CINEMA AND THE CITY
Updated 11/12/15
Version One
Art History
082:275:01
Cinema Studies
175:267:01
Professor Carla Yanni
60 College Avenue, Second floor, College Ave Campus
and by appointment
carla.yanni@gmail.com
LIV, T 10:20-1:20, T BECK 252, W 6:40-9:30, W TILLETT 246, Section 01, Yanni, Index 18035
This 200-level class will present a visual and historical analysis of urban space as seen through the
medium of cinema. This is primarily an architectural history class, but the subject goes beyond individual
buildings--the subject here is the city and its representation. Movies illustrate theories of urban planning;
on-location shooting can reveal aspects of urban life, and fanciful set designs can expose the unrealistic
goals of some architects. Themes to be explored include the contrast between the country and the city
(Sunrise), the dynamism of the metropolis (Berlin: Symphony of a Great City), the city as a disciplinary
space of social control (Metropolis), utopian and dystopian cities (Blade Runner), the city as a modernist
totality (Things to Come), the hyper-real world of New Urbanism (The Truman Show) and climate change
and sustainability (Wall-E.)
COURSE STRUCTURE
Each week will include two sessions. One class (Tues 10:20 to 1:20) will be divided into two parts. The first
part will be a discussion based on the film we screened the previous week. The second half will be a
lecture (with opportunity for discussion) that introduces the student to themes in architectural and urban
history that are relevant to the film we’ll be watching next. The other session (Wed 6:40 to 9:00) will be
movie screening. Attendance will be taken.
LEARNING GOALS
The course is conceived as an introduction to the major ideas of urbanism in the twentieth and twenty-first
century. An important goal is for students to build skills that will enable them to "read" cities in terms of their
shaping factors. Analyzing a film is one skill, but there are others: students will learn to interpret plans and
drawings, and many of the readings will be primary sources. Assessment of the above learning goals will
be accomplished through the Art History Department's 3-year assessment plan for upper-level
undergraduate courses in the major.
EVALUATION
This course requires active class participation (20%). Students are expected to attend all lectures and
screenings. Students must be prepared for discussion at class sessions. There is one group project
(20%). There is a midterm (30%) and a final (30%).
All of the readings will be posted on Sakai. There is no text book.
Week 1. Jan 19 Introduction to Cinema and the City
Lecture on major themes: How do architectural historians, geographers, and social historians look at and
understand the city? How are cities presented in film?
Screen in class
Manhatta (1921, Strand and Sheeler)
Screen in class
King Kong (1933, Cooper and Schoedsack)
(no Wednesday screening this week)
Week 2. Introduction to Cities and Cinema, Continued
Screen Excerpt in Class: Berlin Symphony of a City
Read: Lewis Mumford, “What is a City?“ in LeGates and Stout, City Reader, 85-89
Read: AlSayyad, Industrial Modernity, Cinematic City, chapter 1
Wednesday screening Oliver Twist, (1948, David Lean) 1 hr and 54 minutes
Week 3. The Nineteenth-Century City and Industrialization
Read: Friedrich Engels, "The Great Towns" from The Condition of the Working Class in England, excerpt in
LeGates and Stout, The City Reader, 50-58
Film for Discussion Oliver Twist
Week 4.
The Machine in the City; The City as Machine
Read: Synopsis of Sunrise in Dietrich Neumann, Film Architecture: Set Design from Metropolis to Blade
Runner (Hereafter, Film Architecture) 104-107 (All the readings from Film Architecture are in one PDF.)
Read: Wolfgang Schivelbusch, "Tracks in the City," The Railroad City: The Industrialization of Time and
Space in the Nineteenth Century (1977)
Read: Neumann, “Before and After Metropolis,” in Film Architecture Set Design from Metropolis to Blade
Runner, 33-38
Group Projects Due in Class
Wednesday screening
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, (1928, Murnau) 94 minutes
Film for Discussion Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Week 5. Social Control and Power in the City
Read: Andreas Huyssen, "The Vamp in the Machine: Fritz Lang's Metropolis," New German Critique (1981)
Read Synopsis of Metropolis in Film Architecture, 94-98
Wednesday Screening
Metropolis, (1926, Fritz Lang) 153 minutes
Film for Discussion Metropolis
Week 6. Modernism in Architecture and Urban Planning
Read: Georg Simmel, "The Metropolis and Mental Life," (1903)
Read: Synopsis of Things to Come in Film Architecture, 118-121
Read: Interview with Le Corbusier, John Peter, An Oral History of Modern Architecture (1994)
Read: Le Corbusier, “City of Three Million,” excerpted in Gates and LeStout, The City Reader
Also on this week Explanation of Group project – details to follow
Wednesday Screening Things to Come, (1936, Menzies) 100 minutes
Film for Discussion Things to Come
Week 7. Film Noir
Read: to be determined
Wednesday Screening: Sweet Smell of Success, (1957, MacKendrick) 96 minutes
Film for Discussion Sweet Smell of Success
Week 8.
MIDTERM: NO SCREENING THIS WEEK
The midterm will fall on March 1.
Week 9. Syncopated Cities (Part I)
Clips from musicals, including On the Town and 42nd Street
Read: Bukatman, “Syncopated Cities” in Matters of Gravity : Special Effects and Supermen in the 20th
Century (2003)
Los Angeles in-class project
Wednesday Screening: L.A. Confidential, (1997, Hanson) 138 minutes
Film for Discussion L.A. Confidential
Week 10. Narratives of Decay and Blight: Urban Renewal in the 1960s
Film for discussion West Side Story
Read: Samuel Zipp, Manhattan Projects: The Rise and Fall of Urban Renewal in New York, chapter 5
Wednesday Screening
Week 11.
West Side Story, (1961, Wise and Robbins) 152 minutes
Race Relations and 1980s New York
Read AlSayyad, Cinematic Urbanism, “Do the Right Thing,” Chapter 3
Read Jane Jacobs, “Uses of Sidewalks,” City Reader, 103-108
Wednesday screening: Do the Right Thing, (1989, Spike Lee) 120 minutes
Film for discussion Do the Right Thing
Week 12. Postmodernism
Read Bukatman, Blade Runner BFI classics, 6-64
Read: Synopsis of Blade Runner in Film Architecture, 148-156
Read: AlSayyad, Cinematic City, chapter 5
Wednesday Screening: Blade Runner, (1982, Ridley Scott) 117 minutes
Film for Discussion Blade Runner
Week 13. Theories of New Urbanism, Rejection of Modernist City
Read Andres Duany, “New Urbanism Bites Back”, 2000
Read AlSayyad, Cinematic Urbanism “Truman Show,” chapter 9
Wednesday screening: The Truman Show, (1998, Weir) 103 minutes
Film for discussion The Truman Show
Week 14.
Sustainability
Read Laura Sevier, “Building Sustainable Houses from Rubbish,” The Ecologist, 2010.
http://www.theecologist.org/how_to_make_a_difference/recycling_and_waste/361020/case_study_building
_sustainable_houses_from_rubbish.html
Wednesday screening, Wall-E (2008, Andrew Stanton) 98 minutes
Film for Discussion Wall-E
Week 15.
Last Day of Classes, Review for Final
Additional Bibliography
The Cinematic City by David Clarke
Cities in Transition: The Moving Image and the Modern Metropolis by Andrew Webber
Cinema and the City: Film and Urban Societies in a Global Context by Mark Shiel
Projected Cities: Cinema and Urban Space by Stephen Barber
Black City Cinema: African American Urban Experiences in Film by Paula J. Massood
Celluloid Skyline by James Sanders
BFI book series, short, smart books on classic films: Sunrise, Metropolis, Sweet Smell of Success, Do the
Right Thing, and Blade Runner
Current Academic Integrity Policy: http://academicintegrity.rutgers.edu/integrity.shtml
Violations include: cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, denying others access to information or material, and
facilitating violations of academic integrity.
THE FINAL EXAM WILL BE HELD DURING FINALS WEEK BUT IS NOT COMPREHENSIVE.
ONLY FILMS FROM MIDTERM TO END OF THE SEMESTER WILL BE INCLUDED.
http://finalexams.rutgers.edu/
Students with disabilities requesting accommodations must follow the procedures outlined at
http://disabilityservices.rutgers.edu/request.html
Why I take attendance, even though we are all grown-ups here:
As an educator, I place a high value on coming to class well-prepared and deeply motivated, and I expect
the same from my students. (This means you!) I believe that in a successful college class, the professor
and the students create a community of engaged scholars who explore an intellectual subject (in our case,
cities and cinema) together. There are in-class assignments and projects that will require your attention. If
you want to do well in this class, you will need to keep up with the readings, attend class, participate in a
meaningful way, and take responsibility for your own education. Therefore, students are expected to attend
all classes and screenings. If you expect to miss class, please use the University absence reporting
website https://sims.rutgers.edu/ssra/ to indicate the date and reason for your absence. An email is
automatically sent to me.
After three unexcused absences, from either class or a screening, each additional absence will cause ½
grade to be taken off your final grade. (For example, a B+ becomes a B.)
For family emergencies and illnesses, please contact me directly. I can be flexible about the absence
policy, but I need to know the situation as soon as possible.
I am indebted to Scott Bukatman, film theorist, Stanford University, for many of the ideas that inform this
syllabus.