See Book: Factories of Imagination

Astana Journal
Kazakhstan’s Futuristic Capital, Complete With Pyramid
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
Published: October 13, 2006
Other countries have built futuristic capitals in remote outposts, Brasília most famously, and other cities have experienced feverish, transformational construction, like Dubai or even the imperial capital that once ruled Kazakhstan: Moscow.  But none have sprung up quite like Astana, from the ambition to create not only a national capital but also a national identity shaped almost exclusively by a single man: the country’s president since its inception, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev.  “The chief architect is really the president himself,” Yerzhan N. Ashykbayev, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said at the ministry’s new building, which opened in April 2005. “Every project, every building is approved by him.”
 

Glazer compiles historical photographs of Philadelphia Theaters.  By Jake M. Chanin

The disparity between the cinematic representation of Casablanca and the real city show the liberties that the filmmakers took to promote the message of US involvement in World War II. While the film has small crowded streets and sets and props that do not reflect anything really found in the city, Casablanca has strong Moroccan and French architecture that was left out of the movie. The filmmakers used set design to help portray a visual style that presented a stronger argument for American audiences. The film used literal shadows to make a great contrast between the dark and light, the good and the bad. The gray areas present in real life Casablanca are conveniently left out of the film. Even though the filmmakers use documentary style footage in some of the scenes surrounding the war, it is only used to define a truth that is supportive to the American war effort.

Casablanca in itself is built as a city defined by creating an image to try and change the reality. The French used strong French architecture when they colonized Morocco to define the country as a French colony. However, where architecture is a slow process to define a region, film can almost instantaneously change the hearts and minds of viewers. The film creates a new Casablanca, one in which the American public can find a unifying idea. It doesn’t matter that the city is not an accurate portrayal, what matters is the effect that the created portrayal conveys. In the same way that architecture can be used to visually define a city, film can be used to visually create and redefine the city. Casablanca presents a stereotyped and allegorical city which was used to win over the loyalties of the American public.

Simon Dixon discusses celebrity homes to great effect in “Ambiguous Ecologies: Stardom’s Domestic Mise-en-Scène.” He makes interesting comments such as how a star’s home tends to reflect the roles he takes and how certain types of stars get certain types of homes; the most interesting of which is Clint Eastwood’s ranch in Caramel and Robert Redford’s in Utah, since both are actors turned academy award winning directors.  

After thoroughly discussing the architecture of the famous, Dixon discuss the importance of the house in one film in particular, Sunset Boulevard. He states that Norma Desmond’s house “lambastes the domestic ecology of Hollywood stardom as alienating and destructive of those it entraps.” Dixon argues that while the film takes place in the late 1940s the Desmond house looks like something out of the twenties; Norma uses her surroundings to relish in her past accomplishments. Through the juxtaposition of Gillis’s bland 40s apartment and Desmond’s lavish old-fashion house, Wilder shows just how different the Hollywood of the silent era was from that of the golden.

Dixon also contends that Sunset Boulevard “can be read as an allegory of the [male] star’s uneasy relation to domestic life.”  Gillis is first overwhelmed by the house and only explores it to the extent in which Norma allows him. Even though, Gillis moves into Desmond’s house, he ends up have no control over the residence. He is never able to adapt to domesticity having never lived in such a lavish environment. Furthermore, Dixon notes that by drowning in the pool Joe is “first figuratively and then literally drowned in the expensive spoils of star domesticity.” In other words, Gillis dies in the most opulent portion of the estate, the pool.