Cinematographic Presentation of the Experience of Facing the Other in the City Space

DOI: https://doi.org/10.34680/urbis-2021-1-142-150

Dina Akhmetzyanova
ITMO University, St. Petersburg, Russia
[email protected]

ORCID: 0000-0002-8881-7407

Abstract 

This article examines the specificity of the cinematic image of the city in the context of the dichotomy “friends and foes”. Due to the fact that urban space is a complex environment, city dwellers could experience a meeting with something other, which is different from the views of a citizen. The article examines the assumptions that the cinematic image of a stranger in an unfamiliar city is a representation of the other in urban space and can also be successfully used for the deconstruction of social stereotypes. Also, the article examines the specifics of the image of the city space in the cinema and the ways of interpreting urban images in the context of the conflict between the rational and the sensual, the internal and the external. Films such as Hiroshi Teshigahara’s “The Face of Another”, Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation”, Mary Harron’s “American Psycho”, Luchino Visconti’s “Death in Venice” and “White Nights” were used as material for the analysis. The research contains the conclusion that the cinematic images of the urban become an actual illustration of the definition of humanity.

Keywords: urban space, urban metaphors, representation of the other, dichotomy “friends and foes”, cinematic representation.

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About author

Dina N. Akhmetzyanova

MA student of the Institute of Design and Urban Studies
ITMO University, St. Petersburg, Russia
E-mail: [email protected]

For citation:
Akhmetzyanova D. N. Cinematographic Presentation of the Experience of Facing the Other in the City Space. Urbis et Orbis. Microhistory and Semiotics of the City. 2021. 1. P. 142–150. DOI: https://doi.org/10.34680/urbis-2021-1-142-150