Abstract
In their chapter ‘Geographies of the Moving Image: Transforming Cinematic Representation into Geographic Information’, Richard Koeck and Matthew Flintham describe their contribution to the recent ‘Cinematic Geographies of Battersea’ project. A major outcome of the project was the assembly of a large database of films shot entirely, or in part, within the municipal boundary of Battersea. Here they elaborate on three principal methods of visually analysing the database: mapping film locations with place markers which they then use to build value columns to indicate the frequency of use by filmmakers; an alternative form of location mapping which includes the use of satellite imagery to identify the spaces included in the camera’s shifting field of vision; finally, and most innovatively, Koeck and Flintham then animate this vertical point of reference and place it next to a relevant sequence within their chosen film – as a dual-perspective presentation.
The very heart of geography – the search for our sense of place and self in the world – is constituted by the practice of looking and is, in effect, a study of images. Ours is a visual, video, cinematic culture. (Aitken and Zonn 1994, p. 7)
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Notes
- 1.
Cinematic Geographies of Battersea: Urban Interface and Site-Specific Spatial Knowledge was an AHRC-funded, one year research project (2012–2013) conducted by the Universities of Cambridge, Liverpool and Edinburgh in partnership with The Survey of London, English Heritage (EH).
- 2.
The term ‘soft city’ is derived from Jonathan Raban’s book Soft City (1974) and refers to the less tangible ways of perceiving the city (e.g. through film and cinema) as opposed to the hard city which can be attributed to the physical, architectural and geographically precise definition of a place.
- 3.
City in Film (AHRC 2006–2008), Mapping the City in Film (AHRC 2008–2010).
- 4.
We looked at feature films, documentaries, TV shows and, to a small degree, amateur footage.
- 5.
For Patrick Keiller, ‘pre-1907 films might seem to offer a polemic – for streets without cars, for architecture, for public transport, and for a less centralised, less dematerialised economy. They might even resemble science fiction: a future in which the costs of distant labour, and of energy, and hence transport, have increased, so that production becomes more local. At the same time, we can assume that, as images, the films bestow an illusory coherence on their subjects. The spaces that appear in the films were dynamic, subject to tensions as unsettling as (and sometimes surprisingly similar to) any we experience today. Architecture is increasingly seen as a process structured in time: in films, we can explore some of the spaces of the past, in order to better imagine the spaces of the future’. (Keiller 2007, p. 122).
- 6.
This method was developed and tested as part of the AHRC project Liverpool: City in Film (2006–2008), which developed a similar database.
- 7.
A common error in some archives and databases was to conflate or confuse the many power stations in use along the river Thames with Battersea Power Station.
- 8.
This method of visual identification was used only on the material that we were able to access in archives, on DVDs, video tapes, etc. – approximately half the database.
- 9.
Giuliana Bruno, for instance, alludes to in her inspiring Atlas of Emotions (2002) that ‘In our effort to “reimage” residual history out of our current cartographic scene, motion pictures and their archaeology constitute both an instrument and route’ (Bruno 2002, p. 270). In Mapping the Moving Image: Gesture, Thought and Cinema Circa 1900 (2010), Pasi Väliaho uses the term mapping in the context of cognitive perception and modes of thought in cinematic modernity. Whereas in Mapping Cultures: Place, Practice, Performance (2012), Les Roberts draws attention to the need of an anthropological approach to cinematic cartography.
- 10.
- 11.
- 12.
Koeck used a similar method in the context of Liverpool for his research on the Lumière Brothers, exhibited at the National Museums Liverpool: http://www.cava-research.org/research/lumiere-and-the-overhead-railway/.
- 13.
It is perhaps worth noting here that Roy Watts, editor of the film, was only 25 years old when he worked on the film.
References
Aitken, SC, and L Zonn (eds.) 1994, Place, Power, Situation, and Spectacle: A Geography of Film, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, London.
Black, J 2000, Maps and Politics, Reaktion, London.
Bruno, G 2002, Atlas of Emotions, Verso Books, New York.
Keiller, P 2007, ‘Film as Spatial Critique’ in Critical Architecture, ed. J Rendell, J Hill, M Dorrian, and M Fraser, Routledge, London, New York.
Klinghoffer, AJ 2006, The Power of Projections: How Maps Reflect Global Politics and History, Praeger Publishers, Westport, CT.
Koeck, R 2013, Cine-Scapes: Cinematic Spaces in Architecture and Cities, Routledge, London, New York.
Raban, J 2008, Soft City, Original edition, 1974, Picador, London.
Roberts, L 2012, Mapping Cultures: Place, Practice, Performance, Palgrave, London.
Väliaho, P 2010, Mapping the Moving Image: Gesture, Thought and Cinema Circa 1900, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam.
Filmography
Batman & Robin (Joel Schumacher, 1997)
Lavender Hill Mob (Charles Crichton, 1951)
Melody (Waris Hussein, 1971)
Poor Cow (Ken Loach, 1967)
Sitting Target (Douglas Hickox, 1972)
Up the Junction (Peter Collinson, 1968)
Villain (Michael Tuchner, 1971)
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Koeck, R., Flintham, M. (2017). Geographies of the Moving Image: Transforming Cinematic Representation into Geographic Information. In: Penz, F., Koeck, R. (eds) Cinematic Urban Geographies. Screening Spaces. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46084-4_15
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