CIN 3110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Andrea Arnold, Voyeurism, Urban Area
16 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
The History of British Cinema Class 9
Christopher Nolan – Following
Andrea Arnold – Red Road
Surveillance City
• Voyeurism and the urban crowd
o Voyeurism as stalking.
• Urban Interiors: the council estate and the apartment
o Urban apartment, apartment living. It can be expensive, stuffy, private cocoon in
modern cityscape (following) – lead character likes to break into these places
▪ Red Road: council estate, public housing project.
o How these interiors relate to city as a whole.
• Constraint and creativity
o Generative – both films made from small budgets, which was a liberating
challenge. To hone the creative skills of the director.
Stalker/stalking:
• Both films have stalker/voyeur as a central character. Focalized viewers attention from
that perspective. As viewers, we are focalized on this extremity, a rather uncomfortable
position. – Analogy for our role as viewers from our image popular culture.
• Indexed to the urban space – it’s hard to be a stalker in the countryside because you stand
out more, and you’re more exposed. Abhorrent and obsessive behaviours are not covered
by mass life
• Urban life = anonymity. Being another face in a sea of people. Defining experiences of
modernity.
• Tension between identity of the individual, but at the same time, the faceless anonymity
that goes with that. Repeated trope within 20th century – crowd as mass/liquid instead of
individuals. Becomes inhuman. Crowd has fluid dynamics that go beyond the will of
individual members.
o How the stalker has their identity
• Flaneur (sp?) - Perfect encapsulation of the experience of identity. City becomes aesthetic
spectacle. Beaudelaire links this to an aesthetic experience. Little strands of narrative.
o Dream state as you flow around a city.
o Desire for identity within the crowd.
o Flaneur is a leisurely bohemian gentleman, has a certain liberty within mid 19th
Century Paris. A comfort and ease that isn’t always afforded to female members.
o Different experience of the female wanderer in the urban space.
• Urban space = anonymous, alienating, dehumanising. But it’s a modern, charming
aesthetic experience within that anonymity.
• Elements of this bubbling in background of the two films.
o Both Bill and Jackie are voyeurs of people within the crowd, and stand in for the
figure of the artist. Bill is an aspiring writer, his descent into the criminal
underworld begins by him making notes for a novel, and he follows him through
the streets (he then breaks into an apartment) and he begins a life of organized
crime. Nolan is using a voyeur as an emblem for the role of the artist. Aesthetic,
but slightly perverse and weird for the artist to get into people’s minds.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Surveillance city: voyeurism and the urban crowd, voyeurism as stalking, urban interiors: the council estate and the apartment, urban apartment, apartment living. To hone the creative skills of the director. Stalker/stalking: both films have stalker/voyeur as a central character. As viewers, we are focalized on this extremity, a rather uncomfortable position. Analogy for our role as viewers from our image popular culture. Indexed to the urban space it"s hard to be a stalker in the countryside because you stand out more, and you"re more exposed. Abhorrent and obsessive behaviours are not covered by mass life: urban life = anonymity. Being another face in a sea of people. Defining experiences of modernity: tension between identity of the individual, but at the same time, the faceless anonymity that goes with that. Repeated trope within 20th century crowd as mass/liquid instead of individuals. Crowd has fluid dynamics that go beyond the will of individual members: how the stalker has their identity, flaneur (sp?)
