The Explosion of Space: Architecture and the Filmic Imaginary

Author(s): Anthony Vidler

Source: Assemblage, No. 21, (Aug., 1993), pp. 44-59
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3171214
Accessed: 31/07/2008 21:05
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpress.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the
scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that
promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

http://www.jstor.org

-A

, I ,

I - -

-I ...s

.
***-i-**^
~
:^F^.,
I I

S--

"t,
*

;A
Il

Vidler

Anthony
The

Explosion

Architecture
Filmic

AnthonyVidleris Chairmanof the

Departmentof ArtHistoryat the
of California,
LosAngeles.
University

of
and

Space:
the

Imaginary

I amkino-eye.I ama builder.I haveplacedyou,whomI'vecreated

roomwhichdidnot existuntiljustnow
today,in an extraordinary
whenI alsocreatedit. In thisroomtherearetwelvewallsshotbyme
in variouspartsof the world.Inbringingtogethershotsof wallsand
themin an orderthatis pleasingand
details,I'vemanagedto arrange
to construct
withintervals,
a film-phrase
whichistheroom.
correctly,
1923'
DzigaVertov,
Since the late nineteenth century,film has provideda laboratoryfor the definitionof modernismin theoryand technique.
As the modernistart parexcellence, it has also servedas a
point of departurefor the redefinitionof the other arts,a paradigm by which the differentpracticesof theater,photography,
literature,and paintingmight be distinguishedfrom each
other. Of all the arts,however,it is architecturethat has had
the most privilegedand difficult relationshipto film. An obvious role model for spatialexperimentation,film has also been
criticizedfor its deleteriouseffects on the architecturalimage.

1. Babette Mangolte, What

Maisie Knew, 1975, film still
21 ? 1993by the Massachusetts
Assemblage
Instituteof Technology

At a moment when interestin film has reemergedin much

avant-gardearchitecturalwork,from the literalevocationsof
BernardTschumi in his ManhattanTranscriptsand projects
for La Villette to more theoreticalworkon the relationsof
space to visualrepresentation,the complex question of film's
architecturalrole is againon the agenda.And the more so,
because in the searchfor waysto representmovement and
temporalsuccessionin architecture,"deconstructivist"
designers have turned naturallyto the images forgedby the first,
constructivist,avant-garde- imagesthemselvesdeeply
markedby the impact of the new filmic techniques. In their
new incarnation,such constructivistand expressionistimages

45

assemblage 21

seem to reframemany earlierquestionsabout the proper

place for imagesof space and time in architecture:questions
that resonatefor contemporarycritiquesof the "image"and
the "spectacle"in architectureand society.
When, in 1933, Le Corbusiercalled for a film aestheticsthat
embodied the "spiritof truth,"he was only assertingwhat
many architectsin the 1920s (likethose more recentlyin the
1980s) sawto be the mutuallyinformativebut properlyseparate realmsof architectureand film. While admittingthat
"everythingis Architecture"in its architectonicdimensions
of proportionand order,Le Corbusierneverthelessinsisted
on the specificityof 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,literature,
music, and theateraregenres."2In the presentcontext, debates about the natureof "architecturein film,""filmic
architecture,"or filmic theoryin architecturaltheoryare
interestingless as guidingthe writingof some new Laocoon
that would rigidlyredrawthe boundariesof the technological
artsthan as establishingthe possibilitiesof interpretationfor
projectsthat increasinglyseem caught in the hallucinatory
realmof a filmic or screenedimaginary,somewhere,that is,
in the problematicrealmof hyperspace.

Cineplastics
The obviousrole of architecturein the constructionof sets
(and the eagerparticipationof architectsthemselvesin this
enterprise),and the equallyobviousabilityof film to "construct"its own architecturein light and shade, scale and
movement, fromthe outset allowedfor a mutual intersection
of these two "spatialarts."Certainly,many modernistfilmmakershad little doubt of the cinema'sarchitectonicproperties. From GeorgesMelies'scarefuldescriptionof the proper
spatialorganizationof the studio in 1907 to EricRohmer's
reassertionof film as "the spatialart"some fortyyearslater,
the architecturalmetaphor,if not its materialreality,was
deemed essentialto the filmic imagination.3Equally,architects like Hans Poelzig (who, togetherwith his wife, the
sculptorMarlenePoelzig,sketchedand modeled the sets for
PaulWegener'sDer Golem:Wie er in die Welt kamof 1920)
and AndreiAndrejev(who designedthe sets for Robert
Weine's Raskolnikoffof1923) did not hesitate to collaborate

with filmmakersjust as they had previouslyservedtheater

As the architectRobertMallet-Stevensobserved
producers.4
in 1925, "it is undeniablethat the cinema has a markedinfluence on modernarchitecture;in turn, modernarchitecture
bringsits artisticside to the cinema.... Modernarchitecture
not only servesthe cinematographicset [decor],but imprints
its stamp on the staging [mise-en-scene],it breaksout of its
And, of course,for filmmakers
frame;architecture'plays.'"'5
originallytrainedas architects(like SergeiEisenstein),the
filmic artofferedthe potentialto develop a new architecture
of time and space unfetteredby the materialconstraintsof
gravityand dailylife.
Out of this intersectionof the two artsa theoreticalapparatus
was developedthat at once held architectureas the fundamental site of film practice,the indispensablerealand ideal
matrixof the filmic imaginary,and, at the same time, posited
film as the modernistart of space parexcellence- a vision of
the fusion of spaceand time. The potentialof film to explore
this new realm (seen by SigfriedGiedion as the basis of modernistarchitecturalaesthetics)was recognizedearlyon. Abel
Gance, writingin 1912,was alreadyhoping for a new "sixth
art"that would provide"thatadmirablesynthesisof the
movement of spaceand time."6But it was the art historian
Elie Faure,influencedby FernandLeger,who firstcoined a
term for the cinematicaesthetic that broughttogetherthe
two dimensions:cineplastics."The cinema,"he wrote in
1922, "isfirstof all plastic.It represents,in some way,an
architecturein movement that shouldbe in constant accord,
in dynamicallypursuedequilibrium,with the setting and the
landscapeswithin which it risesand falls."7In Faure'sterms,
"plastic"artwas that which "expressesform at rest and in
movement,"a mode common to the artsof sculpture,basrelief,drawing,painting,fresco,and especiallydance,but that
perhapsachievedits highest expressionin the cinema.8For
"the cinema incorporatestime to space. Better,time, through
this, reallybecomes a dimensionof space."9By means of the
cinema, Faureclaimed,time becomes a veritableinstrument
of space, "unrollingunderour eyes its successivevolumes
ceaselesslyreturnedto us in dimensionsthat allowus to grasp
their extent in surfaceand depth."i?The "hithertounknown
plasticpleasures"therebydiscoveredwould, finally,createa
new kind of architecturalspace,akinto that imaginaryspace
"withinthe wallsof the brain."

46

Vidler

The notionof durationenteringas a constitutiveelementinto the

notionof space,we willeasilyimaginean artof cineplasticsblosand
somingthatwouldbe no morethanan idealarchitecture,
where the 'cinemimic' will . .. disappear,because only a great artist

couldbuildedificesthatconstitutethemselves,collapse,andreconstitutethemselvesagainceaselesslyby imperceptible
passages
of tonesandmodelingthatwillthemselvesbe architecture
at every
instant,withoutourbeingableto graspthe thousandthpartof a
secondin whichthe transitiontakesplace."
Such an art, Faurepredicted,would propelthe worldinto a
new stage of civilization,whose principleform of expression
would be an architecturebased on the appearanceof mobile
industrialconstructions,ships, trains,cars,and airplanes,
togetherwith their stable portsand harbors.Cinema would
operate,he concluded,as a kind of privileged"spiritualornament" to this machine civilization:"the most useful social
playfor the developmentof confidence,harmony,and cohesion in the masses."12

Spacesof Horror
Criticsof the firstgenerationof Germanexpressionistfilms
had alreadyexperiencedsuch a "cineplastic"revolutionin
practice.The spate of immediate postwarproductionsin 1919
and 1920 (includingPaulWegener'sDer Golem,KarlHeinz
Martin'sVon Morgensbis Mitternacht,and, of course,Robert
Weine's Das Kabinettdes Dr. Caligari)demonstratedthat, in
the wordsof the Germanart criticand New YorkTimescorrespondent HermanG. Scheffauer,a new "stereoscopicuniverse"was in the making.In a brilliantanalysispublishedat
the end of 1920, Scheffauerhailed the end of the "crudephantasmagoria"of earlierfilms and the birthof a new space.13
Space- hithertoconsideredandtreatedas somethingdeadand
static,a mereinertscreenorframe,oftenof no moresignificance
thanthe paintedbalustrade-background
at the villagephotog- hasbeensmittenintolife, into movementandconrapher's
sciousexpression.
A fourthdimensionhasbegunto evolveout of
this photographiccosmos.14

Thus film began to extend what Scheffauercalled"the sixth

sense of man, his feelingfor spaceor room- his Raumgefiihl,"
in such a wayas to transformrealityitself.No longeran inert
background,architecturenow participatedin the veryemotions of the film;the surroundingsno longersurroundedbut

enteredthe experienceas presence:"The frownof a tower,the

scowlof a sinisteralley,the prideand serenityof a white peak,
the hypnoticdraughtof a straightroadvanishingto point
these exert theirinfluencesand expresstheirnatures;their
essencesflowoverthe scene and blend with the action."'5An
advanceon the two-dimensionalworldof the picture,the
"scenicarchitect"of films such as Caligaricould, he wrote,
dominate"furniture,room,house, street,city, landscape,
universe!"The "fourthdimension"of time extended spacein
depth:"theplasticis amalgamatedwith the painted,bulkand
formwith the simulacraof bulkand form,falseperspective
and violent foreshadowingareintroduced,reallight and
shadowcombator reinforcepaintedshadowand light.
Einstein'sinvasionof the law of gravityis made visiblein the
treatmentof wallsand supports."'6
Scheffauerprovideda veritablephenomenologyof the spaces
of Caligari.A corridorin an office building,a street at night,
an attic room, a prisoncell, a white and spectralbridge,a
marketplace- all are constructedout of wallsat once solid
and transparent,fissuredand veiled, camouflagedand endlesslydisappearing,presentedin a forcedand distortedperspective that pressesspace both backwardand forward,finally
overwhelmingthe spectator'sown space, incorporatingit into
the vortexof the whole movie. In his descriptionof the film's
environments,Scheffaueranticipatedall the latercommonplaces of expressionistcriticismfrom SiegfriedKracauerto
RudolfKurz.
A corridorin an officebuilding:Wallveeringoutwardfromthe
floor,traversed
by sharplydefinedparallelstrips,emphasizingthe
perspectiveand brokenviolently by pyramidalopenings, streaming
with light, markingthe doors;the shadowsbetween them vibrating as darkcones of contrast, the furtherend of the corridor
murky,giving vast distance. In the foregrounda section of wall
violently tilted over the heads of the audience, as it were. The floor
crypticallypainted with errantlines of direction, the floor in front
of the doors shows cross lines, indicating a going to and fro, in and
out. The impression is one of formal coldness, of bureaucratic
regularity,of semipublic traffic.
A street at night: Yawningblacknessin the background- empty,
starless,abstractspace, against it a square,lopsided lantern hung
between lurching walls. Doors and windows constructed or

paintedin wrenchedperspective.Darksegmentson the pavement

accentuate the diminishing effect. The slinkingof a brutal figure

47

assemblage 21

2. RobertWeine, Das Kabinett

des Dr. Caligari,1920, film still

3. PaulWegener, Der Golem:

Wie er in die Welt kam, 1920,

film still

pressedagainstthe wallsandevilspotsandshadingson the pavementgivea sinisterexpressionto the street.Adroitdiagonalslead

andrivetthe eye.
An attic:It speaksof sordidness,
wantandcrime.The whole
compositiona vividintersectionof conesof lightanddark,of
roof-lines,shaftsof lightandslantingwalls.A projectionof white
andblackpatternson the floor,the wholegeometrically
felt,
conceived.Thisatticis out of time,but in space.
cubistically
The roofchimneysof anotherworldariseandscowlthroughthe
splinteredwindow-pane.
A room;orrathera roomthathasprecipitateditselfin cavern-like
lines,in invertedhollowsof frozenwaves.Herespacebecomes
cloistralandencompassesthe human- a manreadsat a desk.A
windowglaresandpermitsthe livingdaya voicein this
triangular
composition.
A prison-cell:
A criminal,ironedto a hugechainattachedto an
immensetrapezoidal
'ball.'The postureof the prisonersittingon
his foldedlegsis almostBuddha-like.
Herespaceturnsuponitself,
enclosesandfocusesa humandestiny.A smallwindow,highup
andcrazilybarred,is likean eye.The walls,slopinglikea tent'sto
an invisiblepoint,areblazonedwithblackandwhitewedgeshapedrays.Theseblendwhentheyreachthe floorandunitein a
kindof hugecross,in the centerof whichthe prisonersits,scowlof the humanin
ing,unshaven.The tragedyof the repression
space- in a trinityof space,fate,andman.
A whiteandspectralbridgeyawningandrushingout of the foreground:It is an erratic,irregular
causeway,suchas blindghouls
mighthavebuilt.It climbsandstrugglesupwardalmostout of the
picture.In the middledistanceit risesintoa humpandreveals
archesstaggering
overnothingness.The perspectivepiercesinto
vacuity.Thisbridgeis the sceneof a wildpursuit....
Severalaspectsof the marketplace
of a smalltown:... the town
criesout its willthroughits mouth,this marketplace.17
Caligari,then, has producedan entirelynew space,one that
is both all-embracingand all-absorbingin depth and movement.'8But the filmic medium allowedthe explorationof
other kindsof space than the totalizingplasticitymodeled by
Walter R6hrig,Walter Reimann,and HermannWarm for
Weine's film. Scheffaueralso identified the "flatspace"of
Martin'sVon Morgensbis Mittemacht.Ratherthan artificially
constructedin the roundlike Caligari,the spacewas suggested by its designer,RobertNeppach, in tones of blackand
white as "abackground,vague,inchoate,nebulous."19
Above
and aroundthis inactivespace that makesthe universeinto a
48

Vidler

flat plane there is only "primevaldarkness";all perspectiveis

renderedin contrastsof white planesagainstblackness.In
Reimann's1920 film fantasyof Paul Scheerbart'sAlgol,
Scheffauerfound a "geometricalspace." In this meditation
on the space of the stars,"the formsarebrokenup expressionistically,but space acts and speaksgeometrically,in great
vistas,in grandiosearchitecturalculminations.Space or room
is dividedinto formaldiapers,patterns,squares,spots, and
circles,of cube imposed upon cube, of apartmentopening
into apartment."20
Finally,Scheffauernoted what he termed
"sculptural"or "solid"space, as modeled by the Poelzigsfor
Wegener'sDer Golem.
ProfessorPoelzigconceivesof spacein plasticterms,in solid
concretionscongealingunderthe artist'shandto expressiveand
organicforms.He works,therefore,in the solidmassesof the
sculptorandnot withthe planesof the painter.Underhis caressshell-like,
inghandsa weirdbut spontaneousinternalarchitecture,
cavernous,somber,hasbeenevolvedin simple,flowinglines,
instinct with the bizarrespirit of the tale .... The graysoul of

medievalPraguehasbeenmoldedinto theseeccentricanderrant
crypts.... Poelzigseeksto givean eerieandgrotesquesuggestivenessto the flightsof housesandstreetsthatareto furnishthe
externalsettingof this film-play.The willof this masterarchitect
animatingfacadesinto faces,insiststhatthesehousesareto speak
in jargon- andgesticulate!21

Pan-Geometries
In assimilatingfilmic space to the theoreticaltypes of Raum
adumbratedin Germanphilosophyand psychologysince
TheodorVischer,and in proposingthe relativityof spatial
formsin the face of continuous optical movement in a
way reminiscentof the historicalrelativityof optical forms
demonstratedby Alois Riegl, Scheffauerseems also to have
anticipatedthe more scholarlyaccount of perspectivalhistorydevelopedbetween 1923 and 1925by ErwinPanofsky.
Panofsky'sessay "Perspectiveas SymbolicForm"set out to
show that the variousperspectivesystemsfrom Roman times
to the presentwere not simply"incorrect"instancesof representing reality,but rather,were endowed with distinct and
symbolicmeaning of their own, as powerfuland as open to
readingas iconographicaltypes and genres.Panofskyeven
took note of the modernistwill to breakwith the conventions
of perspective,seeing it as yet anotherstage of perspective

vision itself. He cited expressionism'sresistanceto perspective as the last remnantof the will to capture"real,threedimensionalspace,"in particular,El Lissitzky'sdesireto
overcomethe bounds of finite space:
Olderperspectiveis supposedto have'limitedspace,madeit fito Euclidiangenite, closedit off,'conceivedof space'according
andit is theseverybonds
ometryas rigidthree-dimensionality,'
whichthe mostrecentarthasattemptedto break.Eitherit hasin
a senseexplodedthe entirespaceby 'dispersing
the centerof vision'('Futurism'),
orit hassoughtno longerto representdepth
intervals'extensively'
but rather,in
by meansof foreshortenings,
accordwiththe mostmoderninsightsof psychology,
onlyto create an illusion'intensively'
by playingcolorsurfacesoff against
eachother,eachdifferentlyplaced,differentlyshaded,andonlyin
thiswayfurnishedwithdifferentspatialvalues(Mondrianandin
Malevich's'Suprematism').
The author[ElLissitzky]
particular
believeshe cansuggesta thirdsolution:the conquestof 'imaginaryspace'by meansof mechanically
motivatedbodies,whichby
thisverymovement,by theirrotationoroscillation,produceprecise figures(forexample,a rotatingstickproducesan apparent
circle,or in anotherposition,an apparentcylinder,andso forth).
In thisway,in the opinionof El Lissitzky,artis elevatedto the
(whereasin factthe
standpointof a non-Euclidian
pan-geometry
spaceof those'imaginary'
rotatingbodiesis no less 'Euclidian'
thananyotherempiricalspace.)22
Despite Panofsky'sskepticism,it was, of course,such a
"pan-geometric"space that architecturehoped to construct
throughabstractionand technologicallyinduced movement.
Architectsfrom El Lissitzkyto BrunoTaut were to experiment with this new pan-geometryas if it would enable them
finally,in ErnstBloch'swords,"to depict empiricallyan
imaginaryspace."For Bloch,the underlyingEuclidiannature
of all space offeredthe potentialfor architectureto approach
pan-geometryin reality.Basinghis argumenton Panofsky's
essay,he commended expressionistsfor havinggenerated
rotatingand turningbodies that produced"stereometric
figures... which at least have nothing in common with the
perspectivevisualspace (Sehraum)";out of this procedure
emerged"anarchitectureof the abstract,which wants to be
For Bloch,this potentialallowedmodquasi-meta-cubic."23
ern architectureto achieve its own "symbolicallusions,"even
if these were founded on the "so-calledun-EuclidianpanIn this illusion,the archigeometry"criticizedby Panofsky.24
tects were encouragedby the cinematographersthemselves,
49

assemblage 21

who, at least in the 1920sled by Fritz Langand F. W.

Murnau,accepted the practicalrulingsof the Universum
Film A.G., or UFA, whose proscriptionagainstexteriorfilming supportedthe extraordinary
experimentationin set
design of the Weimar period.

Psycho-Spaces
But the attempt to constructthese imaginarynew worlds
was, as Panofskyhad noted, not simplyformalisticand decorative;its premisewas from the outset psychological,based
on what RudolfKurzdefined as the "simplelaw of psychologicalaestheticsthat when we feel our way into certain
formsexact psychiccorrespondencesare set up."25Hugo
Miinsterberg,in his 1916 workFilm:A PsychologicalStudy,
had alreadyset out the terms of the equation, film equals
psychologicalform.26For Miinsterberg,film differedfrom
dramaby its appealto the "innermovements of the mind."
To be sure,the eventsin the photoplayhappenin the realspace
withits depth.Butthe spectatorfeelsthattheyarenot presented
in the threedimensionsof the outerworld,thattheyareflatpictureswhichonlythe mindmoldsintoplasticthings.Againthe
eventsareseenin continuousmovement;andyet the pictures
breakup the movementintoa rapidsuccessionof instantaneous
impressions....The photoplaytellsus the humanstoryby overcomingthe formsof the outerworld,namely,space,time,and
causality,andby adjustingthe eventsto the formsof the inner
andemotion.27
world,namely,attention,memory,imagination,
Only two yearslater,in one of his firstcriticalessays,Louis
Aragonwas to note this propertyof the film to focus attention and reformulatethe realinto the imaginary,the ability
to fuse the physicaland the mental, laterto become a surrealist obsession.Seeminglyanticipatingthe mental states of
AndreBreton'sNadjaor of his own Paysande Paris,but revealedin film, Aragonmeditated on the "the door of a bar
that swingsand on the windowthe capitalletters of unreadable and marvelouswords,or the vertiginous,thousand-eyed
facadeof the thirty-storyhouse."28The possibilityof disclosing the inner"menacingor enigmaticmeanings"of everyday
objectsby simple close-up techniquesand cameraangles,
light, shade,and space established,forAragon,the poetic
potentialof the art:"To endow with a poetic value that
which does not yet possessit, to willfullyrestrictthe field of

vision so as to intensifyexpression:these are two properties

that help make cinematic decorthe adequatesetting of modern beauty."29
For this, however,film had no need of an artificiallyconstructeddecorthat simulatedthe foreshorteningof perspective or the phobic characteristicsof space;the framingsand
movements of the cameraitself would serveto construct
realityfarmore freely.In his later 1934 essay"Styleand
Medium in the Motion Pictures,"Panofskyhimself argued
againstany attempt to subjectthe worldto "artisticprestylization,as in the expressionistsettings of The Cabinet
of Dr. Caligari,"as "no more than an exciting experiment."
"To prestylizerealitypriorto tacklingit amounts to dodging
the problem,"he concluded:"The problemis to manipulate
and shoot unstylizedrealityin such a waythat the resulthas
style.-30

The Lureof the Street

In such terms, fromthe mid-1920son, criticsincreasingly
denounced what they saw as the purelydecorativeand staged
characteristicsof the expressionistfilm in favorof a more
directconfrontationwith the "real."If, as Panofskyasserted,
"theseunique and specificpossibilities"of film could be
"definedas dynamizationof spaceand, accordingly,spatialization of time,"then it was the lens of the camera,and not
any distortedset, 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, approaching,receding,turning,dissolvingand recrystallizingas
it appearsthroughthe controlledlocomotion and focusingof
the cameraand throughthe cutting and editing of the various shots."3'And this led to the inevitableconclusionthat
the propermedium of the movies was not the idealizationof
reality,as in the other arts,but "physicalrealityas such."32
MarcelCarne'sfrustratedquestion, "When Will the Cinema
Go Down into the Street?"callingfor an end to artificeand
the studio set and a confrontationof the "real,"as opposed to
the "constructed"Paris,was only one of a numberof increasset in the early1930s.33
inglycriticalattackson the architectural
Among the most rigorousof the new realists,Siegfried
Kracauer,himself a formerarchitect,was consistent in his

50

Vidler

argumentsagainstthe "decorative"and artificialand in favor

of the criticalvision of the realthat film allowed.From his
firstexperienceof film as a pre-World War I child to his last
theoreticalworkon film publishedin 1960, Kracauerfound
the street to be both site and vehicle for his socialcriticism.
Recallingthe firstfilm he saw as a boy - entitled, significantlyenough, Film as the Discovererof the Marvelsof EverydayLife - Kracauerrememberedbeing thrilledby the sight
of "anordinarysuburbanstreet, filled with lights and shadows which transfiguredit. Severaltrees stood about, and
there was in the foregrounda puddle reflectinginvisible
house facadesand a piece of sky.Then a breeze moved the
shadows,and the fatades with the skybelow began to waver.
The tremblingupperworldin the dirtypuddle- this image
has neverleft me."34For Kracauer,film was firstand foremost
a materialratherthan purelyformalaesthetics that was essentiallysuited to the recordingof the fleeting, the temporallytransient,the momentaryimpression- that is, the
modern- and a qualitythat made the "street"in all its
manifestationsan especiallyfavoredsubjectmatter. If the
snapshotstressedthe randomand the fortuitous,then its
naturaldevelopmentin the motion-picturecamerawas "partial to the least permanentcomponents of our environment,"
rendering"the street in the broadestsense of the word"the
But for
place for chance encountersand socialobservation.35
this to workas a trulycriticalmethod of observationand
recording,the street would firsthave to be offeredup as an
"unstagedreality";what Kracauerconsideredfilm's "declared
preferencefor naturein the raw"was easilydefeated by artificialityand "staginess,"whetherthe staged "drawingbrought
to life"of Caligarior the more filmic stagingof montage,
panning,and cameramovement. Lang'sMetropolisof 1926
was an example of this latterkind of staging,where "afilm of
unsurpassablestaginess"was partiallyredeemedby the way in
which crowdswere treated"andrenderedthrougha combination of long shots and close shots which provideexactlythe
kind of randomimpressionswe would receivewerewe to
witness this spectaclein reality."36
Yet, for Kracauer,the
was
obviated
crowd
of
the
by the architectural
images
impact
and
that
remained
imaginary.A
entirelystylized
settings
similarcase was representedby Walter Ruttmann'sBerlin:
Die SymphonieeinerGroszstadtof 1927,where in a Vertovlike manipulationof shot and montage the directortried to

................................

.^^^^^

...llM^

r^r^r--p
rum

jAuiAi

JWp

FW

4a-b. Walter Ruttmann,Berlin:

Die Sinfonie einer Groszstadt,
1927, film stills

51

..

assemblage 21

capture"simultaneousphenomenawhich, owing to certain

analogiesand contrastsbetween them, formcomprehensible
patterns.... He cuts fromhuman legs walkingthe street to
the legs of a cow and juxtaposesthe luscious dishes in a deluxe restaurantwith the appallingfood of the verypoor."37
Such formalism,however,tended to concentrateattention
not on things themselvesand their meaning,but on their
formalcharacteristics.As Kracauernoted with respectto the
capturingof the city'smovement in rhythmicshots, "tempo
is also a formalconception if it is not defined with reference
"
to the qualitiesof the objectsthroughwhich it materializes."38

"
-

For Kracauer,the street,properlyrecorded,offereda virtually

inexhaustiblesubjectfor the comprehensionof modernity;its
specialcharacteristicsfosterednot only the chance and the
random,but more importantly,the necessarydistance,if not
alienation,of the observerfor whom the cameraeye was a
precisesurrogate.If in the photographsof CharlesMarvilleor
EugeneAtget we might detect a certainmelancholy,this was
because the photographicmedium intersectingwith the
street as subjectfostereda kind of self-estrangement,allowing for a closeridentificationwith the objectsbeing observed.
"Thedejected individualis likelyto lose himself in the incidental configurationsof his environment,absorbingthem
with a disinterestedintensityno longerdeterminedby his
previouspreferences.His is a kind of receptivitywhich resembles that of Proust'sphotographercast in the role of a
Hence, for Kracauerand his friendWalter Benstranger."39
jamin,the close identificationof the photographerwith the
flaneur,and the potentialof flanerieand its techniquesto
furnishmodels for the modernistfilmmaker:
The melancholycharacter
is seenstrollingaboutaimlessly:as he
takeshapein the formof
proceeds,his changingsurroundings
numerousjuxtaposedshotsof housefacades,neonlights,stray
andthe like.It is inevitablethatthe audienceshould
passers-by,
tracetheirseeminglyunmotivatedemergenceto his dejectionand
the alienationin its wake.40

i
:

-'H

5. Eugne Atget, entranceto

the passagede la Reunion,
Paris,1908

In this respect,what Kracauersaw as Eisenstein's"identification of life with the street"took on new meaningas the
moved to capturethe flow of fleeting
flaneur-photographer
that
Kracauer's
teacherGeorg Simmel had charimpressions
acterizedas "snapshotsof reality.""When historyis made
in the streets,the streetstend to move onto the screen,"
concluded Kracauer.
52

Vidler

Filming the City

Other criticswere more optimistic about the potentialof
filmic techniques to rendera versionof realitythat might
otherwisego unrecorded,or better, to reconstruerealityin
such a waythat it might be criticallyapprehended.Thus
Benjamin'scelebratedeulogyof film as libertyof perception
in "The Work of Art in the Age of MechanicalReproduction"
was a firststep in the constitution of the filmic as the modern
criticalaesthetic:
Byclose-upsof the thingsaroundus, by focusingon hiddendetails
of familiarobjects,by exploringcommonplacemilieusunderthe
ingeniousguidanceof the camera,the film,on the one hand,exof the necessitieswhichruleourlives;
tendsourcomprehension
on the otherhand,it managesto assureus of an immenseandunexpectedfieldof action.Ourtavernsandourmetropolitanstreets,
ourofficesandfurnishedrooms,ourrailroadstationsandourfactoriesappearedto haveus lockedup hopelessly.Thencamethe
filmandburstthis prison-world
asunderby the dynamiteof the
tenthof a second,so thatnow,in the midstof its far-flungruins
anddebris,we calmlyandadventurously
go traveling.With the
close-up,spaceexpands;withslowmotion,movementis extended .... An unconsciously penetrated space is substituted for
a space consciously explored by man. .... The camera introduces

to unconscious
us to unconsciousopticsas doespsychoanalysis
impulses.41
Unconsciousoptics - the filmic unconscious- was, for
Benjamin,itself a kind of analysis,the closest aesthetic
of EverydayLife,
equivalentto Freud'sown Psychopathology
in its abilityto focus and deepen perception.
In this characteristic,film obviouslyoutdistancedarchitecture;Benjamin'sremarkthat "architecturehas alwaysrepresented the prototypeof a workof art the receptionof which is
consummatedby the collectivityin a state of distraction"was
made in this verycontext: the assertionof the "shockeffect"
of the film as that which allowsthe public, no longerdistracted,to be once more put in the position of the critic.
Thus the only way to renderarchitecturecriticalagainwas to
wrestit out of its uncriticallyobservedcontext, 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 evocativeremarkinsertedapparentlyat
randomamong the unwieldycollection of citations and aphorismsthat make up the unfinishedPassagen-Werk,
Benjamin

opened the possibilityof yet anotherwayof readinghis unfinished work:was it not perhapsthe sketchof a screenplayfor a
movie of Paris?
Couldone not shoota passionatefilmof the cityplanof Paris?Of
the developmentof its differentforms[Gestalten]in temporal
movementof
succession?
Of the condensationof a century-long
streets,boulevards,
passages,squares,in the spaceof halfan hour?
Andwhatelse doesthe flaneurdo?42
In this context, might not the endless quotationsand aphoristicobservationsof the Passagen-Werk,
carefullywrittenout
on hundredsof single index cards,each one letter-,number-,
and color-codedto cross-referencethem to all the rest,be
construedas so many shots, readyto be montaged into the
epic movie Paris,Capitalof the NineteenthCentury- a
prehistoryof modernity,finallyrealizedby modernity'sown
specialform of mechanicalreproduction?
While obviouslyno "film"of this kind was ever made, an
attempt to answerthe hypotheticalquestion,what would
Benjamin'sfilm of Parishave looked like?would clarifywhat
we might call his "filmicimaginary."Such an imaginary,
overt in the Passagen-Werk
and the contemporaryessay"The
Work of Art in the Age of MechanicalReproduction"and
covertin many earlierwritingsfromthose on Germanbaroqueallegoryto those on historicalform,might, in turn,
revealimportantaspectsof the theoreticalproblemsinherent
in the filmic representationof the metropolis.For in the light
of Benjamin'stheoriesof the politicaland social powersof
mechanicalreproductionas outlined in his "Conversations
with BertoltBrecht,"it is clearfrom the outset that any
projectfor a film of Pariswould in no wayhave resembled
other urbanfilms of the interwarperiod,whetheridealist,
expressionist,or realist.Rather,it would have involvedBenjamin in an act of theoreticalelaborationthat, based on previous film theoryand criticism,would have constructednew
kindsof optical relationsbetween the cameraand the city,
film and architecture.These would no doubt have been
establishedon the complex notion of "the opticalunconscious,"an intercalationof Freudand Riegl,that appearsin
Benjamin'swritingson photographyand film in the late
1920sand early 1930s.
On one level, Benjamin'sfragmentaryremarkis easilydecipherable:what he had in mind was evidentlyan image of the
53

assemblage 21

combined resultsof the flaneur'speripateticvision montaged

onto the historyof the nineteenth centuryand put in motion
by the movie camera.No longerwould the implied movement of Bergsonianmental processesor the turnsof allegorical text have to make do as pale imitationsof metropolitan
movement;now the realmovement of the film would, finally,
mergetechnique and content as a proof,so to speak,of the
manifest destinyof modernity.In this sense, Benjamin's
metaphorof a Parisianfilm remainsjust that: a figureof
modernisttechnique as the fullest expressionof modernist
thought, as well as the explanationof its origins.
Certainly,it is not too difficultto imaginethe figureof
Benjamin'sfldneur,Vertov-like,carryinghis cameraas a third
eye, framingand shooting the rapidlymoving picturesof
modernlife. The etchings of JacquesCallot, the thumbnail
sketchesof AugustinSaint-Aubin,the tableauxof Sebastien
Mercier,the rapidrenderingsof ConstantinGuys, the prose
poems of CharlesBaudelaire,the snapshotsof Atget are all
readilytransposedinto the vocabularyof film, which then
literallymimics the fleeting impressionsof everydaylife in the
metropolisin its verytechniquesof representation.Indeed,
almost everycharacteristicBenjaminassociateswith the
flineur might be associatedwith the film directorwith little
or no distortion.An eye for detail, for the neglected and the
chance;a penchantfor joiningrealityand reverie;a distanced
vision, apartfromthat distractedand unself-consciousexistence of the crowd;a fondnessfor the marginaland the forgotten: these aretraitsof flaneurand filmmakeralike.Both share
affinitieswith the detective and the peddlar,the ragpicker
and the vagabond;both aestheticizethe rolesand materials
with which they work.Equally,the typicalhabitatsof the
flaneurlend themselvesto filmic representation:the banlieue,
the margins,the zones, and outskirtsof the city;the deserted
streetsand squaresat night;the crowdedboulevards,the
phantasmagoricpassages,arcades,and departmentstores;the
spatialapparatus,that is, of the consumermetropolis.

6. Atget, Au Tambour,63, quai

de la Tournelle, Paris, 1908

On anotherlevel, however,if we take the imageliterally

ratherthan metaphorically,a numberof puzzlingquestions
emerge.A film of Parisis certainlyconceivable,but what
would a film of "theplan of Paris"look like?And if we were to
succeed in filming this plan, how then might it depict the
developmentof the city's "forms"- its boulevards,streets,
54

Vidler

squares,and passages- at the same time as "condensing"a

centuryof their historyinto half an hour?How might such a
film, if realized,be "passionate"?
If, as Benjaminintimates,
the model of the film directorwas to be found in the figure
of the flaneur,how might this figuretranslatehis essentially
nineteenth-centuryhabits of walkingand seeing into cinematographicterms?It seems that, step by step, within the
verymovement of Benjamin'sown metaphor,the ostensible
unity of the image is systematicallyundermined;as though
the resultof makinga film of the plan of Pariswere to replicate the veryfragmentationof modernitythat the metropolis
poses, the flaneursees, and the film concretizes.Benjamin's
image thus emergesas a complex rebusof method and form.
Its veryself-enclosedelegance,beginningwith the film and
ending with the flaneuras director(a perfectexample of a
romanticfragmentturningin on itself accordingto Friedrich
Schelling'srules),seems consciouslystructuredto provokeits
own unraveling.It is as if Benjamininsertedhis cinematographicconundruminto the formlessaccumulationof the
citations and aphorismsof the Passagen-Werk
to provoke,in
its deciphering,a self-consciousambiguityabout the implied
structureof his text, and, at the same time, a speculationon
the theoryof film that he neverwrote.
For it was not simplythat the flaneurand the filmmaker
sharedspacesand gazes;for Benjamin,these characteristics
were transferred,as in analysis,to the spacesthemselves,
which became vagabondsin their own right.He spokeof the
phenomenon of the "colportage,or peddlingof space,"as
the fundamentalexperienceof the flaneur,wherea kind of
Bergsoniansimultaneityallowed"the simultaneousperception of everythingthat potentiallyis happeningin this single
Thus the
space.The space directswinksat the flaneur."43
in
as
and
flaneur ragpicker peddlarparticipates his surroundings, even as they cooperatewith him in his unofficialarchaeology of spatialsettings.And, to paraphraseBenjamin,what
else does the filmmakerdo? for a viewernow opened up "in
his susceptibilityto the transientreal-lifephenomenathat
crowdthe screen."44

ArchitecturalMontage
Here we are returnedto Eisenstein's"street,"reminded,
in Benjamin'sdesireto have shot a "passionate"film, of

Eisenstein'sown long analysesof the notion of filmic "ecstasy,"

the simultaneouscause and effect of movement in the movie.
For Eisenstein,the "ecstatic"was in fact the fundamental
sharedcharacteristicof architectureand film. Even as architecturalstyles,one by one, "exploded"into each other in a kind of
inevitablehistoricalprocess,so the filmmakermight force the
shot to decompose and recomposein successiveexplosions.
Thus the
principlesof the Gothic ... seemto explodethe balanceof the Romanesquestyle.And,withinthe Gothicitself,we couldtracethe
stirringpictureof movementof its lancetworldfromthe firstalmostindistinctstepstowardthe ardentmodelsof the matureand
lateGothic.We could,likeWolfflin,conpostmature,'flamboyant'
andBaroqueandinterpretthe excitedspirit
trastthe Renaissance
of the second,windinglikea spiral,as an ecstaticallyburstingtemperamentof a newepoch,explodingprecedingformsof artin the
enthusiasmsfora newquality,responding
to a newsocialphaseof a
singlehistoricalprocess.45
But Eisensteingoes further.In an essayon two Piranesiengravings for the earlyand late states of the Carceriseries,he comparesarchitecturalcomposition itself to cinematic montage,
an implicit "fluxof form"that holds within itself the potential
to explode into successivestates.6 Buildingon his experience
as architectand set designer,Eisensteindevelopeda comprehensive theoryof what he called "spaceconstructions"that
found new meaning in the romanticformulationof architecture as "frozenmusic":
At the basisof the compositionof its ensemble,at the basisof the
masses,in the establishment
of the
harmonyof its conglomerating
melodyof the futureoverflowof its forms,andin the executionof
its rhythmicparts,givingharmonyto the reliefof its ensemble,lies
that same'dance'thatis alsoat the basisof the creationof music,
painting,andcinematicmontage.47
For Eisenstein,a kind of relentlessvertigois set up by the play
of architecturalformsin space,a vertigothat is easilyassimilable to Thomas De Quincey'scelebratedaccount of Samuel
Coleridge'sreactionto Piranesi'sCarceri,or better, to Nikolai
Gogol'sreadingof the Gothic as a style of endless movement
and internalexplosions.48
And if Eisensteincan "force,"to use ManfredoTafuri'sterm,
these representations
of architecturalspace to "explode"into
the successivestagesof their "montage"decompositionand
55

assemblage 21

recomposition,as if they were so many "shots,"then it is because, for Eisenstein,architectureitself embodies the principles of montage. Indeed, its especialcharacteristicsof a
spatialart experiencedin time renderit the predecessorof
film in more than simple analogy.
In the article"Montageand Architecture,"writtenin the late
1930sas a partof the uncompletedworkon montage, Eisenstein sets out this position, contrastingtwo "paths"of the
spatialeye: the cinematic,wherea spectatorfollowsan imaginaryline among a seriesof objects,throughthe sight as well
as in the mind - "diverseimpressionspassingin frontof an
immobile spectator"- and the architectural,where"the
spectatormoved througha seriesof carefullydisposedphenomena which he absorbedin orderwith his visualsense."49
In this transitionfrom realto imaginarymovement, architecture is film's predecessor.Where painting"remainedincapable of fixing the total representationof a phenomenon in
its full multi-dimensionality"and "onlythe film camerahas
solvedthe problemof doing this on a flat surface,""itsundoubted ancestorin this capabilityis ... architecture."50
Eisenstein,as is well known,used AugusteChoisy'sperspective viewsof the Acropolisto demonstratehis theoryof
movement and montage in space, followingLe Corbusier's
own reproductionof these images in Versune architectureto
exemplifythe notion of the promenadearchitecturale.i
But in their use of a common sourceto demonstrate
architecture'spotential for a stagingof movement, neither
Eisensteinnor Le Corbusierwereadmittingany lesserautonomy for their respectivespatialdisciplines.For Eisenstein,
the Acropolissimplyprovedthat architecturewas a fitting
"ancestor"to film; for Le Corbusier,it permitteda returnto
the "original"bodily and sensationalsourcesof the plan.52
Both would have agreedwith RobertMallet-Stevens,who
was troubledby the invasionof the decorativeinto filmic
formsthat
architecture,the potential to create "imaginary"
illustratedratherthan providedsettings for human psychologicalemotions. Mallet-Stevenswarnedagainstthe tendency to view architectureas a photogenicaid to film,
therebycreatinga "foreseen"dynamicthat in realspace
would be providedby the human figure:"the ornament,the
arabesque,is the mobile personagewho createsthem."53
Ratherthan expressionistbuildingsimitatingtheir cinematic

counterparts,he called for a radicalsimplificationof architecture that would, in this way,offer itself up naturallyto the
filmic action, alwayspreservingthe distancebetween the real
and the imaginary."Reallife is entirelydifferent,the house is
made to live, it should firstrespondto our needs."54Properly
handled,however,architectureand film might be entirely
complementary.He cited a screenplayby RicciottoCanudo
that would perhapsrealizethis ideal:
It concernedthe representation
of a solitarywoman,frighteningly
alonein life, surrounded
by the void,andnothingness.The decor:
lines,immovable,repeated,withoutorcomposedof inarticulate
nament:no window,no door,no furniturein the "field"andat the
centerof theserigidparallelsa womanwhoadvancedslowly.Subsituatesthe personanddefines
titlesbecomeuseless,architecture
herbetterthananytext.55
In this vision of a cinematic architecturethat would through
its own laws of perspectivereturnto the essentialcharacteristics of building,Mallet-Stevensechoed Le Corbusierand
anticipatedEisenstein.In his depiction of a decor framedas
the veryimage of isolation,agoraphobicor claustrophobic,he
also answeredthose in Germanywho wereattemptingto
"express"in spatialdistortionwhat a simple manipulationof
the camerain space might accomplish.
Such argumentsoverthe potentialitiesof a "filmicarchitecture"have hardlyceased with the gradualdemise of cinema
and the riseof its own "natural"successors- video and
digitalhyperspatialimaging.That the influenceof these new
formsof spatialrepresentationon architecturemight be as
disturbingas those observedby Le Corbusierand MalletStevens is at least possibleto hazard,as buildingsand their
spatialsequencesaredesignedmore as illustrationsof implied
movement, or worse,as literalfabricationsof the computer'seye view.

7. Rebecca Horn, Der Eintanzer,

1978, film still

56

r
i..
t
Os

??~~~~
ft

?*:

<
i

assemblage 21

Notes
1. Dziga Vertov,Kino-Eye:The
Writingsof Dziga Vertov,ed.
Annette Michelson, trans. Kevin
O'Brien (Berkeley:Universityof
CaliforniaPress, 1984), 17.
2. Le Corbusier,"Espritde verite,"
Mouvement1 (June 1933): 10-13,
translatedin RichardAbel, French
Film Theoryand Criticism:A History/Anthology,2 vols. (Princeton:
Princeton UniversityPress, 1988),
2:111-13.
3. See Georges Melies, "LesVues
cinematographiques"(1907), in
MarcelL'Herbier,L'Intelligencedu
cinematographe(Paris:Editions
Corea, 1946), 179-87, and Eric
Rohmer, "Cinema:The Art of
Space" (1948), in Eric Rohmer, The
Taste for Beauty,trans. Carol Volk
(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity
Press, 1989), 19-29.
4. The best discussion of the architectural contribution to set design,
in the context of the expressionist
twenties, is still Lotte H. Eisner's
L'Ecrandemoniaque(Paris:Eric
Losfeld, 1965).
5. RobertMallet-Stevens,"Le
Cinema et les arts:L'Architecture,"
Les Cahiersdu Mois-Cinema(1925);
reprintedin L'Herbier,L'Intelligence du cinematographe,288.
6. Abel Gance, "Qu'est-ceque le
cinematographe?Un sixieme art,"
Cine-Journal195, no. 9 (March
1912); reprintedin L'Herbier,L'Intelligencedu cinematographe,92.
7. "Lecinema est plastique d'abord:
il represente,en quelque sorte, une
architectureen mouvement qui doit
etre en accord constant, en equilibre
dynamiquementpoursuiviavec le
milieu et les paysagesou elle s'eleve
et s'ecroule"(Elie Faure, "De la
cineplastique,"in L'Arbred'Eden
[Paris:Editions Cres, 1922]; re-

printed in L'Herbier,L'Intelligence
du cinematographe,268).

76-85. Scheffauerwas the author of

The New Spirit in the GermanArts.

8. "Laplastique est l'artd'exprimer

la forme en repos ou en mouvement" (ibid., 268).

14. Ibid., 77.

9. "Lecinema incorporele temps a

l'espace. Mieux. Le temps, parlui,
devient reellement une dimension
de l'espace"(ibid., 275).
10. "Nous avons deja fait du temps
un organequi joue son role dans
l'organismespatiale meme,
deroulant sous nos yeux ses volumes
successifs ramenes sans cesse pour
nous aux dimensions qui nous
permettent d'en embrasserletendue en surfaceet en profondeur"
(ibid.).
11. "Lanotion de la duree entrant
comme element constitutif dans
la notion de l'espace, nous
imagineronsfacilement un art de
cineplastique epanoui qui ne soit
plus qu'une architectureideale et
d'oiule cinemime, et je le repete,
disparaitra,parcequ'un grandartiste pourrabatir seul des 6difices
se constituant, s'effondrantet
se reconstituantsans cesse par
insensibles passagesde tous et de
modeles qui seront eux-memes architecture a tout instant de la duree,
sans que nous puissions saisirla
millieme seconde oOs'operela transition" (ibid., 276).
12. "Lacineplastique, sans doute,
en sera l'ornement spirituelle plus
unaninement recherche- le jeu
social le plus utile au developpement dans las foules, du besoin de
confiance, d'harmonie,de cohesion"
(ibid., 278).
13. Herman G. Scheffauer,"The
Vivifyingof Space,"Freeman(24
November-I December 1920); reprinted in LewisJacobs,ed., Introduction to the Art of the Movies
(New York:Noonday Press, 1960),

15. Ibid., 78.

16. Ibid., 79.
17. Ibid., 79-81.
18. Scheffauer'sanalysiswas echoed
by the art critic Rudolf Kurz:"Perpendicularlines tense towardsthe
diagonal,houses exhibit crooked,
angularoutlines, planes shift in
rhomboidfashion, the lines of force
of normalarchitecture,expressedin
perpendicularsand horizontals,are
transmogrifiedinto a chaos of broken forms.... A movement begins,
leaves its naturalcourse, is intercepted by another, led on, distorted
again, and broken.All this is steeped
in a magic play of light, unchaining
brightnessand blackness,building
up, dividing,emphasizing,destroyund Film
ing" (Expressionismus
[Berlin,1926], 123;cited in Siegbert
Salomon Prawer,Caligari'sChildren:The Film as Tale of Terror
[New York:Da Capo Press, 1988],
189).
19. Scheffauer,"The Vivifyingof
Space,"82.
20. Ibid., 83.
21. Ibid., 84.
22. ErwinPanofsky,Perspectiveas
SymbolicForm,trans. ChristopherS.
Wood (New York:Zone Books,
1991), 154 n. 73. "Die Perspektive
als 'symbolischeForm"'was first
published in the Vortrdgeder
BibliothekWarburg,1924-1925
(Leipzigand Berlin, 1927), 258-330.
23. Ernst Bloch, "Buildingin
Empty Spaces,"in The Utopian
Functionof Art and Literature:SelectedEssays,trans.JackZipes and
FrankMecklenburg(Cambridge,
Mass.:MIT Press, 1988), 196. "Die
Bebauungdes Hohlraums"was first

58

published in Das PrinzipHoffnung

(Frankfurtam Main: Suhrkamp,
1959).
24. Ibid. Bloch referreddirectlyto
Panofsky'sessay.
25. Kurz,Expressionismusund Film,
54; cited in Prawer,Caligari'sChildren, 189.
26. Hugo Muinsterberg,Film:A PsychologicalStudy (New York:Dover,
1969). For a generalstudy of his
theory, see Donald L. Fredericksen,
The Aestheticof Isolationin Film
Theory:Hugo Miinsterberg(New
York:Arno Press, 1977).
27. Munsterberg;cited in Gerald
Mast and MarshallCohen, eds.,
Film Theoryand Criticism:IntroductoryReadings,3d ed. (New York:
Oxford UniversityPress, 1985), 332.
28. Louis Aragon,"Du decor,"Le
Film 131 (16 September 1918): 810; trans. in Abel, FrenchFilm
Theoryand Criticism, 1:165.
29. Ibid., 166.
30. ErwinPanofsky,"Styleand Medium in the Motion Pictures,"Bulletin of the Departmentof Art and
Archeology(PrincetonUniversity,
1934). A revisedversion was published in Critique 1, no. 3 (JanuaryFebruary1947); reprintedin Mast
and Cohen, Film Theoryand Criticism, 232.
31. Ibid., 218.
32. Ibid., 232.
33. MarcelCarne, "Quandle
cinema descendra-t-ildans la rue?"
Cinemagazine13 (November 1933);
trans. in Abel, FrenchFilm Theory
and Criticism,2:127-29.
34. SiegfriedKracauer,Natureof
Film:The Redemptionof Physical
Reality (New York:Oxford University Press, 1960), xi. This workwas
later reissuedunder the title Theory
of Film.

Vidler

35. Ibid., 52. Kracauerelaborated:

"The affinity of film for haphazard
contingencies is most strikingly
demonstratedby its unwaveringsusceptibility to the 'street'- a term
designed to cover not only the
street, particularlythe city street, in
the literal sense, but also its various
extensions, such as railwaystations,
dance and assemblyhalls, bars,hotel lobbies, airports,etc .... Within
the present context the street,
which has alreadybeen characterized as a center of fleeting impressions, is of interest as a region where
the accidental prevailsover the
providential,and happenings in the
nature of unexpected incidents are
all but the rule .... There have been
only few cinematic films that would
not include glimpses of a street, not
to mention the many films in which
some street figuresamong the protagonists" (p. 62).
36. Ibid., 61-62.
37. Ibid., 65.
38. Ibid., 207.
39. Ibid., 17.
40. Ibid.
41. Walter Benjamin,"The Work
of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"(1935); trans. in Mast
and Cohen, Film Theoryand Criticism, 689-90.
42. "Liessenicht ein passionierender Film sich aus dem Stadtplan
von Parisgewinnen?aus derEntwicklung seiner verschiedenenGestalten
in zeitlicher Abfolge?aus der
Verdichtungeiner jahrhundertelangen Bewegungvon Strassen,
Boulevards,Passagen,Platzen
im Zeitraum einer halben Stunde?
Und was anderestut der Flaneur?"
(Walter Benjamin,Gesammelte
Schriften,vol. 5, pt. 1, Das PassagenWerk [Frankfurtam Main:
Suhrkamp,1982], 135).

43. "Das 'Kolportagephanomen

des Raumes' ist die grundlegende
Erfahrungdes Flaneurs.Da es sich
auch - von einer andern Seite - in
den Interieursder Jahrhundertmitte
zeigt, ist die Vermutungnicht
abzuweisen,dass die Bliitezeit der
Flanerie in dieselbe Epoche fallt.
Kraftdieses Phanomens wird
simultan was alles nur in diesem
Raume potentiell geschehen ist,
wahrgenommen.Der Raum blinzelt
den Flaneur an" (Benjamin,Das
Passagen-Werk,527).
44. Kracauer,Nature of Film, 170.
45. Sergei Eisenstein, NonindifferentNature, trans. Herbert
Marshall(Cambridge:Cambridge
UniversityPress, 1987), 122.
46. See Eisenstein, Nonindifferent
Nature, 123-54. For a discussion of
Eisenstein's filmic interpretationof
Piranesiin the context of the European avant-garde,see Manfredo
Tafuri, The Sphereand the Labyrinth:Avant-Gardesand Architecture
fromPiranesito the 1970s, trans.
Pellegrinod'Aciernoand Robert
Connolly (Cambridge,Mass.:MIT
Press, 1990), 55-64.
47. Eisenstein, Nonindifferent
Nature, 140.

50. Ibid., 600.

FigureCredits

51. See Auguste Choisy, Histoire

de l'architecture,2 vols. (Paris:
Gauthiers-Villars,1899), 1:413,and
Bois, "Introduction,"114. Bois elegantly solves the apparentparadox
that Choisy, who relied on the axonometric as the basic analytical
tool of his history, in the case of the
Acropolisturned to the sequential,
perspectivalview. For Choisy, the
"singleimage"of the axonometric
condensed a view that was mouvementeeand therebypotentially
cinematic. Eisenstein, for his part,
cited Choisy's analysisat length
with little commentary,askinghis
readersimply "to look at it with the
eye of a filmmaker":"it is hard to
imagine a montage sequence for an
architecturalensemble more subtly
composed, shot by shot, than the
one which our legs create by walking
among the buildings of the Acropolis" ("Montageand Architecture,"
60).

1. Interviewwith Babette
Mangolte, CameraObscura3-4
(Summer 1979).

52. Le Corbusier,Versune architecture (Paris:Editions Cres, 1923), 31.

53. Mallet-Stevens,"LeCinema et
les arts,"289.
54. Ibid., 290.
55. Ibid., 288.

48. See Eisenstein, Nonindifferent

Nature, 159-65, an analysis,along
the same lines as his discussion of
Piranesi'sCarceri,of Nikolai Gogol's
"On the Architectureof Our Time,"
published in 1831.
49. Sergei Eisenstein, "Montage
and Architecture,"in Selected
Works,vol. 2, Towardsa Theoryof
Montage,ed. Michael Glenny and
RichardTaylor,trans. Michael
Glenny (London:BFI Publishing,
1991), 59. "Montageand Architecture"appearedearlierin Assemblage
10 (December 1989): 116-31; see
esp. Yve-AlainBois, "Introduction,"
111-15.

59

2. Leon Barsacq,Caligari'sCabinet
and Other GrandIllusions:A History
of Film Design, rev. ed. (Boston:
New YorkGraphicSociety, 1976).
3, 4. FrederickW. Ott, The Great
GermanFilms (Secaucus, N.J.:Citadel Press, 1986).
5. EugeneAtget:A Selectionof Photographsfromthe Musee Carnavalet,
Paris (New York:Pantheon, 1985).
6. Eugene Atget, Voyageen ville (reprint;Paris:Chene/Hachette, 1979).
7. RebeccaHorn,exhibition catalogue (Zurich:KunsthausZurich,
1983).