City, cinema and culture

[Part 1]

The relationship between city, cinema and culture is as fascinating as it is complex. Cinema emerged as an urban art form and culture has from the very inception of cinema been a vital force that shaped it in manifold ways. In the next two columns I wish to explore this relationship paying close attention to the Calcutta trilogy of Satyajit Ray.

( Calcutta is now known as Kolkata, but I will stay with the popular appellation of Calcutta trilogy).

In the first column my focus will be on the intersections of city, cinema and culture; in the second, I plan to discuss in detail the three films that constitute the Calcutta trilogy in terms of the imperatives of urbanisation and urban consciousness.

Economic forces

Satyajit Ray is usually regarded as a filmmaker who has specialised in representing rural life. Films such as The Song of the Road ( Pather Panchali) and Unvanquished ( Aparajito) come to mind. However, this is only half the story; he has also distinguished himself as a film director who has sought to represented urban experiences with a remarkable degree of understanding and sensitivity.

In next week's column I wish to focus on his Calcutta trilogy - the three films -The Adversary (Pratidwandi), Company Limited (Seemabaddha) and The Middleman (Janaaranya) - that merit close analysis. In this trilogy he sought to produce a cultural space in which he could vividly represent the ways in which social and economic forces were influencing the lives of people living in cities emotionally, psychologically and culturally. We normally tend to think of cities as products and reflections of a global culture that is homogeneous. There is, to be sure, some substance to this supposition. However, it does not tell the full story; it is important to bear in mind the fact that the manifold ways in which different cultures and histories interact with urbanising influences, including technology, produce diverse cityscapes.

Scholars have pointed out how diverse forms of social and economic organisations and political control give rise to varying forms of urbanisation; newer type of architecture is one such example. Modern anthropologists have demonstrated how various forms of urbanisation have grown out of different modes of production and political systems. It is evident that questions of culture are important for these ways of seeing urbanization. In exploring the complex issues related to city life, films provide us with a useful site for that investigative endeavor; they enable us to see the complex intersections of city and culture.

Trilogy

As a backdrop to my examination of the way in which Satyajit Ray has represented the city of Calcutta in his trilogy, I would like to reflect on the complex relationship that exists between city and cinema. Here issues of representing the city in cinema, the foregrounding of space in modern cultural theory and the emergence of what Theodor Adorno referred to as culture space are important.

There is a close and intimate relationship between city and cinema; cinema, after all, is largely an unban art form. The way cities are represented in cinema is constantly changing in response to newer challenges and the changing urban landscape, digital technology associated with cinema and the recent developments in social theory with regard to space have had a decisive influence on this endeavor.

The relationship between city and cinema is as interesting as it is complex. It can be usefully explored from diverse intellectual vantage points. The eminent American sociologist Robert E Park (admittedly, an old-fashioned critic by modern standards) once observed that the city can best be understood as a state of mind.

This observation merits serious analysis. I wish to gloss this proposition in a way that will further our understanding of the complex relationship that exists between city and cinema in a more focused way. Robert E. Park's formulation has the advantage of directing our attention to the idea of cultural space which is crucial to this nexus.

Growth

When we pause to chart the growth of cities in human societies we can identify three important phases of evolution: they are commercial cities, industrial cities and post-industrial cities. Some thinkers such as Daniel Bell have termed the third form of cities corporate or world cities. These terms are self-explanatory and require no additional explanation.

However, when it comes to artistic representation, say in cinema or literature, the post-industrial city has urged a newer set of representational strategies and modes of configuration. This is a point to which I hope to return later in my column. Significant differences separate the three forms of cities. However, we can justifiably maintain that the city as a generic term suggests a compelling set of commonly shared meanings. In this regard, the following observation of Robert E Park is productively illuminating.

‘The city is something more than congeries of individual men and social conveniences - streets, buildings, electric lights, tramways, and telephones; administrative devices - courts, hospitals, schools, police, and evil functionaries of various sorts. The city is rather a state of mind, a body of customs, and traditions, and of the organised attitudes of sentiments that inhere in these customs and are transmitted with this tradition.

The city is not in other words merely a physical mechanism and an artificial constriction. It is involved in the vital processes of the people who compose it; it is a product of nature, and particularly of human nature.’

It seems to me that this remark of Park helps us to frame the question of cinematic representation of urban experiences in more productive way. The distinguished social thinker Lewis Mumford makes a comparable point when he asserts that, ‘mind takes form in the city, and in turn, urban forms condition mind.’

If this indeed the case, it is very important that we focus on the role of culture in the cinematic representation of urban experience. If city is a state of mind, then when this state of mind finds articulation in films, the culture with which both city and cinema are vitally connected assumes a position of great significance.

The various cultural discourses that shape city experience and the cultural codes that are closely linked to cinema invite focused attention. Hence, it is important that we explore the relationships that exist between city, cinema and culture. This relationship, to be sure, is at once complex and fascinating.

Culture

The city is decidedly a product of culture; but, it must be noted, it is also a producer of culture. Being an instigator of social modernisation, cities shape the evolving patterns of culture even as they mirror certain facets of those cultures. Consequently, we observe a most interesting interface between city and culture.

The words city and civilisation are derived from the same Latin root, and remarkably in many Asian languages the word city carries with it connotations of cultural elegance and sophistication. The city is a producer of cultural meaning. To read a city, whether it is New York or Paris or Tokyo in terms of cultural meaning is to enter into spaces of deep cultural meaning that produce the cities in question.

It can be said with a great degree of confidence that the city is one of the most significant imprints that a culture can place upon the natural landscape of a country.

As a result, we can read a culture through the cities that it produces and read a city through the culture that it produced. Reading the city is indeed an intriguing phrase. For example, Roland Barthes has read Tokyo in the light of his own interests and predilections. He says that Tokyo has no centre out of which the rest of the city radiates as with Western cities of medieval origin.

He sees everything as writing and that as in a literary text the city becomes a constellation of signifiers. The eminent philosopher Wittgenstein, approaching this topic from the opposite end, asserts that language can be regarded as an ancient city; a maze of little streets and squares of old and new houses, and houses with additions from various periods. The idea of reading a city is one that is productive of many new insights.

Symbols

It is sometimes assumed that cities throughout the world are the same, that they present themselves as uniform symbols of modernity. This is, however, a mistaken belief. Cities are far less universal and far more culture-specific than we are normally led to believe. They bear the unmistakable imprint of the culture, history, word views, traditions, and conventions that are associated with a given society. As a matter of fact, one can read the changing interests and investments of a society through its cities. Let us consider two examples with which we are somewhat familiar - the cities of New Delhi and Chennai.

New Delhi is the capital of India and bears the marks of a modern and planned city. However, when we seek to explore its visage a little more closely, we begin to appreciate the fact that it bears various signifiers of the social forces that helped to bring into being. Being the capital of a modern multi-cultural, multi-religious nation, the symbolism of the city mirrors the idea of unity in diversity and the manifold strands that go to form the Indian ethos. Similarly, Chennai has all the trappings of a modern city.

However, when we strain to investigate the post-independence development more closely in relation to architecture and aesthetic space, we begin to see that there has been a calculated attempt to draw on the Hindu traditions and to articulate a distinct cultural identity. And this urban symbolism is inseparably connected to notions of political legitimacy

Here then we have two Indian cities manifesting their respective historical and sociological trajectories. An analysis of London or Moscow or Venice would yield comparable results. Scholars of urban planning and architecture have argued that buildings in cities (their size, form, location) are the outcome of not only factors such as climate and geography but also of ideas of social structure and economic arrangements, beliefs and values and the notion of authority endorsed by a given society.

In Chinese, the word city is represented ideographically by a wall, and the sense of authority has always been an important aspect of Chinese cities from the earliest periods; at that time Chinese cities were built in conformity to certain cosmological demands.

Culture

Cinema, like city, is a product as well as a producer of culture. In many of the developing societies, it has assumed the power of a prepotent force involved in the spread of city culture - its values, beliefs and life styles. As in the case of cities, the more deeply we are in a position to read signs and decode clusters of meaning in cinema, the more productively will we be able to enter the inner sanctums of cultures that are responsible for facilitating those films. In this regard, it is useful to bear in mind that in most countries cinema has acted as a disseminator of urban consciousness

It is clear that cities figure in different ways in cinema. As background to narrative, as a stimulant to action, as a vital presence that shapes characters, as a metaphor for the individual vision of the filmmaker and so on. Whatever the specific form it assumes, there is always a perceptible and mutually reinforcing interplay between city and culture.

For purposes of analysis let us divide city films into two broad groups - films in which the city forms a convenient backdrop and those in which it emerges as a veritable character. In a film such as Rossellini's Open City, the city of Rome constitutes a vital backdrop to the narrative. Rome's subjection to the horrors of fascist rule, its misery, hopelessness and stench of death frame and give focus to the human narrative that unfolds in the film.

Similarly in Satyajit Ray's Aparajito, the city of Calcutta emerges as an important background in the growth of the protagonist and his self-awareness. On the other hand, in a film like Fellini's La Dolce Vita the city of Rome assumes the shape of an actor producing the excitement and frenzy that marks the film. In the same way, in Terry Gillam's Orwellian comedy Brazil, the city forces us to regard it as a virtual actor; the city generates the surrealistic and future-oriented urban chaos that is at the heart of the film.

The preoccupation with city life on the part of Asian film directors is scarcely surprising in view of the fact that urbanisation has emerged as a dominant problem. Although some Asian countries had urban settlements very early in their histories, the growth of cities becomes a widespread problem in the twentieth century. In 1800 less than 3 percent of the world's population lived in cities; by 1900 the figure grew to 14 percent.

By 2000 over half of the world population were city dwellers. The consequence of this social transformation as it relates to the social, economic, political and cultural and psychological lives of people are indeed profound. Consequently, sensitive filmmakers have increasingly directed their attention towards the reconfiguration of city life.

Nexus

When examining the nexus between city, cinema and culture, a theme that presents itself with increasing intensity is the image of the future projected by some of the city films. Here we observe the intersection of culture and city with mounting urgency. In this regard, such well-known films as Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, and Terry Gillam's Brazil are particularly significant.

What we find in these films is a futuristically oriented and stylised cinematic imagination seeking to come to grips with the dialectic between city and culture .Earlier in this column, I alluded to the three-fold categories of cities; commercial cities, industrial cities and postindustrial cities. In terms of cinematic representation, the former two categories lend themselves willingly to realistic depiction.

In the case of the cinematic representation of post -industrial cities, it is the stylised modes of portrayal that have predominated. In other words, we can state that postindustrial cities have ushered in a different state of mind in relation to filmic representation.

To illustrate the complex and fascinating interaction among city, cinema and culture, I wish to comment briefly on two films - an Italian and a Japanese film. Michelangelo Antonioni in La Notte (The Night) employs the city of Milan as a character which plays a palpably significant role in destroying the intimate personal relationships.

The film deals with the estrangement between Giovanni and Lidia, ten years after their marriage. And this personal crisis is deeply embedded in the ambience of the city. The action is confined to about sixteen hours - Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning.

In La Notte Antonioni uses the city environment with remarkable skill to generate atmosphere, frame human relationships and symbolise feelings, attitudes and perceptions. After leaving the hospital, Giovanni and Lidia are caught in a long and tiresome traffic jam.

The director makes use of this setting to illustrate the growing estrangement between the couple. The simmering heat outside and being forced to sit in a car immobile not only adds to the strain between the two characters, but also emblematises visually the strain they have to endure.

Antonioni in this film captures with memorable deftness the overpowering influence that the city exerts with its plate-glass palaces on their inhabitants. The visual registers of the film, as in any good film, powerfully enact the theme of the film.

The second film is Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo story. It is in three movements and focuses on the tensions between generations in the context of a rapidly changing Japanese culture. The first part of the narrative takes place in the small town of Onomichi. Here we are introduced to Shukichi and Tomi, an elderly couple making preparations for their travel to Tokyo to visit their children.

The section of the film deals with the reunion with their two married children and the widow of the second son. Although Shukichi and Tomi made this trip to Tokyo with much hope and anticipation, they were quickly disappointed with the life in the metropolis and the kind of life their children have chosen to lead. The third section of the film once again moves to the small town of Onomichi where Tomi dies. The children are summoned to her death bed, and they quickly return to Tokyo after the funeral. The Tokyo story explores the fraught relationships between generations and the imminent disintegration of the institution of the family. In this film, the city of Tokyo and its environs are crucial to the meaning of the film. The dissolution of the family and the power of city life, in Ozu's mind, are vitally connected. Shukichi and Tomi are disenchanted with Tokyo as indeed they are with their children.

The city emerges as an evil force which serves to usher in alien outlooks and thereby erode traditional human values and culturally sanctioned life ways. The chimneys of Tokyo which protrude against a drab sky come to symbolise the ugliness associated with industrialisation, city life and loosening of nurturing human bonds. The way in which the city of Tokyo comes to play a subtle and significant role in this Tokyo Story merits close study. Indeed it becomes an important thematic and visual determinant of the meaning of the film.

Culture

On the basis of our discussion so far, it can safely be said that culture plays a dominant role in the representation of cities in films. The state of mind of the director is shaped and articulated through cultural manifestations. This fact is thrown into sharper relief when we examine the role of the spectator in the generation of cinematic meaning.

Traditionally, films were understood as objects brought into being by directors and the viewer was regarded as a passive recipient of that object. However, with the rapid growth of film theory during the last three decades or so, the role of the viewer in the production of cinematic meaning has received greater attention. The meaning is no longer the sole property of the director. It is the outcome of the interaction between the director, the film and the viewer. With this newer emphasis on the role of the viewer, his or her imagination, another aspect of the viewer begins to assume a great significance; that is his or her cultural background and how it inflects taste.

The cultural experience that the viewer brings to the negotiation of meaning in a film is now regarded as vital. The reading of the city in cinema becomes a complex enterprise. As the eminent art critic John Berger once remarked, ‘a modern city is not only a place but a circuit of messages.’ this circuit of messages meets another circuit of messages in the representation of cities in cinema.

Significance

Consequently, the role of the viewer in making sense of the messages assumes a great significance. There are several factors which go to forming the state of mind of the spectator. His or her social background, the structure of feeling (Raymond Williams’ concept), that is dominant at the time the social formations that influence his or her are but a few of them.

If the city is a state of mind, then when that state of mind finds cinematic expression, it becomes the meeting ground of the state of mind of the film director and the state of mind of the viewer in the negotiation of meaning within a culturally defined horizon. As a consequence of the increasing influence of newer modes of thinking such as post-structuralism and post-modernism, on diverse disciplines including geography the idea of space and its meaning have been highlighted.

Scholars such as Edward Soja, drawing on the work of Michel Foucault, Fredric Jameson, John Berger, have laboured to spatialise traditional narratives by restructuring the intellectual history of critical theory in relation to space. Hence, space has emerged as a central analytical tool. This re-theorisation of the ways in which power relations are embedded in space is of great importance to students of cinema.

Michel Foucault remarked that up until very recent times space was regarded as the dead, the fixed while times was regarded as dynamic and rich. Now, of course, ever more theoretical attention is being paid to the production of space and the complex ways in which human beings are placed in space.

It has to be said that Foucault's notions of space are far more sophisticated and generative of productive research than earlier modes of understanding space. He is deeply conscious of the fact that what we think of a singular space is many overlapping spaces. He made the following astute observation.

History

‘The space in which we live, which draws us out of ourselves, in which the erosion of our lives, our time and our history occurs, the space that claws and gnaws at us, is as in itself a heterogeneous space. In other words, we do not live in a kind of void, inside of which we could place individuals and things.

We do not live inside a void that could be colored with diverse shades of light, we live inside a set of relations that delineates sires which are irreducible to one another and absolutely not super-imposable on one another.’ This line of thinking has great implications for the understanding of the representation of cities in film.

Urban life

It has to be noted that the idea that space is organised as a material practice, the webs of relations that exist between spatial strictures and social structures ,of urban life, and the political implications of socially and culturally produces space are increasingly generating scholarly interest. There has been a growing emphasis on space as a site in which numerous forces meet and contend for supremacy. We are witnessing an increasing appreciation of the fact that space produces meaning through human interaction of people who inhabit it. As the eminent French social thinker Lefebvre observed, ‘space is not a scientific object removed from ideology and politics; it has always been political and strategic'.

He goes onto say that if space has an air of neutrality it is precisely because it has already been the focus of past processes whose traces are not necessarily obvious in the landscape. Space, according to him, has always been a political process. As he says, ‘space is political and ideological. It is a product literally filled with ideologies.’

This approach to the production of space underlined by Lefebvre opens up interesting avenues of inquiry; these have a clear relevance to issues of cinematic representation of cities. This newly emergent approach to space shares much with the discourse of cinema.

Cinema as a powerful medium of visual communication is capable of displaying in compelling ways how power relations are written in space and how space is traversed by ideology. So we see a clear overlap of interest here. Let us consider the representation of city in films. Filmmakers very often represent urban space in a way that highlights the conversion of material objects into instruments of symbolic signification. This construction of symbolic meaning is a result of the interplay of physical objects and social and cultural discourses. We begin to realise how alleys, streets, house fronts, walls, become strong signifiers of the many-sided material and symbolic object that is the city. Interestingly, the great Russian film director and film theorist Sergei Eisenstein (who incidentally popularised the term montage) once remarked that film originated in architecture.

(To be continued)