the zahir | volume 5 | issue 3
film
Urbanisation on the Up? The city is one of the most filmed spaces in cinema. Their constant expansion is a process that has provided filmmakers with dynamic locations, and potentiality limitless scenarios to be drawn on. However, interwoven with capturing mankind’s development and progress, is the opportunity to preserve or re-create what would otherwise be lost in the rush to urbanisation. In Metropolis (1921), Fritz Lang envisions perhaps one of the most arresting scenes on celluloid; a towering futuristic city with humans no more than ant workers. Though his Marxist polemic is often regarded as of its time and consequently kept there, representations of future cities made afterwards owe it a great debt (think of the layout of New New York in Futurama). Urbanisation here, or the growth of the city, is presented in terms of certainty. The growth of the city is a logical linear progression corresponding with the intelligence of man: as our capacity to think expands, so too does the city. Lang’s weighted account of the workers operating the machinery that keeps Metropolis functioning delineates both the cities dependency on the labour force, and the population’s dependency on their habitat. If the workers revolt or the human race withers, as depicted in post-apocalyptic films such as The Road (2009), the cities atrophy into grey and dilapidated relics. The state of humanity’s health is represented by the state of the city. Rendering a grey bleak world of Council houses and poverty, Fish House is a low budget film that explores the the potential of a dystopian future in Britain, with the urbanisation of the city having deteriorated from a process that enriches the lives of its citizens to one that holds them in a cycle of purgatorial endlessness. If the city’s progression and expansion is assured but its destination is suspected to be morally dubious, it would seem prudent to question the decision makers who seem to be guiding the development of cities, or failing to guide them. As the legality of open criticism towards hierarchies and public figures has risen, po-
Michael Tansini considers the urban spaces in film
litical systems have been revealed as failing to provide the progression hoped for by early futuristic cinema. In the seventies, a host of films show a lawless city whose citizens feel disconnected from each other, and so resort to violence. In Taxi Driver (1976), Travis Bickle has been so affected by his military service and ignored by the authorities that he sees himself as a crusading vigi-
expanding cities and a growing population will ultimately polute the city beyond repair lante against what he calls the “scum”; the pimps and politicians who are as much a part of the urban aesthetic as bus stops and
fire hydrants. As progress becomes even more fragmented and uncertain, a top-down rule is shown to have inadequate vision, both in terms of development and consolidation. The seemingly unchecked growth of the city and authoritarian responses to the chaos further damaged any sense of stability or unity, and the city on film became more dangerous. The seemingly unmotivated Alex in A Clockwork Orange (1971) kills out of pleasure, but is later posited as a victim, despite having little to separate him from his torturers. As the city has progressed technologically, people living within it have lost their sense of moral direction. The city is only as strong as its inhabitants, and their decline means a general urban decline as well. Criticism of urbanisation has most recently been bolstered by the environmental movement, with evidence that expanding cities and a growing population will ultimately pollute the world beyond repair and deplete our planets resources. Up (2009) presents a citizen named Carl; an old man being forced out of his old, attractive house he has lived in for most of his life. The building is now surrounded by busy motorways, high-rise skyscrapers, and loud construction work, and without an empathetic view in sight, Carl escapes by tethering balloons to his house and flying away. Though Pixar has provided a fantastical account of how one can escape from the harsh economic reality of the city with their possessions still in tact, it is easy to imagine a depressing art-house version of the film where Carl is forced out into a care home. The advance in the city in monetary terms makes its citizens think entirely within those terms; compassion is an old concept that is soon forgotten. Though arguably ethically debilitating, urbanisation is presented as necessary to house everyone. Though some might find themselves privileged enough to finance their own extradition from city life, the constant growth in all directions seems to imply that the suburbs will soon be on their doorstep, along with everything urbanisation is accommodating.
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