What is a House? Spaces of discomfort by Ruben Alcolea

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort edited by RubĂŠn A. Alcolea

AAP College of Architecture, Art and Planning Cornell University

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

AAP College of Architecture, Art and Planning Cornell University

In many occasions, researchers have gone through the mutual relations of film and architecture as standalone disciplines interacting to each other, or even showing how they have evolved and related through their own history. Nevertheless, the focus here is more on the spaces themselves, where the stories are told and lived, and paying special attention to those who, far from being friendly, produce a successful and strong sense of aversion or discomfort. This publication is an academic production with the research for the elective course Arch 3308/6308 ‘What is a House?: Spaces of Discomfort’, instructed during the Spring Semester 2018 at AAP by Rubén Alcolea.

Cover Image: Ruth Marcotte & Ihwa Choi What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort / edited by Rubén A. Alcolea 176 p. / 9x6 in / 15.24x22.86 cm / 2018 1. Architecture in motion picures. 2. Photography. 3. Motion Picturessetting and scenery. I. Alcolea, Rubén A., 1975Printed and bound in Ithaca, NY, US by Cornell Print Services © The authors © 2018 AAP College of Architecture, Art and Planning. Cornell University All right reseved. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution and for a Non-Commercial Use. All material is compiled from sources believed to be reliable, but published without responsability for errors or omissions. The authors have included the sources and tried to contact copyright holders, but this was not possibe in all circumstances. No part of this work may be reproduced or used in any form without written permission from the editor. The opinions and statements of facts expressed in this volume are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent those of the editor.

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

AAP College of Architecture, Art and Planning Cornell University

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort Spaces of Discomfort Body and Water Vertical Terror The Open Road Quentin Tarantino: Tension in Space Manipulating Reality The Evil in Space The Good, The Bad or The Ugly The Scary Body The Linear, Enclosed World Appendix

Spaces of Discomfort What is a House? The Spaces of Discomfort

by Rubén A. Alcolea

This publication compiles some of the work produced at the seminar “What is a House?. The Living Space in Movies”, which was hold at the AAP Cornell University through the spring semester 2018, with the specific subtitle of “Spaces of Discomfort”. The topic is seductive, and in many occasions, researchers have gone through the mutual relations of film and architecture as standalone disciplines interacting to each other, or even showing how they have evolved and related through their own history. Nevertheless, the text and drawings here focus more on the spaces themselves, where the stories are told and lived, paying special attention to those who, far from being friendly, produce a successful and strong sense of aversion or discomfort. As in previous occasions, movies have been used as an open field, rather than singular items or case examples. By studying how the distinct movies have stated a deep sense of uneasiness or distress in diverse scenarios, whether real or imaginary, architects can get a better understanding of how our psyche reads the spaces depicted and transforms them into personal and profound experiences. So, rather than have the focus on special buildings or enclosed spaces, the research has been driven by understanding the different concepts and their application to built environments in order to achieve the goals of the stories told by the filmmakers. And precisely because of that, some statements and drawings collected here open the door to new and unusual interpretations beyond the orthodox perception of different movies.

The stalker, previous to enter The Room. Stalker (1979) by Tarkovsky

What is a House? The Spaces of Discomfort

Dane DeHaan (playing Lockhart) in A Cure for Wellness Mia Goth (playing Hannah) in A Cure for Wellness

Body and Water What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

by Ruth Marcotte and Ihwa Choi

As an element deeply rooted in the beginning of every humanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life, water has the power to add drama and dynamism to cinematographic environments in a multitude of ways that almost no other element can achieve. Water in different forms (as snow, rain, condensation, fog, in purified pools or in rough natural bodies of water) is weighted with significance and symbolism, and can affect spatial and attitudinal perception. The bodies presented in the films communicate drama, atmosphere, and emotion to the viewer by using the element of water as a link. By comparing a film called A Cure for Wellness (2016)1, directed by Gore Verbinski, with historical and contemporary cinematic examples, it is possible to narrow down the wide scope and frequency of appearances of water as an element in film. This essay will focus on how water, as a spatial element, has the ability to create an uncomfortable, paranoid, or sinister space. Historically, water has had the potential to disquiet. As an element, it is powerful and difficult to

1. A Cure For Wellness, 2016, dir. Gore Verbinski, 146 min

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

Body and Water

A Cure for Wellness (2017, Gore Verbinski)

control. Cinema attempts to do so to incite a state of shock, trauma, depression, nightmares, and more by immersing the viewer into a liquid environment. Water is not only representational, where it visualizes and symbolises a characterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s psychic condition, but it also can be used to fully immerse the watcher into a new environment. This method of cinematography attempts to extend past the physical barrier between the filmed character and the spectator and builds a constructed spatial experience for the ones watching. One of the earliest cinematographic immersive representations of water is Thomas Edisonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s short film, Panorama of Gorge Railway2, where a camera was attached to the front of a moving train that ran next to a river filming the water flowing in the opposite direction. The foam flying and wetting the camera pulls the viewer into the depicted scene while boasting the cinematic fluidity of translating the movement of water onto the screen. This rapid flow of water was filmed to incite shock and terror from the viewers, picking on the universal fear of the power of water. 12

While Thomas Edisonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s film directly depicted the dangers associated with water, cinema can control the atmosphere and emotion of a space in a more subtle manner by manipulating the sound and appearance of water elements within the scene. An example of this can be found in a scene in A Cure for Wellness, where the main character is holed up at a wellness center in the Swiss Alps, where all the patients drink, bathe in, and interact with water constantly, and the water itself turns out to be the source of a physical and mental sickness. In one scene, the main character Lockhart (played by Dane de Haan) discovers an underground cave, which is a dark, damp space with a pool of water. The echoes of droplets of water hitting the wet stone floor, the reflected dappled lighting reflecting off the crystal blue pond, and shimmering, damp surfaces all come together to create a surreal environment underneath the ground. The pond water is reflected onto the glazed, wet surface of the naturally formed stone arches, creating a realm where the Lockhart is surrounded by various displays of water. The combination of the ominous darkness and gloominess of the space with the abyss-like

2. Panorama of Gorge Railway, 1900, dir. Thomas Edison, 2 min.

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

Shots from Panorama of Gorge Railway

Within the resort in A Cure for Wellness

Body and Water

underground lake presents a surreal environment to both Lockhart and the spectators of the film. This space is hard to understand because of its complexities, which comes from its physical spatiality, but the auditory as well as lighting conditions are heavily impacted by the presence of water. The way Lockhart moves throughout the space of the cave, carefully trying not to slip and fall and not getting to close to the edge of the pond, reveals how elements of water also manipulates how the body moves within a space. The organization of these aquatic elements can change how film is able to interact with the viewer’s senses. As Tarkovsky describes it, “the perceptual consistency of images and sounds and their symbolic meanings are mutually combined,”3 an approach that is evident in his treatment of water and sound in his film Stalker4, where the physical images of water flowing or dripping are frequent, and the sounds of water dripping are used in those scenes and in some of the initial ones to create an uncomfortable environment. The sound of water flowing or dripping can sometimes be used

Cave in A Cure for Wellness

3. D’Aloia, Adriano. Water and Immersivity in the Contemporary Film Experience. Report no. 5. Film and Media Studies, Universita Cattolica Del Sacro Cuore. Milan, 2012. 87-106

4. Stalker, 1972, dir. Anderi Tarkovsky, 161 min.

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

Tunnel scene from Stalker

Prison scene from Shutter Island

Body and Water

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

to develop a mood almost as much as the physical visual presence of water in the scene. This same type of discomfort through inclusion of water is present in Shutter Island5, in the scene where Leonardo diCaprio’s character chases another inmate through the asylum. The damp space reflects light and adds another level of mystery and confusion to the sequence, and the presence of water in this scene as well as in others in the movie symbolizes psychosis, as the viewer can’t discern whether the chase scene is real or hallucinatory. Later in the same film, the main character is stranded on rocks by the sea, and when a wave washes over the rocks and recedes, the damp rocks appear to be covered in live rats. Water is used throughout this film to suggest trauma and hallucination, and environmentally to obscure vision and legibility of the sequence and of reality. How the viewer perceives the scenario and how they interalize it can be controlled through the expression of water. Throughout A Cure for Wellness, water as a motif surrounds the main character, as acts as a force of evil. Through multiple scenes, water creates hallucinations, such as one scene of the main character, Lockhart, moving through the stream rooms, where the steam interacts with the space of the sauna to generate hallucinations and begin to suggest to the main character that the spa may not be quite what it seems. In this scene, the fog muffled the sound, leaving only the ominous creak of the main character’s crutches. The camera circles around him as he moves through the space, and the fog hides and reveals changes in the physical space as it reorients itself and shifts around him. The fog also reveals a deer moving through the labyrinthine steam room in the distance, a further suggestion of Lockhart’s mental instability. The fog changes with the space and controls the aural quality of the space, which, in combination with the camera movement and the sickly yellow color scheme, creates a sense of unease and psychosis. In other films as well, fog has been used to obscure something sinister and signify confusion: in Shutter Island, the first shot of the movie is a boat moving through fog, and the fog in this instance Body and Water

5. Shutter Island, 2010, dir. Martin Scorsese, 138 min.

Lockhart vs Steam

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

Shutter Island (2010)

Insomnia (2002)

Body and Water

signifies the psychotic break of the main character, who is unable to see clearly or realize the true situation because of his psychosis. The fog acts as a symbolic element but also creates an uncomfortable atmosphere cinematographically by hiding a majority of the scene so that only a few indiscernible figures rise amidst the mist. This obscurity, metaphorical or literal, can also be an active part of the plot, as in Insomnia6, where the main character, played by Al Pacino, is a cop who is forced into a state of confusion by a misty forest, and in a bout of paranoia shoots his partner. This sequence haunts him and contributes to his later mental decline, all due to the spatial conditions. In both movies, water is used to blur the hard walls of constructed or natural spaces and instead creates a surreal environment where both the characters and the viewers are lost which in turn immerses the latter into the movie by sharing the same emotions as the former.

A recurring image which many other modern movies employ is the motif of tanks (or pools), specifically of submerged, floating bodies. This interaction between human bodies and water can be used to express intimacy, fear of drowning, and helplessness, and can evoke scientific experiments, trauma, or nightmares. In A Cure for Wellness, there is a scene filmed in a sensory deprivation tank, which was apparently an actually traumatic scene for the DeHaan to film, as well as an unsettling one to witness. In the darkened tank, without a sense of scale or connection to the outside world, the human body is seen afloat, contracted with the natural power of water and rigidity of the mechanical tank, creating an eerie atmosphere and a sense of vulnerability. The composition and framing of the tank scene communicate the relationship between the body and water. Lockhartâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s body is framed to be completely encapsulated by water, with no means of escape. In two other instances, his body is reflected onto the surface under the water, creating a sense of surreal space, unnatural space. The reflection also duplicates and fills the space with Lockhartâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s body within water, adding to the loss of scale and isolation of the body.

6. Insomnia, 2002, dir. Christopher Nolan, 118 min.

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

This scene is brought to a climax when the trapped main character finds that he cannot escape and cannot be heard. Water is seen in tanks in other instances in this film, such as an initial scene where the bodies of other patients can be seen in the background through windows into a pool, exhibited in a dehumanizing way. Towards the end, the main character discovers bodies suspended in tanks in some sort of scientific experiment, floating like corpses in a series of bays in an otherwise empty room. Through all these scenes, the blue tones of the water and of the lighting further add to a sense of coldness and discomfort that the tanks create. This interaction of bodies and water through submerging is recurrent at smaller scales, such as the tanks, as well as at larger scales, visible in The Abyss7 and Open Water8. In both movies, an underwater expedition goes wrong, leading to the disquieting situation of being stranded in an open ocean with no protection (Open Water) and of being trapped in a sinking underwater craft (The Abyss). These films portray the human body in contrast with water (and sometimes technology) as something traumatic, Body and Water

7. The Abyss, 1989, dir. James Cameron, 140 min. 8. Open Water, 2003, dir. Chris Kentis, 79 min.

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

A Cure for Wellness Tank Scene: Reflection of Lockhart against water

and fearful, similar to the use of submerging in A Cure for Wellness. The act of submerging a body creates a sense of panic and powerlessness symbolically while the staged physical lighting and environmental conditions contribute to this feeling of discomfort.

Body and Water

Seven Samurai rain scene

Scene in Foreign Correspondent

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

Water can also be used, if not to suggest psychosis and past trauma, as a dramatic element that can deepen the mood of the narrative and contribute to it. In Foreign Correspondent9, the rain in the bustling crowd serves to obfuscate the dramatic events happening, and heighten the confusion until the climactic moment when the diplomat is shot, with the killer receding into the crowd of umbrella-toting photographers. The rain in this scene both adds to the drama and serves to forward the plot of the film. The presence of water as a plot device and a moodenhancing element is also present in Blade Runner10 and Seven Samurai11, two very different movies that both involve final fight scenes in a heavy downpour. In both, the rain serves to enhance the movements of the fighters and acts as a narrative element, like when the main character of Blade Runner nearly slips and falls off of a skyscraper due to the wet surfaces. The rain in these scenes created a mood of resolution or closure, making for emotional, melodramatic final scenes to these two movies. Water as both a narrative element and an environmental element can enhance the mood of a scene and can structure a very specific type of space. Body and Water

Scene in Foreign Correspondent

10. Blade Runner, 1982, dir. Ridley Scott, 117 min

11. Seven Samurai, 1954, dir. Akira Kurosawa, 207 min.

When strategically used to represent and alter emotion, atmosphere, and perception, water can have powerful spatial implications. Its ability to structure an environment, advance a plot, and create specific types of spatial moods mean that it abounds in modern cinema as a plot tool and a creator of fear and uncertainty. Immersing the characters in a world of water or using water as a subject or setting of a scene opens opportunities for the spectator to experience the story with an empathetic gaze, and has the capacity to create and instill fear through spatial alterations.

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

Body and Water

Veritcal Terror Drawing 1. Power, obstacle, and ruin embodied within a vertical tower.

Vertical Terror What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

by Kiril Bejoulev and Daniela Mourad

Vertical space is architecturally embodied in film as a container for thrill, suspense, and horror whether it be through a tower, an elevator, a staircase, or any given structure larger than human scale that establishes a sense of superiority. Vertical space serves as a vessel for these conditions because it is represented as a foreign object. Since it is human nature to be inquisitive and amass knowledge, the most fearful entity we encounter is the unknown. The idea of the unknown can loom over us, it can make us feel afraid, and it can ultimately cost us our sanity. The way one is initially introduced to vertical space in film is distant; it is an eye-catcher from afar due to the physical gap between the human and the object i.e. â&#x20AC;&#x153;the looming tower.â&#x20AC;? The tower is a dehumanized notion of space â&#x20AC;&#x201C; as it grows vertically, it becomes more inhumane and out of touch with the human scale and the concepts of the unknown, fear, and terror manifest themselves within in. This physical gap of space between a human and a tall space is so large that the tall space consequentially becomes an object

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

High-Rise (2016): tower exterior shot, terracing balconies, menacing perspective. obby interior shot, column grid.

Vertical Terror

of the unknown, an object of terror. One could argue that vertical space is just a series of stacked horizontal planes; but, what differentiates these planes in a vertical layout is the distance from each horizontal plane to the ground - it creates a series of levels, a hierarchy. The idea of vertical space in film presents itself as a dark, architectural phenomenon, mainly manifesting itself into the Tower, an object and incubator of terror. These tall, and generally narrow spaces, foster and instill reactions of the unknown onto the human, and how the human perceives and interacts with the spaces in a usually scared, frightened manner is direct product of this space.

Vertical space manifests itself in film through three trends: the ideas of Power, Obstacle, and Ruin. Power embodies the struggle between those at the top and those at the bottom – how a difference in height can represent a social hierarchy. Obstacle being “the climb,” the action of overcoming something, or not. Lastly, Ruin, the consequence of the vertical space, entrapment within the space, and inherently bad things coming out of verticality in general. The following films are analyzed and divided as follows: Power: Metropolis directed by Fritz Lang (1927). High-Rise directed by Ben Wheatley (2015). Obstacle: Safety Last! directed by Fred C. Neymeyer and Sam Taylor (1923). Vertigo directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1958). Ruin: Towering Inferno directed by John Guillermin (1974). Die Hard directed by John McTiernen (1988). Although each film pertains to a specific theme of verticality, they each have traces of power, obstacle, and ruin in some way or another. Although Die Hard may specifically emphasize a tower in ruin, it still presents the result of obstacle and power. Vertical space in film habitually embodies all three themes at different levels each time. Historically, The Tower of Babel serves precedent to these reactions. It was the first time in history that the idea of the tower was dehumanized and literally portrayed as unholy. This is still prevalent today within the characterization of vertical space. According to

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

The manifestation of power through columns in High-Rise (2015).

Vertical Terror

the Bible, God commanded humanity to “increase in number and fill the earth” but, humanity decided to do the exact opposite, they decided to build a giant tower as a symbol of their power and aggregate in one congested part of the earth. They decided to grow vertically, closer to the heavens, rather than horizontally. They furthermore wanted to make a name for themselves, to leave their mark on the earth which by God was seen as a selfish act.1 The tower was a lavish project – the ultimate man-made achievement. It was a meant to be a foundation of knowledge, communication, and interaction within humans to gain power as a species. It resembles the modern ideals humans continue to build upon today such as megacities and megastructures. The Tower of Babel unified the population to the point that they spoke the same language. As a result, God confused their language so they would not understand each other. By doing this, God forced the people of the city to scatter horizontally all across the face of the earth. God implicitly characterized

The Tower of Babel

1. Fairchild, Mary. “Tower of Babel Story: The Perils of Unity, Pride, and Purpose.” ThoughtCo. Accessed April 25, 2018. https://www.thoughtco. com/the-tower-ofbabel-700219.

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

vertical space as an evil, unholy ideology, and enforced horizontality for the benefit of the world. In Metropolis (1927) by Fritz Lang, there is a clear representation of power manifested in a class struggle between a population of workers in an underground space that powers a city above, home to a population of wealthy industrialists reigning from high-rise towers. The film embodies this vertical tension as a sharp architectural contrast all within a capitalist structure. At one extreme, you have a booming metropolis, inclosing bright lights and tall buildings surrounded by constant movement. At another extreme, you have a dimly lit, seemingly plain and boring, working city in the depths beneath. There is a clear distinction between the spaces in which the two classes function. The top live and the bottom work. In the workers living quarters and factory space there is a constant stress posed by the brutal structure and smoke. The structures that the workers inhabit are immense and out of touch with the human scale, whereas in the Metropolis above there are Vertical Terror

Infiltration of water throughout workersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; living quarters in subterranean space. Metropolis (1927)

myriad of human-scale connections and spaces. The architectural hierarchy resembles a difference in quality of life, ultimately embodying power. In Metropolis, this division of power is unsustainable and therefore leaves the metropolis in ruin. In the image to the left we see water infiltrating the underground space, destroying the operating foundation of the metropolis and “purifying” what is to be considered unholy. In High-Rise (2015) by Ben Wheatley we see an all-amenity-including, self-sustaining High-Rise embodying of the idea of power, but also lack thereof. The self-contained community of the high rise reflects society at large in a more brutal way, confining people of certain classes to certain spaces, and extending a physical, vertical gap between those of lower class to those of higher class, similar to Metropolis. This tower, how it vertically stacks its spaces, perpetuates this idea of those at the bottom can never reach the top no matter how hard they try. They are too many levels down, stuck in between two many

The Architect’s Roof High Rise (2015)

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

columns- they have too many obstacles. Whereas the people on the top have more space, and even towards the top of the building the units begin to become terraced, accentuating the idea of people on top being able to look down upon the rest. High-Rise shows the effects of building on the human psyche, given that it confines social networks, human interactions, and status to a series of levels. Even with communal spaces, the people at the bottom still donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the same access to them as the people as the top. The architecture of their home constantly makes them feel unworthy which ultimately results in the destruction of a population. While the lower-class spaces are occupied by intense columns, the higher class spaces have an more open floor-plan. As you go up vertically, the building becomes more free, those at the top have the freedom and power to inhabit their space as they please, while those at the bottom are again restricted. High-Rise finishes with the physical deterioration of the building, showing the remnants of a failed Vertical Terror

Deterioration of the Building High Rise (2015)

structure, as well as simultaneously showing the deterioration of the inhabitants as violence and chaos engulf the building. Here we see the contrasts of human vs. inhumane structure which is ultimately unsustainable. In Safety Last! (1923) by Fred C. Neymeyer and Sam Taylor we see the tower manifest itself as the obstacle; the prestigious climb up to success and the realistic chance of a fall, literally. The film is an exciting comedy, one that frame by frame follows a man as he attempts to climb a highrise building, conquering many difficulties on the way. In every shot there is the juxtaposition of man vs. the looming structure above and beneath him. Above him, we see the unknown, and look to it as the end-goal, as a visual for success. Beneath him, we see the known – the ground. The ground in this instance is the terror. The climb isn’t what the audience is afraid of, it is the possibility of the fall. In Vertigo (1958) by Alfred Hitchcock, we see the tower manifest itself as a deceiving obstacle resulting in failure. In Safety Last!, the comedic nature of the film

Man vs. Obstacle. “The Climb.” Safety Last! (1923)

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

gives the tower a sense of hope, whereas in Vertigo, the suspenseful nature of the film gives the tower a sense catastrophe. Due to post-traumatic stress and irrational fears, man vs. vertical space is represented as an illusion in Hitchcock’s Vertigo. When the camera is looking down to a staircase or tower, Hitchcock elongates those frames and manipulates the structure by stretching it out – visually representing how one’s mind would react to a space in such a way. Here, the architecture is manipulated to manifest a state of mind, the fear that comes with the incomparable scale between human and vertical space. In Towering Inferno (1974) by John Guillermin, we see destruction and the portrayal of what occurs when such a disaster as a fire affects a vertical structure. The inhabitants are merely left helpless and reach a point of uncertainty; risking everything to get out. Vertical structures are not as easily maneuvered as linear spaces are. The only way out is up or down through the vertical circulation such as elevators and Vertical Terror

Decieving vertical staircase, an irrational fear. Vertigo (1958)

stairs. To go against this vertical circulation such as moving sideways leads to inevitable death and ruin. Here, the position of power within the higher floors of a structure is challenged. Although the higher you go, your quality of life presumably improves, you are also that much further away from any exit, and your life is put in greater danger. In Die Hard (1988) by John McTiernen, similarly to Towering Inferno, we see the entrapment of people within the tower. Again, we see the most sought out location, the upper floors, as ironically most vulnerable to being cut off from the rest when the building is taken over. Ruin is manifested within vertical space constantly throughout film. In vertically laid-out buildings, a domino-effect occurs. If one floor undergoes a form of destruction, it wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be long until the rest of the structure follows. Vertical buildings only work if all parts work in unison, and they rarely ever do.

The tower on fire The Towering Inferno (1974)

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

In conclusion, vertical space represents a multifaceted notion of terror, expressed through power, obstacle, and ruin. Metropolis, High-Rise, Safety Last!, Vertigo, Towering Inferno, and Die Hard may focus specifically on one facet of terror, but have remnants of each in all films. In both Metropolis and High-Rise, the power struggle between floors results in an obstacle that cannot be overcome, ending in ruin. In Safety Last! and Vertigo, it is the power of the tall vertical spaces that create the obstacles to begin with. In Towering Inferno and Die Hard, power is the foundation of the buildings, an obstacle is present, and ruin is the finale. It is almost as if one aspect fo vertical terror can only exist if the other two are present. The three aspects of vertical terror have proven to be symbiotic within themselves. Vertical space continues to be a villainized, malicious container for evil throughout film to this day.

Vertical Terror

Everyone is stuck at the top of the tower. Die Hard (1988)

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) and Easy Rider (1976)

The Open Road What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

by Olivia Haynie

The Road Movie genre has its roots in spoken and written tales of epic journeys, such as the Odyssey and the works of Homer. The road film is a story in which the hero changes, grows or improves over the course of the story, with the help of movement and the exploration of a landscape. It focuses more on the journey and the evolution rather than the goal. The on-the-road plot was used at the birth of American cinema but blossomed in the years after World War II, reflecting a boom in automobile production and the growth of youth culture. Even so, awareness of the ‘road picture’ as a genre came only in the 1960s with Easy Rider (1076). Easy Rider is but one of the most prominent road films present in cinema. Taxi Driver, The Mad Max Series, Paris, Texas, and Thelma and Louise are examples of genre-altering films focusing on mobile road living. There is one main idea that we see threaded through almost every road genre film; the road as a means of empowerment. This idea, as it rings true for most, relates back to the car as the ultimate symbol of freedom.

The Road movie genre focuses on the character’s departure from their everday lives, switching to the perspective of the mobile living space of a vehicle on the open road.

W 57th St

W 56th St

W 55th St

Taxi Driver / Diagramming the Motion

6th Ave

7th Ave

8th Ave

9th Ave

10th Ave

11th Ave

W 54th St

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

The view and shape of the world, from inside of a moving vehicle, is fundamentally shifted; providing an alternate reality for ourselves and the characters within the road films we watch. We are entranced by the ideas of empowerment, freedom, adrenaline, and personal evolution that course through the Road Film genre, and the shifting perspective of the characters ultimately leads to a shifted perspective in the viewerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own ideas of the world and spaces around them. The concept of empowerment can be seen most clearly in the road film Thelma and Louise. After a weekend getaway turns into a crime chase, Thelma and Louise are running to Mexico to escape the consequences of a man they murdered. The opening scene begins with the shooting of a would-be rapist by the female heroes. The film explores the road film genre through a feminine perspective, a very welcome addition to the male-dominated films typical of the road movie genre. At the beginning of the film, we see two women, generally devoid of empowerment and self worth. Along their crime spree, they encounter not only adrenaline, but find freedom from the oppressive conventional society, which leads to their own personal evolution as powerful women who cannot be contained by their partners or by the past versions of themselves. The final powerful scene in the movie depicts the end of their run from the law. They drive off of a cliff - the most permanent act of defiance and escapism towards an ultimate freedom. Thelma and Louise becomes The Open Road

Mobile Living Space Collage

a powerful symbol of female empowerment through the means of the road, of escapism, and the use of a vehicle to escape a rigid society. 46

The concept of freedom is interwoven in almost every road film created. In the film, Taxi Driver, we see the main character become imprisoned by his own vehicle, his taxi, and how his point of view severely limited by the way in which his mobile living space is set up. The film is an example of a moving living space, where the majority of the encounters occur in the taxi itself, with the main character as the constant, and the passengers transient. The taxi becomes a means in which, over time, the decadence and corruption present fuels Travisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; urge for violent action. As he suffers from insomnia, he spends his time working at night, and thinking about how the world, New York in particular, has deteriorated. He meets a woman named Betsy, who, after rejecting him, is internal morality starts to deteriorate until he decides to assassinate a senator out of hatred of the system. The plan goes awry and he ends up murdering pimps instead, becoming an accidental hero. His negative view of the world is furthered by the fact that all he sees are small bits of peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lives, and judges them and their lives based on brief encounters in his taxi cab. This viewpoint becomes present in the cinematography.

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

A majority of the film’s narrative is shot inside the taxi cab; focusing on his view out the windshield, his view towards the backseat through the rear-view mirror, and his dissassociation with his clients due to the orientation of space inside the cab. On the other end of the means to freedom spectrum, in the films Easy Rider and Thelma and Louise, their vehicle becomes the means by which they achieve true and total freedom in their lives. In the film Easy Rider, we see this idea of freedom at its most potent. It is the late 1960’s tale of a search for freedom, or the illusion thereof, in a conformist and corrupt America, and in the midst of paranoia, bigotry and violence. The film was a ritualistic experience and viewed by youthful audiences in the late 1960s as a reflection of their realistic hopes of liberation and fears of the Establishment. It is a story of a contemporary but apocalyptic journey by two self-righteous, drug-fueled, anti-hero, outlaw bikers heading eastward through the American Southwest. Their trip to Mardi Gras in New Orleans takes them through limitless, untouched landscapes, various towns, a hippie commune, and a graveyard, but also through areas where local residents are increasingly narrow-minded and hateful of their longhaired subculture and drug-use. The film’s title refers to their rootlessness and ride to make “easy” money. The film showcases the exploits and adventures of a The Open Road

Taxi Driver (1976)

“A Man went looking for America, but couldn’t find it anywhere.” - Easy Rider Tagline. On a search for something, road movies explore ideas of exploration, search, and journey.

Max Rockatansky Feral Child Lord Humugus Wez The Golden Youth Gyro Captain

Mad Max : Fury Road / The Final Sequence

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

small biker gang who are always heading somewhere but also going nowhere. All the while their perceptions and views of the world, unlimited by even the doors and surroundings of a car, are wild and free and limitless. The explosive socio-political context of late 1960’s could also be credited for cultivating unique works, such as this, which explored social tensions and questions of identity, and more specifically, what it means to be an American. Easy Rider, in addition to preceding 1960s biker films such as The Wild Angels (Roger Corman, 1966) and Hell’s Angels on Wheels (Richard Rush, 1967), uses motorcycles, mobility, and Western iconography to illuminate the 1960’s as an age of social discontent and conflicting ideologies, while examining questions of American identity and projecting the limits of freedom.Released in the year of the Woodstock concert, and made in a year of two tragic assassinations (Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King), the Vietnam War buildup and Nixon’s election, the tone of this ‘alternative’ film is generally downbeat and bleak, reflecting the collapse of the idealistic 60s. The idea of adrenaline and the rush of motion for powering that feeling can be seen most clearly in the Mad Max series. As an elongated series of car crashes, explosions, gunshots, and general disregard for safety; the Mad Max Series exploits the viewer’s desire for an

The Open Road

adrenaline rush. The series explores a dystopian future defined by stark landscapes, gang and road culture, and man’s reliance on nature for a functioning society. The first film in the series, simply called Mad Max, begins the franchise with a story of a man named Max, in a time that was fairly present with current environmental concerns and told the story of the beginnings of the dystopic future ahead. It explores the beginning stages of a societal and personal breakdown with the murder of Max’s wife and child by the roaming biker gang. This event continues to fuel his survival throughout the series, using his desire for revenge as his purpose to live. The film ends with a tense scene showing the first time Max would kill to avenge the death of his family. The first film acknowledges Max’s ‘normal’ life, showing his built home and the destruction of it. From then on, the narrative focuses on Max’s mobile home, through cars, trucks, motorcycles, towards nowhere in particular. The second film in the series, Mad Max 2 : The Road Warrior, begins Max’s transformation into the revenge fueled protagonist. The film depicts the tale of a community of settlers that are moving around Australia in order to defend themselves from the roving gang. Miller begins to explore the ‘Western’ film typology, through the depiction of a moving group of characters as well as the transformation of Max from hardened man to the rediscovery of his humanity. As Australia devolves further into barbarity, Max finds himself helping pockets

Thelma and Louise (1991)

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

of civilization, initially for his own self-interest, but evolving into idealistic dreams of a better society. At this point in the series, we begin to see the personalization of the character and his own body as a substitute for having a secure place to call home. Individuals define themselves through distinct clothing and weaponry, and less about where they are from. The architecture of Mad Max focuses more on the architecture of the human moving through the shells of the architectures past. The characters decorate themselves, relying on the shells of their own bodies for protection rather than that of a home or a structure. With the constant change of place and car and vehicle in which we see the characters move, the viewer becomes familiar with not with what man has built but more of what man is. The third film in the series, Mad Max : Beyond Thunderdome, describes the continued evolution of the main character, Max. In this installment, he drifts into a town ruled by Turner, the antagonist and leader of the biker trove. He is forced to become a type of gladiator and is dumped into the remote desert with no hope of survival. There he is rescued by a group of feral orphans who eventually lead him back to the town ruled by Turner, resulting in dramatic action and enthralling road chase scenes. The town ruled by Turner begins to reinstate the idea of a set home, possibly reconciling the years passed from normal society, attempting to reconfigure the definition of home in a road-based society. The last film in the The Open Road

Easy Rider (1969)

Thelma and Louise (1991)

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

series, Mad Max : Fury Road, released in 2015, far later than the previous three films, depicts the most dramatic and charged film of the franchise. It is set in a postapocalyptic world where a new form of society has fully taken hold. This installment becomes the most dramatic and brutal vision of the future post apocalypse. The entire film revolves around the heroic search for ‘The Green Place’, in which they believe they are heading towards. The idea of personal evolution is present in all the aforementioned films. In Taxi Driver, the main character is greatly affected and almost imprisoned by his vehicle, allowing it to negatively affect his view of society and on the world. When he begins to leave the car at certain points in the film, there is great personal evolution, as his car is limiting him from seeing the good in NY. When he leaves the car in order to pursue love, he is infatuated and then scorned, experiencing a further range of positive and negative, and then retreating back to his vehicle. After this pattern continues, he eventually sees the most negative in the world, when he murders, to the most positive he has felt, when he is honored for the killing of a pimp. This breaks him out of his routine and helps him use his own vehicle to see a wider range of possibilities from inside the driver’s seat. In the film, Paris, Texas, the plot focuses on an amnesiac Travis who, after mysteriously wandering out of the desert, attempts to reunite with his brother and seven-year-old son. After reconnecting with his son, Travis and the boy end up embarking on a voyage through the American Southwest to track down Travis’ long-missing wife. Thus begins their mobile living journey and personal evolution through the use of the car as a means to a personal end. Another film along these lines is Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? Which explores the road and man’s journey through it and and how the road can further one’s own personal path. The road film genre has become an exploration in the ever more popular ideas of empowerment, freedom, adrenaline and personal evolution. It inspires the masses by indulging the ideas of escapism and rebellion, and can lead the masses to questioning themselves and the society that they accept as standard. The Open Road

The Hateful Eight, 2015 Reservoir Dogs, 1992

Quentin Tarantino: Tension in Space What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

by Harris Girocco

The cinematic work of Quentin Tarantino is most notably renown for its unrelenting representations of violence, as well as by its artfully thorough craftsmanship. His reputation as a stellar filmmaker relies heavily on his stylistic choices and one of the most recognizable ones is the frequent use of violence in his films. In his films, Quentin Tarantino supports notion that violence in films is as vital as the musical number, outwardly rejecting the idea that films should be viewed through a moral lense.Using excessive bloodshed and prolonged gore as a stylistic materiality within a space, Tarantino intentionally keeps his audience mindful of a departure from reality. All of Tarantino’s films depict explicit acts of violence, sometimes absurdly overgraphic and other times realistic. There is almost never a major character who doesn’t hold and or use a weapon due to the intrinsic violent nature of each film. Creating realms and spaces that drive a disconnect between the universe of the audience and that of the film, allow for the use of violence and brutality to be primary driving forces behind the film’s progression. That is not to say however that Tarantino’s production is unrealistic,

Reservoir Dogs, 1992

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

Quentin Tarantino: Tension in Space

but rather it constructs vivid and multilayered visual frameworks that envelope both the characters and the audience within them.

While graphic violence is probably the first thing any fan thinks of when asked to recall one of these films, the true depth of the cinematic effect is derived from Tarantinoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s crafted style of constantly building and then releasing tension. An increasingly tense atmosphere progression in a film keeps the audience on edge, waiting in anticipation while becoming further immersed in the vivid cinematic storyline. In each of Tarantinoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s films, tension is amplified to build towards an explosive climax that generally involves violent action. This progression is obtained chiefly with a curated and stylized character interaction through dialogue, architectural and spatial setting, camera angling and musical implementation. This essay highlights the stylistic process as it relates to the visual, spatial and architectural congruences employed to achieve such an effect. Two of Tarantinoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s films in particular magnify the use of the spatial and symbolic visual means to drive the flow of the cinematic experience, as in both, over 90% of the run time plays out within a singular location created meticulously to facilitate the narrative. The two films, The Hateful Eight and Reservoir Dogs follow a common progressing of building extreme tension or emotion within a scene and releasing or climaxing it with an explosion of action, violence or brutality. This constant in Tarantino

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

filmography is achieved through a multiplicity of methods to manipulate a certain emotional reaction from the audience. These reactions are intentionally varied from scene to scene, however the devices used to achieve them remain the same. The key role of dialogue in this process, for example, is articulated by a blog exploring film ‘Auteurs’, saying “Tarantino uses dialogue to set up the violence, not unlike a game of chess, positioning all the pieces before making a move”1. Just as with dialogue, in these two films, setting and architecture are essential driving forces behind tension, emotion and plot progression. The interactions of characters are dependent upon the layout and composition of the space. Each set is meticulously laid out to enhance the complicated aesthetic and thematic sequence throughout a film. Reservoir Dogs is a movie that takes the heist genre and transforms it into a dialogue heavy drama that occurs within one room. Reservoir Dogs is about the aftermath of a robbery that has gone wrong. It is set at the meeting point for six strangers who pulled a job stealing diamonds. nearly the entire film unfolds in an abandoned funeral parlor. Some of the company have been killed already in their escape, or lay wounded and others are in a fit of doubt or rage over who in the group is to blame. The storyline essentially begins here and is purely focused on how these characters relate to each other in the bloody aftermath of the failed heist within a single space. Quentin Tarantino: Tension in Space

1. mcgarryfqegs10. “Brief Research Into Auteurs – Quentin Tarantino.” Finlay McGarry’s A2 Media Studies Blog, [11, Sept. 2016] Available at: a2mcgarryf.wordpress. com/2016/09/10/briefresearch-into-auteursquentin-tarantino/.

A blog written on shmoop.com, underscores the situation explaining, “Violence is a way of life to the characters. It’s what they do in their jobs, and it seeps into their talk and their actions as they try to cope with the horrible situation in which they find themselves. the catastrophic outcome of the failed heist unleashes the characters’ violent behavior as they blame each other and try to understand what happened. The unremitting violence in the film leaves the viewers feeling beaten up themselves”2.

The set, made to resemble the abandoned funeral home warehouse, was carefully selected to embody the perfect location for the complicated interplay of characters and suspenseful progression. Shmoop sets the stage stating, “Everything that happens occurs in real time within this location. The funeral home is the center of the action. It contains the arguments, the torture, and the final standoff and shootout. Though empty and abandoned, but it’s filled with the life of the characters. While the film opens with a cozy crowded diner scene with people laughing and joking, most of the film’s atmosphere is bleak, tense, and dark. Tarantino uses an abandoned, poorly-lit funeral home filled with coffins. The only major prop in the room is a bleeding police officer. Graffiti on the wall reads “Watch your head.” The feeling of menace and tension builds from the long confinement within this space. The claustrophobia and dread of the atmosphere in the funeral home enhance the dramatic anticipation of doom while doubt, fear, injury and paranoia builds among the characters.” The camera and the space inform us about the relationships between the characters, by placing them in certain physical relationships to each other. The characters are standing far apart from each other, evoking the symbolic isolation of each from one another through visual cues. The distance of the camera from the characters accentuates this effect by separating the audience’s viewpoint from the characters. The layout of the floor plan is used to facilitate character relationships intentionally. Firstly, by inhabiting this cavernous open floor plan, the characters are able to distance themselves from each other while

2. Shmoop.com. (2018). Reservoir Dogs Introduction. [online] Available at: https://www. shmoop.com/reservoirdogs/ [Accessed 23 Apr. 2018].

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

maintaining a clear line of sight to all others. This allows for tensions and suspicions between them to be built up gradually through verbal altercations until eventually reaching a climactic release or expression. Secondly, the space has only one means of escape that controls the balance of power within it. The aggressive characters that maintain the power reside near the exit side, while those who are bound, wounded or dead are cornered on the darker more claustrophobic end. Thereby heightening the sense of dread and doom for both the trapped characters and the audience. During the final standoff, three characters form distant triangle opposing each other. The sense of confrontation between characters is emphasized by the geometric symmetry within the bare and open-planned space they occupy. At this point, the rising and falling tensions reach their appex in the film, finally reaching a head where a bloodbath ensues and nearly all are killed in a flash of gunfire. The architecture of the space mirrors the complex deteriorating conditions of the characters and thereby amplifies the progressive building of anticipation and dread of the audience. The wear of time is evident in the graffiti, chipping paint, weakening light and textural qualities of the abandoned space. This decay is evocative of the declining mental and physical conditions of the respective characters. Bolstered by the inherent symbolism of the abandoned funeral home, the Quentin Tarantino: Tension in Space

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

characters each spiral towards death within this space that is their rotting coffin. Tarantino adds to this bleak but menacing mood with long shots and dim lighting, creating the final layer of this atmosphere that defines the dark and brutal nature of the film. Tarantino has created an atmosphere of darkness and unpredictability with no respite for the viewer throughout. In The Hateful Eight (2015), the majority of the story takes place inside Minnie’s Haberdashery, set in Wyoming for stagecoaches journeying through the mountains. Production designer Yohei Taneda, who created the House of the Blue Leaves in Kill Bill: Vol. 1, was hired to design Minnie’s to life and construct a richly layered and aesthetically captivating backdrop both indoors and out. Unlike Reservoir dogs, this set was fully constructed from scratch in Telluride, Colorado. “We decided to build the set on a hill in a spacious landscape,” says Taneda. Starting with sketches of the proposed building Taneda . “First, I drew several exterior versions of Minnie’s, and Quentin chose the one that best fit his image,” he says. Taneda goes on to say “It was a back-and-forth process of bringing him drawings and making adjustments until we had the final layout.” As in Reservoir dogs, The design of Minnie’s had to carefully negotiate the demands of the stylistic filming aesthetic and the plot. “The set required the ability to see all the actors and not have any blind spots, However, for the action and the storytelling, there still needed to be a blind spot.” A thick post was added to obscure the characters’ view of the potbelly stove, which plays a crucial role in the story. In order to stage a perfect layout for character interaction as well as a suspenseful narrative Minnie’s was designed with an open floor plan. However, the interior is visually divided into several different zones, including a bar, a kitchen, multiple dining and sitting areas, and sleeping quarters. “Most of the materials were sourced right in Colorado,” says Taneda. Aspen and fir trees were gathered locally for the sets and furniture giving a natural authenticity to the construction, texture and materiality of the space. “Quentin repeatedly said the interior Quentin Tarantino: Tension in Space

Caption of the Image Caption of the Image

The Hateful Eight, 2015

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

set needs to feel like it’s enveloping the actors,” said Taneda. “Minnie’s is surrounded by mountains, and then there’s the added layer of the blizzard and snow. The actors are in a closed-off, multilayered world. This film has one main set, and it was a challenge for me to create that closed-off atmosphere.” A dense array of period props were added to complete to the interior, creating a compelling, intimate atmosphere. Every object in the room contributes to a vivid and artfully accurate narrative of the the space. As a whole the densely furnished and layered interior atop a rusticly textural material backdrop effectively encapsulates characters and audience within the wondrous world created by Tarantino and Taneda. Tarantino shot The Hateful Eight in a 70mm format that was last used in 1966 saying that the wide format brings intensity to the film’s interiors. Carefully crafted visual zones of exposure referenced by Taneda facilitate the relationships of some characters who are forced to interact due to spatial intimacy, while others are cut off entirely. Several examples are demonstrated in the plan line drawing created to analyze this effect. Specifically, the character positioned at the upper right hand corner has multiple Obstacles obstructing the field of view and thereby impeding this character from interacting with others. This character becomes isolated from companionship, whereas the dining or fireplace zones are far more open and eventually lead to increased character dialogue and development. The colored set of analysis drawings gives an indication as to the atmosphere and textural qualities of the space and how it is meant to envelope the characters. Taneda also references this notion in regard to materiality and interior design, saying, “Most of the materials were sourced right in Colorado,” says Taneda. Aspen and fir trees were gathered locally for the sets and furniture giving a natural authenticity to the construction, texture and materiality of the space. “Quentin repeatedly said the interior set needs to feel like it’s enveloping the actors,”...“Minnie’s is surrounded by mountains, and then there’s the added layer of Quentin Tarantino: Tension in Space

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

the blizzard and snow. The actors are in a closed-off, multilayered world.â&#x20AC;? Congruent with the devices used to create isolation and dramatic climax in Reservoir Dogs, The Hateful Eight extends the symbolic boundaries isolating the characters within a place. A dense array of period props filled out the space to complete to the interior, creating a compelling, intimate atmosphere. Every object in the room contributes to a vivid and artfully accurate narrative of the the space. As a whole the densely furnished and layered interior atop a rustic textural wooden backdrop effectively encapsulates characters and audience within the world created by Tarantino and Taneda.

Minnieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Haberdashery 3D Analysis

Quentin Tarantino: Tension in Space

Beyond the boundaries of the haberdashery, the characters are further isolated and pitted against each other by the impenetrable blizzard outside that confines them to the haberdashery. The envelope of the space drives the progression of character relationships and climactic build up of tension and suspense until an inevitably bloody conclusion is reached. Tarantino has come full circle since his hollywood debut with Reservoir Dogs. The Hateful Eight employs the same rigorous methods in constructing an environment that envelopes its characters, defining both the aesthetic mood and narrative progression. These spatial constructs perform as active drivers for the confrontational and violent thematic qualities of Tarantinoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s characters and films. Out of only eight major pictures tarantino has produced over a 25 year directing career, his first, Reservoir Dogs, and his last to date, The Hateful Eight, accentuate the vital and transcendent role played by architecture, setting and environment, as a medium that masterfully blends violence, dialogue and artful entertainment within a cinematic progression.

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

Quentin Tarantino: Tension in Space

Ambiguous Image : Duck or Rabbit?

Manipulating Reality What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

by Alejandro Finol and Christina Zau

Our senses are how we understand our reality. They are what inform us to duck when a baseball is rushing toward our head, or quickly remove our hand after touching a pot of boiling water. However, that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean that our senses should be trusted incessantly. In fact, it is well known that our senses can be tricked or confused, and it is likely we have already experienced this within our lifetimes. Sensorial manipulations have been studied for centuries across disciplines, and are still used today in cinema to generate emotional responses in both the characters found in the films as well as in the movies audience. By understanding the roots of visual trickery in Art and Architecture, one can begin to explore how cinema used the manipulation of reality to elicit responses in movies and television shows such as: The Wizard of Oz (1939), the two film adaptations of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1971 / 2005), and A Series of Unfortunate Events (2018) The genealogy of optical illusions in art can be traced back to the early 1400â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s when the first

use of a linear perspectival system was used by the Italian painter Masaccio. For centuries before this breakthrough, artists tried to represent the world in two dimensional surfaces. A difficult task given that the world is three dimensional. Masaccioâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s painting is the first known example in art that creates the illusion of depth and space, literally tricking the eye into thinking that the painting is not a planar surface, but instead a 3-dimensional void. His revolutionary style became popular in Europe and influenced the work of artists and architects such as Borromini and Andrea Pozzo for centuries to come. Pozzo, for example, developed upon the idea of linear perspective and is well known for his work in the development of anamorphic drawings. This is style of drawing which distorts a perspective in such a way that the image is most legible when viewed from a specific vantage point. His most notorious example would be the dome found in St. Ignatius Church in Rome, Italy. When viewed from the right position this painting is able to transform into a voluminous geometry and deceive the viewer into thinking that the ceiling is actually a dome. However, if this is viewed from the wrong vantage point, the illusion quickly falls apart and the audience is able to tell that the space is not actually there.1 Artists became very good at creating the false reality of depth in paintings, but architects during this time were also figuring out how to create the illusion of depth in already existing 3-dimensional environments. Francesco Borromini, like many architects during the Baroque period, put a strong emphasis on creating perspectives throughout their designs. However, when he was commissioned to begin work on the Palazzo Spada (specifically on the perspective gallery), he found that the space lacked the depth needed to create the perspectival imagery he wanted. He found himself adopting a strategy known as forced perspective, which as the name entails, revolves around manipulation of architectural elements to create an â&#x20AC;&#x153;optical illusion meant to emulate the natural perception of depthâ&#x20AC;?. By creating a floor that was sloped upward, a roof that was sloped downwards, and diminishing columns, he transformed a corridor that was eight meters long into one that appeared to be 17 meters long. At the end of

1. Howe, C. Q., & Purves, D. (2005). Perceiving Geometry: Geometrical Illusions Explained by Natural Scene Statistics. Boston, MA: Springer US. https://doi.org/10.1007/ b135453

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

Holy Trinity, by Masaccio, 1425 and perspective analysis â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Domeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; in St Ignatius Church, by Andrea Pozzo, 1650 (left)

Manipulating Reality

the corridor there was what seemed to be a life-sized statue, that was actually the size of a toddler. Borromini created an optical illusion in its most basic form, tricking the eye into identifying space that isn’t there. A trick that was only broken when someone entered the corridor, creating a point of reference for scale. The invention of the film camera in the late 1800’s gave rise to a new medium through which humanity could express themselves, which would later be known as cinematography. At the early stages of its existence, many filmmakers began testing and experimenting with different ways of filming, explored the potential of this new tool. One of these filmmakers was a french magician named Georges Méliès. After watching some of the first motion pictures produced by the Lumière brothers, which mainly depicted everyday life through the novelty of this new tool, Méliès saw an opportunity to create more interesting films. He bought a camera and set up a studio in Paris where he could film his movies. Drawing from his performance experience as a magician he discovered many of the basic camera techniques, becoming the first person to consider postediting his films. One of the most famous techniques he pioneered was the Stop Edit, which allowed him create the illusion that someone was disappearing right

Forced Perspective Gallery in Palazzo Spada, by Borromini, 1632

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

before your eyes. This was accomplished by cutting and stitching frames of a movie together to make it seem like everything was happening in one shot when in reality it happened in two different ones. In another short film produced by Méliès called “The Four Troublesome Heads”, he uses a different post-editing example called superimposition, to create a scenario where he and four other corpse-less heads are singing and playing around. In both these cases the trick depended on the 4 dimension (time) to create a believable illusion. People were under the impression that whatever appeared on a camera had to actually occur in real life. So when Méliès began to make women turn into a skeleton and back into a women, the audience was amazed and at the same time probably very confused. Later on in his career Méliès began to make longer films, such as his most famous work A Trip to the Moon (1902) which had a plot, costume and set design, as well as the incorporation of special effects when necessary for the storytelling. Even though he achieved international success during his life, the competition in the movie industry became too fierce and forced him out of business by 1913 and Méliès died in poverty. From the time of Méliès to the silent movie era of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin the shift in movie Manipulating Reality

Still from “The Four Troublesome Heads”, by Georges Méliès, 1898

Deconstructed Illusion (below) and still (above) of the rollerskating scene in â&#x20AC;&#x153;Modern Timesâ&#x20AC;?, by Charlie Chaplin, 1936

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

production changed from a reliance on ‘what you could do’ towards focusing on ‘how you did it’. Where Méliès looked to develop special effects that would propel his movies forward, Keaton and Chaplin were using these special effects in their art of the visual gag. They were interested in how these movies would make the audience feel, and how they could get them laughing, uncomfortable, or anxious. In the roller skating scene taken from the 1936 masterpiece Modern Times, Chaplin gives the audience an omnipotent view of the situation. We as the audience can see that Charlie’s blindfolded character is coming dangerously close to falling over the edge of the floor that doesn’t have a railing, creating a lot of anxiety on the viewer. However upon closer inspection, one can see that in the real filming condition, there is no precipice. The fall is just something that is placed in from of the camera to make us think the main character is in danger. In the end however, this small trick, which is created meticulously orchestrating of exactly what the viewer is to be seeing, accomplishes the sought out effect, a cringing, nervous response that pushes you back into your seat and makes you want to close your eyes. Buster Keaton also knew the importance of camera placement throughout his movies in the creation of a manipulative gag. Most of these jokes depended on constructing a narrative that would make you assume what was going to happen, when in reality the opposite was about to occur. In the image below, Keaton shows

Manipulating Reality

Stills of one of Buster Keaton’s gags (above)

Still of the corridor towards the Throne Room in The Wizard Of Oz (above), the crayon-pastelmatte painting (lower left), and the set with the principals (lower right).

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

how two different angles show an event in which he grabs on to a wheel that is attached on the back of a car in the hopes of escaping a group of people following him. In both cases, the way the image is framed makes you think that he will move once the car begins to move, however as the car speeds away, Keaton is left holding on to the wheel and stays fixed in position. In reality the wheel was never attached at all. This constant relationship between what we think will occur and what actually happens would not exist if the scenes Keaton created were not filmed from the correct perspective. Similar to the concepts of anamorphic drawings, Keatons work is really only supposed to be viewed from one angle, the one he films it in. These movies showed that visual imagery could really propel a movie and could make the audience emote in a variety of different ways using the same types of visual trickery. Legendary for its use of Technicolor, The Wizard of Oz required various special effects. This was executed by the art department who had created various matte paintings for the background of many of the scenes. When the main character Dorothy is whisked away to the magical land of Oz, she follows the Yellow Brick Road toward the Emerald City to meet the Wizard, finding companions along the way. The aspect of colour, especially at the time this film was produced, was given much attention. The studio’s art department created four-foot wide, crayon-pastel-matte paintings of various scenes in the movie, to illustrate a world they could not physically create at the time, including the corridor leading to the Wizard’s Throne Room and the Yellow Brick Road. In the case of the corridor leading to the Wizard’s throne room, the creators used this method to add depth to make the room look endlessly long. The blacked-out area in the middle was constructed as a set on which the action was filmed. In the middle of the blacked-out area, one can see the samples of colors appearing that had to be matched in the set. At its simplest, matte painting was a double exposure. It allowed them to visually tell a story, and show immense landscapes and detailed locations they wouldn’t have Manipulating Reality

The constructed set of The Wizard of Oz, the blacked out area was a matte painting, not shown here (above) and the result when both pieces of film were put together (below)

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

Still of the characters arriving at the Emerald City from the Yellow Brick Road (above), and of the corridor towards the Throne Room in The Wizard Of Oz (below).

had the budget to do. This style of editing resulted in powerful, overwhelming visuals when both pieces of film were put together. The corridor looked endless, with the repetition of the arches enhancing the sense of scale the film could create, the arches feeling imposing on the characters as they arrived at the Throne Room. This can be contrasted in the way that the use of multiple exposure resulted in an inviting, hopeful, shiny view of the Emerald City as they approach it from the Yellow Brick Road. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), and the later 2005 adaptation â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory â&#x20AC;&#x201C; are both stories that revolve around the life of a poor boy named Charlie who wins one of the five golden tickets, allowing him to tour the Wonka factory. From the outside these factories seem to be quite conventional. Even when they get to the Fudge Rooms Vestibule, which is the last space needed to go through before actually being inside the factory, the characters first impression is that it is a seemingly Manipulating Reality

1. Harmetz, A. (2013). The making of The Wizard of Oz. (Seventyfifth anniversary edition, updated edition.). Chicago: Chicago Review Press. Retrieved from http:// ebookcentral.proquest. com/lib/cornell/detail. action?docID=1474232

normal corridor. Or at least that is what they think until Willy Wonka walks towards the end of the hall and stands adjacent to the door. At this point his scale has completely changed and we see that his figure needs to be in a crouching position just to open the door. This hall is utilizing the same forced perspective illusion as Borrominiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perspective corridor in Palazzo Strada, and because we have seen this precedent before in real life we can assume that along with the trickery in vertical height evident in the way Wonka must crouch to not hit the roof, there is also trickery in horizontal length, although it was never clearly shown in either films.

Diagram showing actual vs percieved space and analysis of still of Forced Perspective space from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

Original stills of Forced Perspective space from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (above) and in Tim Burtonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2005 adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (below)

Manipulating Reality

Still of room from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, viewed from above

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

In the 1971 adaptation Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, there is another scene in which the visitors to the Chocolate Factory enter a small patterned room, with overwhelming visuals which distort our understand of how small the scale of the room is. The pattern might suggest a different form of the room, and the characters are frazzled, confused, and scared of what was going on. Both these spaces are a way to set the tone of what the spaces within the chocolate factory are going to be like throughout the rest of the movie: a. They will probably not make that much sense, b. They will actively trick you and make you uncomfortable or uneasy. A process which is exploited by Wonka to weed out the kids whom do not know how to control their desires.

Analysis of still from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (above), original still (below)

Manipulating Reality

In episode four, season two of Netflix series’ A Series of Unfortunate Events (2018), the main characters are seen ascending a long elliptical staircase. There is a shot where the alternating colors of the steps are seen, which can be compared to the “café wall illusion”, where alternating target patterns, rows, and colours combine to trick our brains. The offset patterns disrupt our perception, making us think the squares are falling at a slanted angle, or in this case, that the vertical space is deeper that what it actually is. The alternating color of the steps in conjunction with the handrails which seem to divide the stairs in half, create a visual metaphor for the seemingly endless depth of the stairs.

Illusions within the arts originally began as a way that artists would more accurately represent the world around them on a two dimensional platform. A somewhat oxymoronic statement given that in order to do so, the artist had to literally distort and give depth to the plane that they were drawing on. But the history of illusion can be traced back even further, all the way to the art of sleight of hand and magic. Humanity has always looked to show the unshowable and illusions and the manipulation of reality have facilitated this. During the last 100 years, the introduction of movies and time based art, these illusions can take their sensorial manipulations one step further. They can us make us feel anxious or unnerved when we think something is about to happen or when a space within the movie is too small, and it can also surprise us or make us laugh when we thought something was going to happen and instead the opposite did. In the end what is important to denote is that the manipulation is an extremely powerful tools used across mediums to affect how we view ‘reality’.

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

Still from season two, episode four of A Series of Unfortunate Events (above) and Analysis of the still (below)

The “Café Wall Illusion”

Manipulating Reality

Left to right and up to down Fig. 1 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) Fig. 2 Silence of the Lambs (1991) Fig. 3 Frankenstein 1970 (1958) Fig. 4 The Handmaiden (2016) Fig. 5 Spirited Away (2001) Fig. 6 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) Fig. 7-8 Stalker (1979)

The Evil in Space What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

by Duyi Han and Gloria Yan

In modern history, architectural space or interior room, as we call in general, space, has had its interesting parallel in films. So often, a space, whether it is real or fictional, becomes a stage where its characteristics are closely tied to the characters in the film. And so often, techniques of filmmaking produce or alter the characteristics of a space, feeding back to reality and the database of architecture. To understand this two-way process, especially the first way, one has to analyze how space is made or depicted in relation to the film and its characters, with the comparison to real architecture. With the focus on the negative or evil characters, we identified and studied three ways space relates to the evil characters. We define evil characters as a concept that includes both villain human figures and, in the more abstract sense, negative or evil characteristics.

Fig. 9 Villa Øverby in reality Fig. 10 Plan of Villa Øverby

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

I In the first way in which space is related to the character of the film, space could be the villain’s private base, the “villain’s cave.” These buildings have domestic spaces as their “normal” side while hiding their evil or “abnormal” side (usually underground spaces). The atmosphere of the underground spaces implies that something bad happens here, which helps enhance the villain’s character. As the spaces showing their dual nature, the villains that occupy the spaces have their “normal side” and “abnormal side”. Three movies, David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs, and Howard W. Koch’s Frankenstein 1970, use this type of space as a tool to amplify the villains’ dual character. In The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the major villain, Martin Vanger (Stellan Sarsgård), is the CEO of Vanger Industries. On the normal side, Martin is a sophisticated and decent businessman. Comparing to other family members like his uncle, the former Nazi Harald Vanger, Martin seems to be the most “normal” person in terms of personality and lifestyle. Spatially, in contrast to Harald’s dark and dirty house, the living space in Martin’s house is bright and clean. In reality, this glassy house, Villa Øverby, located in Värmdö, Stockholm, is designed by John Robert Nilsson Architecture (Fig. 9 Villa Øverby exterior). With three glass facades, the house enjoys panoramic views across the lake. The floor plan of the house, a simple rectangular shape, is clearly divided into private and social spheres (Fig. 10 plan of Villa Øverby). When the protagonist, Mikael Blomkvist was invited to have dinner at Martin’s house, the kitchen area is in a warm yellow tone. Food and wine on the table, friends sitting together and chatting, modern-style kitchen and living room with decent furniture, this scene reminds the audiences of a normal dinner party (Fig. 11). However, below this living space, an evil basement is hiding there just like Martin’s hiding his villain identity as a serial killer. The Evil in Space

When Mikael was caught by Martin in the basement after finding out Martin’s dark secret, the color of the scene turns into a cold and blue tone. With the white ceramic floor, ceiling light, and all kinds of tools on the wall, this basement reminds the audiences of Nazi’s torture laboratory in WWII (Fig. 12 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: the basement). When Martin tortured Mikael and revealed the story about how he has tortured and killed women for decades in this basement, his villain side finally came to the surface. With the change in color tone, the camera angle was changed in the basement scene. In the dinner scene, the camera takes a third-person perspective - the audiences watch the scene as outsiders. In the basement, many shots are taken from Mikael’s perspective (Fig. 13 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: lights and camera angles). With these shots, audiences can see all the details of the basement - the hangers, the camera, the curtain, and the ceiling. The audiences even can get a “tangible feeling” of being tortured, which amplifies the evil characteristic of

Fig. 11 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: dinner at Martin’s house Fig. 12 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: the basement

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

In the room of torture

93 Open the basement door

Walk down to the basement

Fig. 13 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: lights and camera angles

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Fig. 14 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Mikaelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perspective

Martin (Fig. 14 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Mikael’s perspective). Similar techniques are used in movie Silence of the Lambs. Then the FBI trainee, Clarice Starling, first arrives at the villain, Buffalo Bill’s house. The scene to the audience is like a stage or an image that just shows what’s going on in the space. After the villain, Buffalo Bill, reveals his evil identity, they both moved to the secret basement. The view switches back and forth quickly between Buffalo Bill and Clarice Starling to enhance the tense atmosphere in the dark basement (Fig. 15 Silence of the Lambs: switch in views). The house of Buffalo Bill is the most common residential house in suburban America from the exterior (Fig. 16 Silence of the Lambs: house exterior). Whenever the shots are taken in the living space, the outfits and behaviors of Buffalo Bill are normal as a middle-aged man (Fig. 17 Silence of the Lambs: normal side of Buffalo Bill). However, in most of the basement scenes, the camera angle takes Buffalo Bill’s points of view. These scenes recreate how the villain torture the victims,

Fig. 15 Silence of the Lambs: switch in views Fig. 16 Silence of the Lambs: house exterior

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

how he looks at himself in the mirror when dressing up as a woman, how he appreciates the clothes that he made out of women’s skin. The change of the camera angle seems to invite the audiences into the villain’s inner world and reveal his evil side in depth (Fig. 18 Silence of the Lambs: different perspectives). In movie Frankenstein 1970, the villain, Baron Victor von Frankenstein (Boris Karloff), lives in his family castle. As the “normal” part of the castle, the upper space is rent to a television crew for shooting (Fig. 19 Frankenstein 1970: “normal” part of the castle). The “abnormal” evil space is the basement that is used The Evil in Space

Fig. 17 Silence of the Lambs: normal side of Buffalo Bill Fig. 18 Silence of the Lambs: different perspectives

by Baron as a laboratory to kill people and take their body parts to create his monster. In contrast to the classical style of the castle, the underground laboratory has modern elements such as the atomic reactor and monitors (Fig. 20 Frankenstein 1970: the basement). This clear contrast in styles makes the building a monstrous two-part space. This monstrous castle also reflects the villain’s dual character: one part of him as a scientist who wants to create a living being and another part of him as a villain who kills other people to make a monster to be a perpetuation of himself. II In the second way, the space is a complex with all kinds of things happen inside. The building is managed by monstrous villains or the building itself is a monster that makes people do bad things. In Park Chan-wook’s movie The Handmaiden, the villain, Uncle Kouzuki, makes money by selling rare erotic books, He has Lady Hideko, his niece, give readings and perform the erotic scenes in the books for potential buyers (Fig. 21 The Handmaiden: Lady Hideko’s performance). In the movie, Kouzuki’s house functions as a complex. The building contains the living spaces, a Japanese garden, a library, and a secret basement (Fig. 22 The Handmaiden: plan and axon of the library).

Fig. 19 (upper left) Frankenstein 1970: “normal” part of the castle Fig. 20 (upper right) Frankenstein 1970: the basement Fig. 21 (lower) The Handmaiden: Lady Hideko’s performance

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

Fig. 22 The Handmaiden: plan and axon of the library

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Kouzukiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s monstrous villain character is fully shown through this architecture. The building has references to man traditional Japanese architecture, like the long corridors, the Japanese gardens. What makes Kouzukiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house monstrous is the combination of the Japanese style and the Western style, and the secret spaces inside the building (Fig. 23 The Handmaiden: Japanese style and western style of the building). The library works both as a storage space for Kouzukiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book collection, and the performance stage of Lady Hideko. Although space physically is not a torture space, it is a mental torture space to Lady Hideko. Since teenage age, giving erotic reading and

Fig. 23 The Handmaiden: Japanese style and western style of the building Fig. 24 The Handmaiden: library during daytime Fig. 25 The Handmaiden: the torture basement

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

performance in front of Kouzukiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s guests has made her mentally painful. Lady Hideko gradually built up her hatred of males. The Japanese style library is covered by tatami and dry landscapes. During daytime, it is as clean and elegant as other places in this building (Fig. 24 The Handmaiden: library during daytime). However, at night, all the potential buyers will gather here and The Evil in Space

Fig. 26 Spirited Away: the abandoned train terminal building Fig. 27 Spirited Away: facades; physical model of the bathhouse by Japanese sculptor Hiroshi Ito

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watch Lady Hideko’s performance. This prurient activity suddenly reveals all the evilness and monstrosity hiding in this space. Another space in this building complex, called “the basement” by Uncle Kouzuki, is a physical torture space in the movie. Kouzuki stores his collection of animals’ reproductive organs specimens in this basement. He also uses machine to torture people who disobey him. Every time before Kouzuki leaves the house, he threats Lady Hideko “remember the basement” to prevent Lady Hideko from escaping by reminding her of her childhood trauma (Fig. 25 The Handmaiden: the torture basement). In Hayao Miyazaki’s movie Spirited Away, Chihiro, a ten-year-old girl, accidentally enters the magical world: a bathhouse complex for all kinds of monsters. There is no real villain in this movie, but the architecture is monstrous. The buildings in the film are “alive.” At the beginning of the film, Chihiro enters the magical world through an abandoned train terminal building. She feels like the building is “pushing” her to go inside (Fig. 26 Spirited Away: the abandoned train terminal building).

Spirited Away: bathhouse sketches by Studio Gibli

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Front

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Back

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Fig. 28 (A) Spirited Away: division in facades and spaces as a statement of the social order and social classes in the bathhouse

Back Facade

Front Facade

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Fig. 28 (B) Spirited Away: division in facades and spaces as a statement of the social order and social classes in the bathhouse

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Contrast between the living spaces of different classes in the bathhouse

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The bathhouse is like a monster with the combination of Japanese and Western style. The bathhouse shows the order and the dual nature of this world. The two facades of this building are in strong contrast: the front facade, where the guests enter the building, is fancy and colorful. It has the form of traditional Japanese bathhouse--clean, elegant, and symmetrical. It reminds people of the pre-WWII prosperous period of Japan. The back facade, where only the workers live, is full of ugly pipes, monstrous extruding windows, and shabby wood panels, which reminds people of the sheds built in Tokyo after WWII bombing (Fig. 27 Spirited Away: facades) . The space inside the bathhouse is also divided into two worlds. The bath and dining area for the guests is open, bright and well decorated while the living area for workers is dark, dirty, and crowded. The contrast between the warm color tone and depressing cold color tone in the two spaces clearly states the class differences in this building (Fig. 28 Spirited Away: division in facades and spaces as a statement of the social order and social classes in the bathhouse). The architecture is no longer a simple object; it reflects a micro-society. The top of the building belongs to Yubaba, the manager of the bathhouse. In contrast to the Japanese style exterior, the interior of this space is in a fancy, fully decorated western style. This space illustrates the capitalist essence of this bathhouse: on the surface, it looks like the bathhouse offers the best services to

Fig. 29 Spirited Away: Yubabaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s space

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the guest, but behind these services, the owner only cares about the money (Fig. 29 Spirited Away: Yubabaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s space). III In the third way in which space is related to the character of the film, there is simply no major human villain. Space where a story happens becomes everything, more than the people and story. There needs not be an elaborate plot with people of good and bad go into dramatic conflict. There needs not be much dialogue, conversation, or action - some wandering around would be just fine. Like textual illustration of sinister atmosphere in books and novels, there is detailed and deliberate depiction and representation of space. It is the tangible, realistic material, volume, light, air, color, and sound, with cinematographic techniques, that themselves construct the sense that something bad is associated. The Evil in Space

Fig. 30 Stalker: material detail

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Evil characteristic is often connoted by mystery and the unknown, the expectation and fear that something would happen. Along with this is sometimes also contradiction - for example, something that would normally look familiar and real becomes subtle, unexplainable, or contains opposite quality; the feeling of weakness - feeling physically weak, feeling weak in front of the overpowering nature, in a vast space, do not have control, or have difficulty moving; and analogy - the space may look like or invoke the characteristic of a location related to despair and death. Two film examples of such techniques are Andrei Tarkovskyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Stalker and David Yatesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The former artfully represents a real, abandoned space as the Zone, in and around a deserted hydro water plant near Tallinn, Estonia. It is a forbidden destination that the three men trespass and discover, hoping that its sentient and mythic power fulfills their biggest innermost wish. The latter, in one scene, illustrates a computer-generated fictional space, a large, dark sea cave with water and a small island of crystals in the center. The exterior of the cave, the sea cliff, is based on the Cliffs of Moher on the Irish coast.

Fig. 31 Stalker: men engaging with the space

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

Both films strike viewers with material, especially Stalker. In one three-minute montage, the camera moves slowly over the floor of a water-filled room where the Stalker is sleeping to rest. On broken tiles are dirt, stain, abandoned wires, cables, springs, clothes, plastic scraps, coins, images, many unidentifiable tools, and much debris, all washed and scattered in shallow water (Fig. 30 Stalker: material detail). The long closeup of what people would normally avoid as trash is meticulously presented at a large scale on the screen, itself a rather strange choice, with a strong invocation of drenching, flux, waste, melancholy and lifelessness. In one classic scene, the three men lay in a large room filled with bumps of perhaps sand. Small water ponds occupy a few low areas. It is unknown what creates this environment. One man throws a piece of cloth rope to the sandy bumps. A close-up depicts the rope hitting the sand and causing dust to flow (Fig. 30). In this depiction, detail material makes the space feel tangible, as if proving that the physicality of the mysterious and supernatural room is real. In addition, almost throughout the second half of Stalker, the three men engage with the space, the floor, the water in many different but The Evil in Space

Fig. 32 Harry Potter: material detail

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Original film capture

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Brightened

Visible area of the space from the camera

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Visible area of the space from the camera

Original film capture

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Brightened

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Fig. 33 Stalker: lighting and camera angle

intimate body positions, such as laying down just next to drenched debris, dirt flowing on water surface, and walls with stains (Fig. 31 Stalker: men engaging with the space). Their appearance, with rough skin and worn outfit, is aligned with the decayed style of the space - three desperate men, in a desperate zone where nobody else is present and where former explorers have died, reaching for an almost impossible goal which does not succeed eventually. Moving to Harry Potter, the crystal island has only one material, the crystal - what Dumbledore and Harry stand on, and what contains the murky dark “Drink of Despair” in the basin block (Fig. 32 Harry Potter: material detail). Variation of material is almost none. The rest is water and empty darkness. The width and height of the cave is unknown. It is vast. While the frosted and semi-transparent crystals look tangible enough, the minimum of material, visually coherent and blended with the two men, their body, hair, and reflection, all in monochrome color tone, conveys in a “less is more” way, of an adventure for mystery. 110

While the material presented is realistic, color and lighting in these two films are in general more about artificial effects. The more realistic among which is the colors in Stalker. In contrast to the normal world outside the Zone depicted in a nostalgic monochrome sepia tone, inside the Zone which is conceptually the alternative reality, colors are represented as they are and the color temperature is neutral. This is an enhancement to realistic material quality. However, light and dark is theatrical though there is no evidence of artificial lighting. The shots are often in a dark place with a few strong light sources, sometimes in the background and invisible but shine on a wall, and with the men in the middleground or foreground, dramatically lit against a darker background. As in the water tunnel scene and in some factory rooms, light is stark, highlight is bright, almost white, and shadow is almost black where objects are difficult to identify - the unknown (Fig. 33 Stalker: lighting and camera angle). In this high contrast, the material texture becomes prominent. Water and the wet surface has highlight; normal rough wall appears a few times rougher. This prominence of lighting, color, and highly

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Original film capture

Brightened, warm color

Brightened, cool color

Smoother material texture

Completely smoothened material with shadow

Completely smoothened material without shadow

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Original film capture

Brightened, with alternative foreground material

Brightened, with alternative background material

Brightened, with alternative foregronud and background material Fig. 34 By changing the lighting, color, and material, the original perceptual and emotive quality of the film is disintegrated and disappeared. This comparison shows that the physical quality of the space is essential in forming the character of the space in these films.

The Evil in Space

tangible material then becomes essential to the film, as Fig. 34 shows. With usually horizontal or downward camera composition that hardly reveals the full building exterior or what is around and above, the director achieves a staged set, an incomplete set of information about the space, realistically focusing through light and shadow on the men and the harsh physicality of the surrounding.

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In Harry Potter, as mentioned before, the scene is dark, almost monochrome, tinted with an eerie greenish glow that carries slightly cold color temperature. With only an artificial light set up by Dumbledore that slowly moves far above and eventually goes off into the water, the light and shadow is not only theatrical but also changing. When the light is low enough to be seen in the scene, it shines from the background, lights up the crystals, reflects through the crystals and water, and just lights up Harry’s silhouette when he slowly treks the rough crystals and reaches the water (Fig. 35 Harry Potter: lighting and camera angle). Everything else is not important, not needed, dark. What feels visually magical will turn into purgatory. This cave scene is an intimate story between Harry and Dumbledore finding Voldemort’s Horcrux on a small stage. It looks real, but also intensely focused and unreal. It already speaks for enough mysterious and sinister characteristic before the second part of the scene in which Dumbledore and Harry fight the Inferi (zombies) that climb out of the water. From Stalker we see an example of an abandoned, dilapidated, industrial space becoming a source and inspiration for vagabond and adventurous exploration and scavenging. Its adds to this notion another layer, that of a mysterious, spiritual entity almost with its own mind, life, and assert of power. Made in 1979 predating the Chernobyl accident, it inspired video games such as S.T.A.L.K.E.R., which features survival games in the buildings and landscape of Chernobyl, and resonates with artworks such as Pierre Huyghe’s “Another ALife Ahead”, in which the artist turns a disused ice-skating rink into a landscape of postapocalyptic deserted earth with self-organized high-tech mechanical system (Fig. 36).

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

Original film capture

Visible area of the space from the camera

Brightened

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The island

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The whole cave

Fig. 35 Harry Potter: lighting and camera angle

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Fig. 36 Upper: video game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Lower: “Another ALife Ahead”, Pierre Huyghe, Münster, 2017

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

In Harry Potter, this scene of searching for a treasure in a remote cave in a difficult surrounding is not unfamiliar in film history, but it is unique in its artistic style. The fictional space spatially and conceptually adds to the complexity of the Cliffs of Moher, and adds to the genre of “treasure room.” *** As described, a space in a film can relate to a villain character in a straightforward way as the villain’s own place, in an abstract way as the stage set for stories, and in its pure physical way as a space with evil perceptual quality. Although we have divided the three, they often blend together or coexist. A space could have all three ways. In these, strong characteristics are constructed, and the space is given life, tied closely to the film, and affects a viewer’s impression of the villain character or simply the film. And as discussed, these spaces, with their fictional qualities in films, feed back to the database and development of architecture - the depicted space themselves are convincing and fascinating pieces of constructed space and built environment, and they inspire other works as well.

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The Good, The Bad or The Ugly What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

by Vaharan Elavia

In visual media, a space, normally referred to as a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;setâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; adds an environmental characteristic to the display. At its core, a set is a neutral addition, providing a viewer with only a locational reference within which to place the performers on screen. When the director or cinematographer behind the camera wants to use the space as a character itself, adding to the mood of the shot or scene, they alter the set, creating a set-piece, a surrounding or backdrop that influences the viewers perception of what they are witnessing. An additional layer of information that is translated to the viewers, without dialogue or direct description. The most effective addition used is sound. A background score, music or even simple sound effects are the quickest way to impact the shot, but they are only effective when the media is playing i.e. you cannot perceive the auditory influence through a still image. In response to that and to give the viewer a visual nudge, the director will alter the set within the frame of the shot, leaving a deliberate suggestion of the temperament of the scene, which can transcend the need for having a The Good, The Bad or The Ugly

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moving image. The single still, can still convey what the atmosphere is like within that world, at that moment far after the film had stopped playing. What is remarkable about this, is that these atmospheric additions can sway the audience in various directions. The director can instigate happiness, sadness, trepidation, excitement, doubt and many more feelings in the viewer, controlling how the scene is being perceived. This essentially allows the director to reach out from within the screen, into the viewers mind and coax them into experiencing the spectacle as he or she sees fit. He essentially makes the space, that was initially a neutral environment, take on a characteristic bias towards one or more emotions. It is the human interaction on the blank set that gives it a qualitative feeling beyond a special reference point.

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By understanding that, by adding another level of visual continuity, a director can alter the spaceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s quality, it is a reasonable assumption that there are certain techniques and actions that are used to develop a desired effect. It is also a logical step that a single space can be manipulated in multiple ways, using different techniques, to bring about the desired results. This means that a single room, can be both a joyful site with warm, welcoming walls or a horrific cage, imprisoning the characters within. This hypothesis can be proven when one looks at the litany of movie locations that have been used in multiple films, of different genres. Spaces that have been so expertly used, that they are overlooked by the viewer as being one that they have seen before, in another light. Only hyper vigilant observers would recall the staircase from the Bradbury Building in Los Angeles, is the same one seen in 1982â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Blade Runner, or in the romantic comedy, 500 Days of Summer in 2009 and once again in 2011s Oscar winning movie The Artist. The same location, and similar camera points, but completely different environment and emotional effect. Many filming locations exist, like the Bradbury Building, that allow film-makers a blank canvas, to work their magic and alter the impression of the place, and in turn the scene within the film.

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TL : The Artist (2011) TR : Blade Runner (1982) BL : Blade Runner (1982) BR : 500 Days of Summer (2009)

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Bradbury Building, Los Angeles, CA. - Shown in a Positive Light

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Bradbury Building, Los Angeles, CA. - Shown in a Negative Light

What has been explored in this paper, is the way in which, one space or set is used multiple times, in multiple different movies, with each movie showcasing a completely different impression of the space. Amongst the director’s visual tools, the strongest instrument is the overall colour of the shot. Ranging from the complete absence of colour, emphasising the darkness and shadows to the over-abundance of fully saturated frames. Colour can have the quickest visual que to the viewers mind.

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Colour can affect us psychologically and physically, often without us being fully aware of its impact. It is a strong device within a story, even if not directly referenced. Knowledge of the colour’s effect gives the director control, and control means they can manipulate the emotional viewing of the shot, giving it a powerful and beautiful edge. Being able to use colour to create harmony, or tension within a scene, or to bring attention to a key visual theme is not a novel approach and has been developed since the time technicolour was introduced to the media. A strong red colour has been shown to raise blood pressure, while a blue colour tone has a calming effect. Some colours are distinctly associated with a particular place, while others give a sense of time or period. The choice of the colour theme of the shot, speaks to an in-depth plan of how a scene is to be received, and to subliminal hints and suggestions that the director wishes the viewer to have. Before considering the effects of colours and their combinations, an understanding of the lack of colour in a scene is needed. There are many ways to create symbolism in a film, by using different types of colour schemes, but before the film colour palette existed, there was simply ‘Black and White’. For years movies were shot entirely in black and white. Powerful symbols and contrasting ideas were created in those images. There was a limited amount that could be subtly shown through this medium as there was a limit to the amount of shading that was also available. Scenes were predominantly centred around being light and dark, i.e. white and black. The prevalent

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

L: Charlieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Angels: Full Throttle (2003) R: National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007)

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The Good, The Bad or The Ugly

L: Spiderman (2002) R: Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties (2006)

assumption, that white and brightness meant good, while dark and black implied evil was championed in this era. A room meant to be virtuous, would have been set up as clean, orderly and pure. An evil place would be filled with darker, less organised content, while most places would live somewhere in the middle. This has continued to todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s films, where the balance of light and dark remains, even if pigments of colour have seeped their way into widespread media. 1939, which is considered a landmark year for Hollywood, saw the release of the Wizard of Oz, the first movie that succeeded in shooting with colour on film. With the explosion of colour on film, a new approach to composing frames was created, by adding the potential of a colour scheme into each shot.

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To fully understanding the broad range of how different colours can illicit an emotional response from a viewer, we must look at some fundamentals that will apply equally to setting up a scene, to shooting, and post-production. It all starts with the colour wheel, albeit a far more sophisticated version than the one most people were first introduced to in kindergarten. A well-designed movie colour palette evokes a mood and sets the tone for the film. The three main components of a colour are its hue, saturation, and value. Hue is the colour itself, a pigment discernible by the human eye. Saturation is the intensity of the colour, how far away from a bland tone it is. It is a measure of its vibrancy. Value is the darkness or lightness of a colour, how close or far it is from complete black or white. By manipulating each category indecently, the scene can evoke a different response. Thematic selections and usage of colour can be allowed to: 1) Elicit a psychological reaction, 2) Draw focus to significant details, 3) Set the tone of the scene or changes in the arc, 4) Represent character traits. Each colour, though not completely devoid of association with its neighbours on the colour wheel, does provide a different set of emotional ques to the viewer. Certain shades, closely resembling different

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The Wizard of Oz (1939)

The Good, The Bad or The Ugly

colours, can be linked to different emotions. For the most part, the following colour tones, correspond to specific human emotions. Reds normally convey Anger, Danger, Love, Passion, Power and Violence.

Pinks represent Beauty, Empathy, Femininity, Innocence, Playfulness and Sweetness.

Oranges, evoke Happiness, Exoticism Friendship, Warmth, Wealth and Youthfulness. Yellow indicates Insecurities, Madness, Naivety, Obsessiveness, Simplicity and Sickness.

Greens are associated with Corruption, Darkness, Evil, Greed, Nature and Ominousness.

Blues suggest Calmness, Cold, Intellect, Isolation, Melancholy and Passivity. Purples allude to Eroticism, Ethereal, Fantasy, Illusionary, Insanity and Mysticism.

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There are different ways to achieve a successful colour palette in a scene, by using one of the many tried and tested colour schemes and a mixture of colours shades and tints. These methods are the: 1) Complementary colour scheme, 2) Monochromatic colour scheme, 3) Analogous colour scheme 4) Triadic colour scheme. These four colour schemes are employed over most well-crafted shots to create a balanced movie colour palette. Although a single, recurring colour can hold a deeper meaning, a more fleshed out film colour palette is most effective in communicating the context. The monochromatic colour scheme is when a single base hue is extended out using shades, tones, and tints. The interior shots of Hatfield Castle, used in movies like the X-Men franchise (2000-2016) and television shows like Smallville (2001-2011) and Arrow (2012-Present) are filled with tons of Gold, Brown and Cream, conveying a sense of wealth, comfort and warmth and even a touch of opulence.

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They create a deeply harmonious feeling that is soft, lulling and soothing. It does not dictate that the film be homogenous in look and feel, but simply offers a hue within which to create contrast between parts of the same scene while still enforcing the fact that they are linked together with a specific emotion. Complementary colour schemes are when two colours from opposite sides of the colour wheel are used in conjunction with one another. Contrasting the visuals, complementary colours create a subconscious confrontation between parts of the same scene. Duelling colours are often associated with conflict, whether internal or external, where once again, the darker of the two is attributed to the negative. They allow a feature to stand out within a scene.

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An Analogous colour schemes utilize colours that are next to one another on the colour wheel, that tend to occur in nature and create a harmonious feeling that is pleasing to the eye. The effect can also be created by using tints and shadows. Good examples of neighbouring colours that can create analogous colour schemes are red and violet or yellow and lime green. Since the colours lack the contrast and tension of the complementary colours, they instead create a kind of visual unity opposite to the monochromatic scheme, emphasising the difference amongst similar focuses. A triadic colour scheme is when three colours that are evenly spaced around the colour wheel are used in conjunction. One colour in the scheme is chosen to be the dominant one with other two used in complementary fashion. Triadic colour schemes are somewhat less common, but they tend to lend themselves to a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;comic bookâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; or visually saturated film. The last two methods, are less a colour scheme and more of a cinematic technique that relies heavily on colour schemes; Discordant and Associative Colours. By using a Discordant colour, one which has no immediate connection to the previously used scheme, a director can make a character, detail, or moment truly stand out from the rest of the film, refocusing the viewersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; attention.

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TL: Smallville (2001) TR: Smallville (2011) BL: Smallville (2001) BR: Smallville (2011)

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TL: Arrow (2012) TR: Arrow (2012) BL: Smallville (2001) BR: Smallville (2001)

A common trope is when a scene suddenly becomes washed out, or low in saturation, giving an effect of a dream or imaginary vision. The switch from the preceding ‘normal’ scheme causes the viewer to register a change within the narrative. Not all examples of discordance in film are as obvious as a colour change. A subtler change, perhaps over time can result in a revelation of a new character trait or a change in the characters behaviour. From the start of Season 1 of Smallville, to the finale, 10 seasons later, the colour scheme of the scenes involving Lex Luthor, the primary antagonist shifted from a warm brown tone, to a darker purple. This change, though indistinguishable from episode to episode, was an active plot device in the visual presentation, subtly signifying the character’s decent to evil.

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When spread out sufficiently, a discordant colour scheme can become a transitional colour scheme, performing a similar function, over a long span of time on screen. This gradual change can influence a viewer’s subconscious without a direct approach. Closely linked to this is an associative colour scheme, where a recurring colour or mixture represents a specific character making a visual connection with an emotional connection. In Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) use of associative colours both, with the characters, and also their arc in the overall movie allows viewers to register a set of colours with the Good and Bad. Darth Vader is always depicted in black, with a bright red lightsabre, contrasting to Luke’s lighter tones of white, along with his blue lightsabre. These colours combined to convey an emotional state from the character. Black and red are violent and menacing where blue and white are cool and comforting. It is also worth mentioning that within film, Vader, an imposing villain was always shown in sets that were pristine, vibrant, and a sterile white; while Luke, the protagonist was depicted in dull, dark and unclean environments; a reversal of the norms. This was possible, because the character’s associative colours were sufficient to convey the subtext of emotions to the viewer.

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L: Luke Skywalker R: Darth Vader STAR WARS: The Empire Strikes Back (1982)

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In the Wizard of Oz (1939) a mix of Discordant, Triadic and Monochromatic colour schemes are used to great effect. A sepia tone, closely resembling the black and white colour of the age’s films was used to bookend the movie, signifying the part in reality, while an explosion of colour, unheard of until then was used to highlight the other-worldly experience in the Land of Oz. The shift from one to another, rapidly heled the unfamiliar viewer know that they were most certainly not in Kansas anymore. It can also be said that the movie delved lightly into an Associative colour scheme with the Wizard and his strong affinity for the colour green, or more accurately Emerald as the movie describes it.

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These colour schemes are not always used as an overlay, added in post-production, but can be delicately added, even at the time of constructing the set. Altering the light quality entering the set can have a powerful effect, just as much as using a filter after a scene is shot. If done well, the slight tint in the shadow can also prove valuable, an effect difficult to master in post-production visual effects. The contents of the shot on set can also follow the colour scheme planned for the particular moment on screen, adding to the impact. The entrance path of Grey Stone Manor, in Los Angeles was completely transformed for 1997s Batman and Robin and 2007s The Holiday, by altering the colour and density of the foliage on site. By adding autumn coloured vegetation and increasing the cover, the light entering the shot took on a diffused, fording quality, one that translated to the scene for the former. The same shot, in the latter was made warm and relaxing, by adding neat hedges of a deep green and no obstruction for the light. Another visual tool that director’s exploit for setting a tone of the scene, is the way it is lit. The lighting colour, style, focus, direction and orientation all play key roles in changing a benign frame, into a specific moment in time. Thus, cinematographers quickly began exploiting the psychology of light and how it influences the way viewers react. Hence, a cinematographer’s work is part art and part science as they bring together light and colour.

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TL: Kansas TR: Land of Oz Btm: Oz the Great Wizard of Oz (1939)

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The previous example of the Grey Stone entrance falls within this category as well, as do the many shots of the manorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most famous corridor. Once again it passes unnoticed to all but the keenest observer, but the same shot has been used in different movies to great effect, by changing the lighting used. In Star Trek: into Darkness (2013) the corridor took on a sickly greenish blue light, coming from one side, casting the remaining part of the scene into partial darkness, signifying stillness and silence an air of unease. In Sam Raimiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first Spiderman foray, the dependency on artificial light from a chandelier at one end of the corridor made the space feel welcoming and opulent. In the Big Lebowski (1998) the bright light coming from the windows illuminating the famous arched staircase showcased a sense of emptiness and large size, while the lack of much light and glowing lanterns in 2007s There Will Be Blood showcased an uncomfortable and deadly edge to the space.

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Simple changes to the lighting of a scene can completely alter its impact. Common types of light for illuminating movie scenes include hard light, soft light, available light and combination light. Hard light is the kind of light produced by a cloudless day, that produces shadows that are angular and harsh. This kind of lighting is often used to create a mood of danger and eeriness, ideal for creating places of discomfort. Soft light is the opposite of hard light in that the shadows that it produces are soft and gentle. Movies made in the film noir style often use this type of light. The effects created by this kind of lighting include romantic, seductive, non-threatening and comfortable moods. This kind of lighting can be used as an immediate contrast to scenes containing hard light and strong emotions, a play on the effect of a discordant colour scheme. Combination light lies between hard and soft light and the emotions elicited by it can vary. The library and corridors of Hatfield House, seen in 2001s Lara Croft and 1989s Batman play with combination lighting to contrast the sharper, hard lit scenes from the rest of the movie. There is no single way to employ lighting design and a scene could be lit several ways by different

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort L: Batman & Robin (1997) R: The Holiday (2007)

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TL: Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013) TR: The Big Lebowski (1998) BL: Spiderman (2002) BR: There Will Be Blood (2007)

cinematographers, each altering the mood and overall impact of the image. However, there is a basic list of lighting placements that can garner a desired effect. A key light is the primary light of the scene. It will be the most intense and direct light source of the entire scene and will be the first light to set up, and will be used to illuminate the form of the subject or actor. If a key light is positioned to the side or back of an actor, it will create a mysterious or dramatic mood and keep the overall image dark. Fire-side conversations and profile shots of characters are a favourite of this method and are used repeatedly in Smallville.

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Another type is called a fill light, that illuminates the shadows that are created by the key light. A fill light is usually placed on the opposite side of the key light, and often not as powerful. A variety of fill light options are used in Lex Luthorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office in Smallville, to contrast the primary light source. When the fill light is the fire place, contrasting the sun light from the window, the scene takes on a warm feel; but when the key light becomes the fire place and the fill light is the overhead fittings, the scene becomes far more sinister. Another type is the back light that hits an actor or object from behind, and is usually placed higher than the object it is illuminating. A backlight is often used to separate an object or an actor from a dark background, and to give the subject more shape and depth. Backlighting can help bring your subject out and away from looking two dimensional. The entrance foyer in X-Men 2 (2002) and in Arrow (2012) takes on an opposing quality based on the kind of backlighting used. Aside from these frames and shot based systems, using light and colour, there are certain techniques that are commonly used to alter the perception of a scene. The first few moments of a scene are some of the most crucial. Not only do they have to establish time and space so that the audience can be well-oriented and informed, but must also set the tone, which will essentially tell the audience how to feel about the events that are about to unfold on screen.

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort Top: Batman (1989) Btm: Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)

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Top-Btm: Smallville (2001-2011)

By focusing on the evil or uncomfortable feeling that viewers experience while watching certain scenes, common techniques that are utilised are the shot transitions, the angle and location of the camera with respect to the focus on screen and the framing of the object. The same object can be displayed in a variety of ways eliciting a different response each time. A scene, whether occupied or devoid of filler material, is a blank slate for the artist to concoct a visual moment in time and space. Before being burdened with dialogue and movement, before the influences of an outsiderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s performance in the scene, the director has a vision and a message to convey to the viewer. Through pictorial communication alone, they must translate the idea to the audience so that upon viewing the piece, the viewer can fully immerse themselves into the moment and experience, not only the words and actions of the players, but the associated emotions as well. It does not matter what the set is, only what the director in charge wants to make it be, be it good, bad or even ugly. 138 HATLEY CASTLE, B.C

GREY-STONE MANOR, C.A

BRADBURY BUILDING, C.A

HATFILED HOUSE, U.K

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L: Positive R: Negative Smallville (2001-2011)

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Left: Arrow (2012) TR: X-Men 2 (2002) BR: X-Men 2 (2002)

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The Main Character in Ghost in the Shell Kusanagiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s body is destroyed in a battle Title Screen Shot of Wings of Desire

The Scary Body What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

by Anqing Zhu

The film Ghost in the Shell (1995) stages in the year 2029, when the world has become interconnected by a vast electronic network that permeates every aspect of life. People also tend to rely more and more on cybernetic implants, and the first strong AI’s make their appearance. The main entity presented in the various media is the Public Security police force, which is charged to investigate cases like the Puppet Master and the Laughing Man. However, as the criminals are revealed to have more depth than was at first apparent, the various protagonists are left with disturbing questions: “What exactly is the definition of ‘human’ in a society where a mind can be copied and the body replaced with a synthetic form?”, “What exactly is the ‘ghost’—the human soul—in the cybernetic body, or ‘shell’?”, and “Where is the boundary between human and machine when the differences between the two become more philosophical than physical?”

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The concept of ghost In Ghost in the Shell, the word “ghost” is colloquial slang for an individual’s consciousness. In the manga’s futuristic society, science has redefined the ghost as the thing that differentiates a human being from a biological robot. Regardless of how much biological material is replaced with electronic or mechanical substitutes, as long as individuals retain their ghost, they retain their humanity and individuality.

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The concept of the ghost was borrowed by manga artist Masamune Shirow from an essay on structuralism, The Ghost in the Machine, by Arthur Koestler.1 The title itself was originally used by an English philosopher, Gilbert Ryle, to mock the paradox of conventional Cartesian dualism and dualism in general.2 Koestler, like Ryle, denies Cartesian dualism and locates the origin of human mind in the physical condition of the brain. He argues that the human brain has grown and built upon earlier, more primitive brain structures, the “ghost in the machine”, which at times overpower higher logical functions, and are responsible for hate, anger and other such destructive impulses. Shirow denies dualism similarly in his work, but defines the “ghost” more broadly, not only as a physical trait, but as a phase or phenomenon that appears in a system at a certain level of complexity.3 The brain itself is only part of the whole neural network; if, for example, an organ is removed from a body, the autonomic nerve of the organ and consequently its “ghost” will vanish unless the stimulus of the existence of the organ is perfectly reproduced by a mechanical substitution. This can be compared, by analogy, to a person born with innate deafness being unable to understand the concept of “hearing” unless taught. If the brain itself is part of a larger neural network, one may extend this notion of network to a boarder definition, the ‘ghost’ is embedded within the society and dependent on physical infrastructure. The closely boned relation between mind and body was challenged in the film and at the same time reflect certain real shifts in our current society.

1, Koestler, Arthur. The Ghost in the Machine. [1St American ed.]. New York: Macmillan, 1968. 2, Ryle, Gilbert. The Concept of Mind. University of Chicago Press ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Pres, 1984.

3, Schodt, Frederik l. Interview with masamune shirow, 1998.

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Temporality between mind and body In the film of Ghost in the Shell, the mind may seem as immaterialized as digital data, meaning an artificial intelligence constructed by numerous 1s and 0s, but in fact, it is still stored on physical material and inescapable from materiality. That is to say, the existence of data depends on its infrastructure. Therefore, the body is a ‘house’ for mind, yet the housing moment is unconventionally temporary. There is little requirement or necessity on the durability as data can be transferred quickly and easily to new bodies. The concept of body could be extended to a larger physical context, in the scale of a mega city, the mind is shelled in the body and the body is supported by all kinds of infrastructure in metropolitan. Perhaps one could even argue that in the setting of Ghost in the Shell, the continuation of humanistic consciousness is only maintained by the infrastructure of city.

The Scary Body

‘Realistic’ drawing of the ‘ghost’/mind is accommodated into a body in ghost in the shell.

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Free and Fear The multi-sensorial understanding of the self has been shown to have implications for our understanding of social relationships, especially in the context of selfother boundaries. The human body is central to how we understand facets of identity such as gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity. People alter their bodies, hair, and clothing to align with or rebel against social conventions and to express messages to others around them.4 By grounding the self in the body, psychology has taken the body as the starting point for a science of the self. One fundamental dimension of the bodily self is the sense of body ownership that refers to the special perceptual status of oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own body, the feeling that â&#x20AC;&#x153;my bodyâ&#x20AC;? belongs to me. As one separates oneself from one to one designated relation between mind and body, the philosophical recognition such as gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity deconstructs. The usual power relations such as social network will no longer legitimate, because we, as human being, no longer fears about death. Ghost in the Shell presents this situation where

Moments in the film, where Kasanagi questions if he is still a human being and trying to recall her memory.

4, hilling, Chris. The Body and Social Theory. Third edition. Los Angeles: Sage, 2012.

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one mind is completely independent from the human body. Kusanagi completely reproduces the stimulus of all of her organs in order to maintain her “ghost”. The Puppet Master manages not to deteriorate its “ghost” when merging with Kusanagi because his system is the body of information itself, thereby avoiding deterioration due to the deficiency at material level. However, such freedom which is resulted from removing the need of physical body creates fear about emptiness and nothingness. Such emptiness is particularly rendered well in the film ghost in the shell, where overwhelmingly detailed and seemly disjunctive street-scenes are filmed without any development on plot. In contrast, Wings of Desire (1987) showcase the opposite; the angle intentionally transfers himself from sacred spirit to secular human being, from immortal to mortal. It is process of identity rediscovery, the angel gives up immortality and embracing constrains of human body as if desire could be understood as a sort of limitation. The film’s primary narrative involves an angel (Damiel) who longs to be human, and in the The Scary Body

The making process of Kasanagi’s new body.

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Moments in wings of desire: Angels listen to peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mind

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end realizes his deepest desire (thus, wings of desire). Damiel’s longing revolves around his love for a particular woman, a lonely trapeze artist. He seeks after both human sensuousness—the capacity to experience the world through one’s senses—and sensuality, as the highest of all sensory experiences. In this sense, the film elevates (perhaps too romantically at times) the unifying love of man and woman as the pinnacle of personhood. This is not theologically inappropriate, but merely misleading from the perspective of human relations. A theologicalphilosophical perspective can appreciate the film’s insistence upon the deeper themes of personhood and identity in this outwardly romantic love story. Damiel’s transition from angel to human is a decisive affirmation of concrete immanence over against immaterial transcendence. In spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact that Wings of Desire is an excellent example of the modern immanentizing of all life, the film stresses the goodness of creation and the value of particularity. Damiel chooses to be located within a particular time and space, no longer capable of traversing the cosmos from the perspective of eternity. He has thrown his lot in with the temporal and the transient and opted to be this-worldly, rather than otherworldly. This transition from transcendence to immanence is latent with theological meaning that needs to be explored further. For now, it must suffice to note that Wings of Desire is a film that praises the worth of human particularity, and as a result, the film has clear christological overtones (although the film rightly avoids any presentation of the angels as salvific on the level of Christ). According to the film, a truly human person is free from the impulse to contain and control the universe by reason or power or status. A human person can take joy in the small things of life, in the memories of family, in the love and embrace of another human person. A human being is thus a relational-narrative being designed to live in relation with the world, others, and with God, whose experiences form an individual narrative as one story among and connected with others.5 A person who lives in this way will be grateful: he or she will be known as one who gives thanks for the small (and large) things in life—for all of creation, for family, for the bread and wine, for this day, for this moment. The Scary Body

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5, Meretoja, H. (2014). Narrative and human existence: Ontology, epistemology, and ethics. New Literary History, 45(1), 89-109,153

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Angel and the old man walk along the wall in Potsdam

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Both films reflect a common emotion of fear in different forms. One, I will call the loss of identity which was represented by excessive details in the film Ghost in the Shell. Two is a physiological disconnection that is particular set in the context of Berlin that time in history. The fear created by the removal of human body was expressed by the excessive details in the film Ghost in the Shell. The image of the city is constructed by numerous layers of details, from trash in the water to airplane in the air, from street signs to the mechanical on the building roofs. The overwhelming amount of details rendered a city almost as it is built for infrastructure rather than human being. On the other hand, the film shows a great number of content on details of the robotic parts that is used to accommodate human â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;ghostâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. For example, it depicts how cybernetic is manufactured, often address and zoom into the mechanical details and joints as if it is trying to make readers believe the actuality and buildablibility of the machine. The mentioned two kinds of detail works together and complementarily, which present a society where the boundary between man and machine,

Old man sits in Potsdam and recalling his memory associated with this place before the war.

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

the service objects and the service, the power class (human) and the infrastructure and is blurred. This dissolved boundary-less relation creates a fundamental and unsettling anxiety on the absence of self-identity. However, why is the anxiety unsolvable even one could obtain the most powerful and beautiful body in the world of ghost in the shell? Here I would like to introduce the idea of authenticity of body. I would argue that the authentic body is an inseparable part of the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;ghostâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. Firstly, our mind is largely affected and shaped by the experience collected by the authentic body. The firsthand experience surely will be changed as one gets new bodies. However, the original experience forms the most basic layer of identity. This is mostly showcased at the moment of reminiscence in the film of Wings of Desire, where an old gentleman is walking at the empty Potsdam in Berlin and recalling the urban amenities and activities he experienced in younger age. The disconnection between old memory and the current physical experience generates a large crack that is the anxiety. The Scary Body

The angel transfers to human and for the first time his hands have feelings.

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Snowpiercer, Jun-ho Bong (2016)

The Linear, Enclosed world What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

by Kaylin Park and Hyojin Lee

Throughout history, architecture has been used as an implement to manifest or maintain oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s authority by creating a structure that easily controls the public. Especially linear and enclosed architecture found in many films from classic sci-fi movies to recent Hollywood movies not only plays a role as an architecture stage but also as a villain character. This paper aims to explore how linearity of architecture empowers the certain class of people and how directors depict architecture as a visual aid to affect the perception of viewers through the creation of films. Starting from analyzing Snowpiercer directed by JoonHo Bong, movies from the various range of genres and times will be introduced. Snowpiercer (2016) is set in an enormous selfsustaining train powered by a perpetual motion engine that voyages a circumnavigational track. The lowerclass people inhabit the tail section in brutal conditions and the upper-class section is composed of various types of cars where they can enjoy luxurious life apart from their essential needs. The movie illustrates the

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PLAZA

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BUTCHER SHOP

GRE

HOU

UM RI UA AQ

HA IR

SA LO N

CLASSROOM

Average size of each car: 3.5m (w) x 3.7m (h) x 25m (l) Total length: 50 cars x 25 m = 1.5km Completes one circle every year

WILFORD’S ROOM

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CLUB

SAUNA

inevitable head-to-head collision between two classes in a restricted and linear set where lower-class people undergo a series of struggle to approach the head of the train and ultimately deviate from the track that people assumed to be the only system of the existing world. Therefore, in the Snowpiercer, the train as its set was indispensable to start the plot. As the title of the movie was designated with the name of the rain, the train is the space where this dystopian society has been constructed and where it shows the gradual demolition by passing through the compartments with the inevitable collisions. On that ground, in order to further develop our exploration of the research, we focused on the intention of the movie by using the ‘Train’ as its set. The research will categorize the exploration in twofold ways: First, a train as a closed world which intrigue claustrophobic atmosphere by exploring the history of train movies and enclosed dystopian movie such as Underground (1995). Secondly, the linearity of the train set and the filming techniques to delineate it by looking at some films such as The Shining (1980), Magnolia (1999), Old boy (2003), and Inception (2010).

TEA

LOUN

Snowpiercer : Plan with Programs Same Dimension, Different Perceptions

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

Ever since the LumiĂ¨re brothers first introduced the arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1895) at the earliest cinema field, numerous film have exploited the potential of trains. Due to its linearity and single direction, it has been chosen by the filmmakers to unfold a linear narrative from the clear start to the end. The train is a contained location, but also moving across an ever-changing landscape that often acts as a manipulative device to show the contrast against the stillness of interiors. It is subdivided into different compartments including various programs to become rich backgrounds. While trains have frequently featured in action, horror, Sci-Fi and adventure films, they are particularly well suited to thrillers. In the thriller genre films, the train often becomes a stage for a crime scene and space where the culprits hide like in the Murder on the Orient Express (1974/2011). The train acts as a perfect set as an isolated space or enclosed world to create a tension of claustrophobia. The passengers are out of control, and only certain class knows where the train is heading and where the track ends. While confined in the compartments, the characters are forced to The Linear, Enclosed world

Snowpiercer : Serial Perspectives, with Color Palette

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Snowpiercer : One Point Perspective with two doors to the reality

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be in the claustrophobic setting for conversations, subterfuge, pursuits, and murders. In the film Night train by Jerzy Kawalerowicz (1959), the main characters were introduced to each other as they were in the same sleeping chamber, built up their relationship and the uncanny truth also revealed inside the running night train. Also, as Alfred Hitchcock has used the train as where the main character first encounters the psychopath in his film Strangers on a Train (1951), the limited space put characters to few places to hide from menacing pursuers although it is a place where they can encounter a random stranger or a chaser like a police, a soldier, a murderer as they come aboard or prevent escape at stations. Furthermore, with their class distinctions, trains serve as a microcosm of society, while reflecting the political realities of the day. In Snowpiercer, the film examines the human nature in extremis within this enclosed linear structure, just like the other dystopian films have been depicted the society. Even excluding the possibility of escaping from the society by denying the existence of the world outside, the passengers in the Snowpiercer are imprisoned in an infinite loop where the head class controls over the ecosystem of it. To illustrate this point more concretely, Emir Kusturica’s Underground (1995) could be an exemplary case that contains a similar set of a self-sustainable underground factory where the rebels from Nazis set up. Like the dictatorial inventor of Snowpiercer deceives its passengers, in Underground, the protagonist leader convinces the subterranean refugees that the war is still in effect. For twenty years, the refugees living in underground continued working for their nation although the war has been ended. Within the structure of underground enclosed dystopian society, the leader was able to seize the power while there’s no contact with outside world. The time between the underground and the ground goes by separately and underground people’s hopes are never met by the reality. What’s impossible to imagine on the ground such as arms seller becoming independence fighters is surprisingly realized in the underground world and the protagonists later notice that the political system itself was an enclosed The Linear, Enclosed world

Train movies from the film history 1. The Arrival of a train a la Ciotat (1895) 2. The General (1927) 3. Shanghai Express (1932) 4. Twentieth Century (1934) 5. The Lady Vanishes (1938) 6. Night Train to Munich (1940) 7. Brief Encounter (1945) 8, Strangers on a Train (1951) 9. The Narrow Margin (1952) 10. The Night Train (1959) 11. Von Ryan’s Express (1965) 12, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) 13. Murder on the Orient Express (1974) 14. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) 15. Silver Streak(1976) 16. Runaway Train (1985) 17. Back to the Future Part three (1974) 18. Kontroll (2005) 19. Transsiberian (2008) 20. The Midnight Meat Train (2008) 21. Unstoppable (2010) 22. Source Code (2011) 23. Snowpiercer (2016) 24. Train to Busan (2016)

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Above: Underground, Emir Kusturica (1995) Below: Snowpiercer, Jun-ho Bong (2016)

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

dystopian world which has been shading a light of truth and reality. However, in both film, seemingly isolated society finally finds escape way in a simple gesture of exploding or opening ‘the door’. As a quite direct architectural metaphor, the door had been placed under a taboo that no one even tried to open. While Underground depicts the way in an abrupt way with a chimpanzee’s discovery, in Snowpiercer, the hidden secret was revealed by opening a floorboard of the last compartment, where children were being trapped as replacement parts for extinct machinery. It discloses that the tail section only serves to provide the resource to the maintain the system. After the first opening of the door, characters explode the ‘exit’ door which triggers an avalanche that derails the train. Thus, the character of enclosed space controls the structure of the society and the only way to escape from it is by breaking the space. Finally, both films end with depicting the existence of outside world and people came out from the exploded dystopia. The nature of linearity embedded in the film is to show the clear hierarchical system of a society and limited space that includes the conflicting scenes between two characters. The hierarchy from Snowpiercer is well represented in the diversity of programs for each car that different classes occupy. The program changes from rooms fulfilling physiological needs such as sleeping, water supply, a greenhouse to abstract needs such as education and pleasure including drugs and club. One unique tool in cinematography to thoroughly explore the linearity of space and to illustrate it in their films is to emphasize one-point perspective view. The one-point perspective leads the viewer to get immersed in the scene, instead of seeing it from afar. In most of Stanley Kubrick’s films, the use of this technique is frequently used as a tool to manipulate the experience by guiding people where to focus and elicits an emotional response, especially anxiousness or fear. In his most famous film, The Shining (1980), by using the readymade perspective, we are introduced to the layout and grounds of the Overlook which is the name of this hotel as if they were to be also hired as caretakers. The Linear, Enclosed world

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Following Danny who is a young son of the protagonist, the film focuses on the dead end of a corridor and suddenly twin sisters covered with blood make an abrupt appearance when the tension rises. He uses this technique when the scene takes place in a narrow corridor, maze, public restroom, and spaces where it is easy to arouse the claustrophobic atmosphere and confrontation feeling. Apart from eliciting an emotional response, the nature of linear and enclosed space being an unavoidable stage to put an end to their conflict is

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

Kubrickâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s use of onepoint perspective in his films 1. A Clockwork Orange (1972) 2. The Shining (1980) 3. A Clockwork Orange (1972) 4. The Shining (1980) 5. Paths of Glory (1957) 6. The Shining (1980) 7. The Shining (1980) 8. The Shining (1980) 9. A Clockwork Orange (1972)

depicted in the movie Inception (2010) by Christopher Nolan. To emphasize the fact that whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s happening in the corridor has no correlation with the outside world, the fight scene is filmed in the actual rotating set of a corridor to depict removed gravity with rotated perspective. The rotating horizontal hallway was built in a London airplane hangar and actors were attached by wires to move freely. The application of linear perspective was first introduced by Italian sculptor and architect, Filippo Brunelleschi in art and architecture in the 15th century. The Linear, Enclosed world

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What Brunelleschi discovered is that with a fixed single point of view, parallel lines appear to converge at a single point in the distance. By using mirrors to sketch the Florence baptistry in perspective, he was able to mathematically calculate the scale of objects within a painting to provide the accurate representation of physical space. It was a monumental discovery and directly influenced other artists including Leonardo da Vinci and Masaccio. The Holy Trinity, a fresco by Masaccio in the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, is regarded as the best example of early Renaissance painting to convey the sense that the images recede back in space. The vanishing point at the

Inception, Christopher Nolan (2010)

What is a House? Spaces of Discomfort

Holy Trinity, Masaccio (1425)

base of the cross becomes our eye level and makes us feel that the painting is a continuation of actual space of the church. How Renaissance artists manipulated the sense and perception of a viewer by using one-point perspective influenced the way of depicting scenes in painting, architecture, and films which now we assume to be natural. Another nature of linearity found in films is that it can depict the sequential experience that main characters undergo. In films like Magnolia, Oldboy, and Léon: The Professional, they use one long-taken shot which can minimize the distance between viewers and the characters so that viewers are introduced to the path that characters are going through. Magnolia (1999) directed by Paul Thomas Anderson uses 135-second tracking shot as Stanley Spector is escorted and exposed to numerous characters who surround Stanley and the camera moves through the corridors of a TV studio. The continuous flow of a camera makes an implication to relentless suffer from Stanley from surrounding adults. The linearity of hallways in Oldboy (2003) directed by Chan-wook Park is also working as a metaphor for protagonist’s journey of experience or obstacles that he or she has to overcome. The famous one-take fight scene in the corridor shows how he’s struggling to pass the obstacles ahead to The Linear, Enclosed world

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Left: Magnolia, Paul Thomas Anderson (1999) Right: Oldboy, Chan-wook Park (2003)

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revenge himself to his old enemy. How to depict the confrontation and tension between protagonist and antagonist has been an ongoing task for filmmakers and linear space seems to be the most successful stage. In Snowpiercer, the train is the place where the passengers and villains are inhabiting, working, growing eatables and future generation. It is the battlefield where they have to pass through to reach the first compartment and finally break the loop of the infinite dystopia. Due to its decisive role in the film, the filmmaker put tremendous effort into the construction of a full-scale train with its articulated details. Its visual design is more than mere aestheticsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; it is the core of the filmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s symbolic life.

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They have constructed every compartment they have planned with delicate touches. The film draws stark visual contrasts between the classes. In the tail sections which were storage spaces before people moved in, every color is vanished, while the upper-class compartments have vivid color uses. The rich lives not only with lavish sleeping carriages and dining cars but also with a variety of amenities like an aquarium, a sauna, party rooms, greenhouse and a swimming pool take up an entire car. Even within the same dimensional limit, the use of the space expands the different perception of space. By unfolding these spaces in sequences, it intensifies the solid sense of linearity of the whole structure without any additional explanation and makes viewers wonder at the endless variations of space of higher classes. The Linearity of the train brings out the compression of the tension and the fact that control is always on the certain classes so people in the train can never challenge to them and the claustrophobic tension that it makes are shutting in people to the infinite dystopian loop. And the end of the film provides an image of something resembling hope, claiming that the film finally manages to cease the claustrophobia.

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Snowpiercer : Gimbal design for the train

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What is a House? The Spaces of Discomfort

Appendix Films referenced in this book:

Body and Water A Cure For Wellness, 2016, dir. Gore Verbinski, 146 min. Panorama of Gorge Railway, 1900, dir. Thomas Edison, 2 min. Stalker, 1979, dir. Anderi Tarkovsky, 161 min. Shutter Island, 2010, dir. Martin Scorsese, 138 min. Insomnia, 2002, dir. Christopher Nolan, 118 min. The Abyss, 1989, dir. James Cameron, 140 min. Open Water, 2003, dir. Chris Kentis, 79 min. Foreign Correspondent, 1940, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 120 min. Blade Runner, 1982, dir. Ridley Scott, 117 min. Seven Samurai, 1954, dir. Akira Kurosawa, 207 min. Vertical Terror Metropolis, 1927, by Fritz Laing), 153 minutes High-Rise, 2015, by Ben Wheatley, 119 minutes Safety Last!, 1923, by Fred C. Neymeyer and Sam Taylor, 73 minutes Vertigo, 1958, by Alfred Hitchcock,168 minutes Towering Inferno, 1974, by John Guillermin, 234 minutes Die Hard, 1988, by John McTiernen, 172 minutes The Open Road Taxi Driver, 1976, by Martin Scorsese, 116 minutes Mad Max, 1979, by George Miller, 95 minutes Mad Max : The Road Warrior, 1981, by George Miller, 96 minutes Mad Max : Beyond Thunderdome, 1985, by George Miller, 107 minutes Mad Max : Fury Road, 2015, by George Miller, 120 minutes Paris, Texas, 1984, by Wim Wenders, 150 minutes Easy Rider, 1969, by Dennis Hopper, 95 minutes Oh Brother, Where art thou? , 2000, Coen Brothers, 108 minutes Thelma and Louise, 1991, Ridley Scott, 130 minutes Quentin Tarantino: Tension in Space Reservoir Dogs, 1992, by Quentin Tarantino, 99 minutes Pulp Fiction, 1994 , by Quentin Tarantino, 178 minutes Jackie Brown, 1997, by Quentin Tarantino, 154 minutes Kill Bill (1 and 2), 2003-2004, by Quentin Tarantino, 250 minutes Grindhouse, 2007, by Quentin Tarantino, 127 minutes Inglourious Basterds, 2009, by Quentin Tarantino, 153 minutes Django Unchained, 2012, by Quentin Tarantino, 165 minutes The Hateful Eight, 2015, by Quentin Tarantino, 187 minutes Title of the Essay

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Manipulating Reality The Four Troublesome Heads, 1898, by Georges Méliès, 1 minute A Trip to the Moon, 1902, by Georges Méliès,16 minutes Modern Times, 1936, by Charlie Chaplin, 89 minutes The Wizard of Oz, 1939, by Victor Fleming, Mervyn LeRoy, King Vidor, George Cukor, Norman Taurog, 112 minutes Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, 1971, by Mel Stuart, 89 minutes Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 2005, by Tim Burton, 115 minutes A Series of Unfortunate Events - Season 2 Episode 4, 2018, by Barry Sonnenfeld, 41 minutes The Evil in Space Frankenstein 1970, 1958, by Howard W. Koch, 83 minutes Stalker, 1979, by Andrei Tarkovsky, 161 minutes Silence of the Lambs, 1991, by Jonathan Demme, 118 minutes Spirited Away, 2001, by Hayao Miyazaki, 125 minutes Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, 2009, by David Yates, 153 minutes The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 2011, by David Fincher, 158 minutes The Handmaiden, 2016, by Park Chan-wook, 168 minutes The Good, The Bad or The Ugly The Wizard of Oz, 1939, Victor Fleming, 122 minutes Empire Strikes Back, 1980, Irvin Kershner, 127 minutes Hatley Castle, British Columbia, Canada

Poltergeist, 1982, Tobe Hooper, 120 minutes X-Men Franchise, 2000-2016, 20thCentury Fox, 6 Films Smallville, 2001-2011, The C.W, 10 Seasons Arrow, 2004-Present, The C.W, 5+ Seasons The Clearing, 2004, Pieter Jan Brugge, 95 minutes Fierce People, 2005, by Griffin Dunne, 135 minutes Witches of East End, 2013-2014, Lifetime, 1 Season The Decendents, 2015-Present, Disney, 2+ Seasons The Boy, 2016, William Bell, 98 minutes Deadpool, 2016, Tim Miller, 108 minutes Grey-Stone Manor, Los Angeles, US

House of the Damned, 1963, Maury Dexter, 63 minutes Witches of Eastwick, 1987, George Miller, 118 minutes The Bodyguard, 1992, by Mick Jackson, 121 minutes Batman & Robin, 1997, Joel Schumacher, 125 minutes X-Men Franchise, 2000-2016, 20thCentury Fox, 5 Films Spiderman, 2002, Sam Raimi, 121 minutes Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, 2003, McG, 107 minutes Entourage S3, 2004, HBO, 1 Season Garfeild: A Tale of Two Kitties, 2006, Tim Hill, 86 minutes The Prestige, 2006, by Christopher Nolan, 130 minutes Title of the Essay

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National Treasure 2, 2007, Jon Turteltaub, 131 minutes There Will Be Blood, 2007, by Paul Anderson, 158 minutes The Holiday, 2007, by Nancy Meyers, 138 minutesw Social Network, 2010, David Fincher, 121 minutes Star Trek: Into Darkness, 2013, J.J Abrams, 132 minutes Bradbury Building, Los Angeles, US

Good Neighbour Sam, 1964, David Swift, 130 minutes 6 Million Dollar Man, 1973-1978, ABC, 5 Seasons Chinatown, 1974, Roman Polanski, 132 minutes Blade Runner, 1982, Ridley Scott, 117 minutes Greedy, 1984, Jonathan Lynn, 113 minutes Murder in the First, 1995, Marc Rocco, 122 minutes Leathal Weapon 4, 1998, Richard Donner, 128 minutes 500 Days of Summer, 2009, Marc Webb, 97 minutes The Artist, 2011, Michel Hazanavicius, 114 minutes Hatfield House, United Kingdom

Batman, 1989, Tim Burton, 126 minutes Sleepy Hollow, 1999, Tim Burton, 105 minutes Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, 2001, Simon West, 101 minutes V for Vendetta, 2005, James McTeigue, 133 minutes Batman Begins, 2005, Christopher Nolan, 140 minutes Sherlock Holmes, 2009, Guy Ritchie, 130 minutes The Kingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Speech, 2010, Tom Hooper, 119 minutes Clash of the Titans, 2010, Louis Leterrier, 108 minutes Sherlock Holmes: 2, 2011, Guy Ritchie, 129 minutes The Worlds End, 2013, Edgar Wright, 109 minutes 47 Ronin, 2013, Carl Rinsch, 128 minutes The Scary Body Ghost in the Shell, 1995, by Mamoru Oshii, 85 minutes Wings of Desire, 1987, by Wim Wenders, 170 minutes The Linear, Enclosed World Snowpiercer, Joon-ho Bong (2016) Strangers on a Train, Alfred Hitchcock (1951) The Night Train (Pociag), Jerzy Kwalerowicz (1959) Murder on the Orient Express, Sidney Lumet (1974) Underground, Emir Kusturica (1995) The Shining, Stanley Kubrick (1980) A Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick (1972) Paths of Glory, Stanley Kubrick (1957) Inception, Christopher Nolan (2010) Magnolia, Paul Thomas Anderson (1999) Oldboy, Chan-wook Park (2003) Leon (The Professional), Luc Besson (1994) Title of the Essay

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edited by Rubén A. Alcolea

Contributions by Kiril Bejoulev / Ihwa Choi Vaharan Elavia / Alejandro Finol Harris Girocco / Duyi Han / Olivia Haynie Hyojin Lee / Ruth Marcotte / Daniela Mourad Kaylin Park / Gloria Yan / Christina Zau Anqing Zhu This publication is an academic production with the research for the elective course Arch 3308/6308 ‘What is a House?: Spaces of Discomfort’, instructed during the Spring Semester 2018 at AAP by Rubén Alcolea.