Cinema and Landscape

The notion of landscape is a complex one, but it has been central to the art and artistry of the cinema. After all, what is the French New Wave without Paris? What are the films of Sidney Lumet, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, and Spike Lee without New York? Cinema and Landscape frames contemporary film landscapes across the world, in an exploration of screen aesthetics and national ideology, film form and cultural geography, cinematic representation and the human environment. Written by well-known cinema scholars, this volume both extends the existing field of film studies and stakes claims to overlapping, contested territories in the humanities and social sciences.

Chapter 1: Introduction – Cinema and Landscape – Graeme Harper, Bangor University and Jonathan Rayner, University of Sheffield

PART I: The Invention of the Cinematic Landscape 

Chapter 2: Landscape and the Fantasy of Moving Pictures: Early Cinema’s Phantom Rides – Tom Gunning, University of Chicago

PART II: Mapping Cinematic Landscapes 

Chapter 3: ‘One Foot in the Air?’ Landscape in the Soviet and Russian Road Movie – Emma Widdis, University of Cambridge

Chapter 4: Landscape of the Mind: The Indifferent Earth in Werner Herzog’s Films – Brad Prager, University of Missouri

Chapter 5: Visions of Italy: The Sublime, the Postmodern and the Apocalyptic – William Hope, Salford University

Chapter 6: Landscape in Spanish Cinema – Marvin D’Lugo, Clark University

Chapter 7: Landscape and Irish Cinema – Martin McLoone, University of Ulster

Chapter 8: The Ownership of Woods and Water: Landscapes in British Cinema 1930–1960 – Sue Harper, University of Portsmouth

Chapter 9: Filming the (Post-)Colonial Landscape: Claire Denis’ Chocolat (1988) and Beau travail (1998) – Susan Hayward, University of Exeter

Chapter 10: Landscaping the Revolution: The Political and Social Geography of Cuba Reflected in its Cinema – Bob Britton, University of Sheffield

Chapter 11: Landscapes of Meaning in Cinema: Two Indian Examples – Wimal Dissanayake, University of Hawaii

Chapter 12: The Geography of Cinema – Zimbabwe – Martin Mhando, Murdoch University

Chapter 13: Crises, Economy and Landscape: The Modern Film Face of New China – Kate Taylor, Bangor University

Chapter 14: Japanese Cinema and Landscape – Paul Spicer, University of Portsmouth

Chapter 15: A Version of Beauty and Terror: Australian Cinematic Landscapes – Graeme Harper, Bangor University

Chapter 16: Battlefields of Vision: New Zealand Filmscapes – Jonathan Rayner, University of Sheffield

Chapter 17: The Landscapes of Canada’s Features: Articulating Nation and Nature – Jim Leach, Brock University

Chapter 18: Science Fiction/Fantasy Films, Fairy Tales and Control: Landscape Stereotypes on a Wilderness to Ultra-urban Continuum – Christina Kennedy, Tiánna and Mélisa Kennedy, Northern Arizona University