
Theory:Hugo Miinsterberg
New
York:Arno
Press,
1977).
27.
Munsterberg;
ited
in
Gerald
Mast and
Marshall
Cohen, eds.,
Film
Theory
nd
Criticism:
ntroduc
toryReadings,
3d
ed.
(New
York:
Oxford
University
Press,
1985),
332.
28. Louis
Aragon,
"Du
decor,"
Le
Film
131
(16
September
1918):
8-
10;
trans.
n
Abel,
French
Film
Theory
nd
Criticism,
1:165.
29. Ibid., 166.
30. Erwin
Panofsky,"Style
and Me-
dium in
the
Motion
Pictures,"
Bul-
letin
of
the
Department
of
Art and
Archeology
Princeton
University,
1934).
A
revised
version was
pub-
lished
in
Critique
1,
no.
3
(January-
February
1947);
reprinted
n Mast
and
Cohen,
Film
Theory
nd Criti-
cism,
232.
31.
Ibid.,
218.
32.
Ibid.,
232.
33. Marcel
Carne,
"Quand
e
cinema descendra-t-il
dans la rue?"
Cinemagazine13 (November 1933);
trans.
n
Abel,
French
Film
Theory
and
Criticism,
2:127-29.
34.
Siegfried
Kracauer,
Nature
of
Film: The
Redemption
f
Physical
Reality
(New
York:Oxford Univer-
sity
Press,
1960),
xi. This workwas
later reissued under the title
Theory
of
Film.
58
-
8/21/2019 Anthony Vidler_the explosion of space.pdf
17/17
Vidler
35.
Ibid.,
52.
Kracauer laborated:
"The
affinity
of film for
haphazard
contingencies
is most
strikingly
demonstrated
by
its
unwavering
us-
ceptibility
to
the 'street'
a
term
designed
to
cover
not
only
the
street,
particularly
he
city
street,
in
the literal
sense,
but
also its various
extensions,
such a