crash
phone booth
philadelphia

is it the urban space or any movie that clearly shows the link with space?

@bubpip

I meant the both, the movies which are the best representations of space in both aspects of architectural and urban terms.

most hitchcock movies, one hour photo, unbreakable, sixth sense, the borne identity, a bronx tale...

yeah, hitchcock has an eye for space
my favorite director in that sense is michelangelo antonioni - 'the eclipse' is a good example

The Devil Wears Prada gave a very warm description of New York.

On the contrary, Office Space gives a pretty grim description of sprawl.

haha...check out this link. Someone took actual photographs of the movie scene locations in Austin.

Office Space

the belly of an architect

phone booth?? if that counts, then so does SAW.(which by the way is surprisingly inteligent)

some interesting architecturaly related films (beyond simply 'urban'):

The Shining - oh so good.
Metropolis
Fifth Element
2001 space odessy
lost in translation
TH1138
the big blue (french, le grand bleu) ( one of my fav movies ever. great music and cinematography)

Saw is NOT intelligent.

I think the star wars movies are very architecturally interesting.. from tatooine to the death star to the cloud city, all very beautiful.

Amelie is very paris, phone booth is very NY, Lost in translation was a lovely movie, i absolutely enjoyed it. i think Fight Club is an interesting representation of big city dreams and life.

for a movie in the same vain as blair witch etc saw is really quite smart. saw 2 is not, made by different people.

i agree with star wars.

almost anything by wim wenders

from the open landscape/open road of 'kings of the road', to the paranoid density of 'the goalkeeper...'; the almost-apocalyptic landscape of 'until the end of the world' to the angels hanging out on the top of the city over unter den linden and in scharoun's library in 'wings of desire' and 'faraway so close'; the wandering nature of 'alice in the cities' vs the insulated community (heterotopia?) of 'million dollar hotel'.

not so much because of the actual spaces captured on film but more the filmspace - a sensation of spatial openness or density or variability which is created and manipulated by the sounds and the silences, the long slow pans with no accompanying soundtrack, the accelerations and decelerations of the pacing of the film's time, etc.

try the search option

mhollenstein- are you implying 'phone booth' could be a bad example of a movie linked with space? the whole movie was conceived to be taking place in a single environment- an amazing movie which exemplifies the movement and the variance of the urbanites.

2001
SHINING
Powers of 10
Solaris

I love the way that modernist architecture is either linked with bad guys or blown to smithereens in Hitchcock's North by Northwest or Antoninoni's Zabriskie Point. Apologies in advance for the poor sizing.

The VanDam house in North by Northwest


Titles from North by Northwest, by Saul Bass





From Zabriskie Point

bubpip. yeah, i know that. the reason for that was cost. saw is exactly the same. i do not beleive hat phonebooth is a film that one might cite as being a good example of expression, or use of space in a film unless you are an accountant. the film is also boring. ;)

Collateral

its not urban, but john carpenters first feature (a sci-fi made while still at film school, which i cant remember the name of) has to be the most claustrophobic movie i ever saw. one you get past the fact that the invading alien is clearly a beach ball with feet.

Hey the death star is kinda boring, sectionally:

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/magazines/starlog/ds1tj2.gif

why would a spherical object in free space have an up or down? wouldnt it make sense for the floors to be concentric shells around the core?

i have been trying to watch Wong Kar Wai films, gritty, sad, urban dramas...

interiors. a film by wody allen. it's cape cod look, but the best of it. fully composed still shots with no sound with a lot of white minimal spaces as i remember. 1978 +,-.

concentric? yeah it would, come to think of it. depends on how the gravity works i guess.

armageddon...oh wait...you don't mean that kind of space.


jk.

as far as space goes...

feel as though the coen brothers have some nice scenes...
although not urban...mostly suburban or country
the hat going through the forest in miller's crossing for instance..
and the wide angle shot when they're walking through the same
forest...

woody allen's manhattan..as far as just depicting a city and it's life

13 monkeys?

ben hur for epicness

bladerunner

brazil

raging bull

pi (the math symbol)

chung king express

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Matrix yet. If you get past the flashy special effects, the spatial concepts are very complex.

City of God (takes place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)... great movie, but it's interesting to see how the city developes over time and how different groups occupy their 'territory'. the urban context plays an important role in the movie.

I did a film/architecture class and my final was based on the examination of two films: Brazil and Clockwork Orange. Both Gilliam and Kubrick do excellent spatial manipulation.

But I've gotta agree with CDC as far as urban spaces over time, that movie excells at such.

Ragin Bull is a classic (GJ Gabe) on cinemetography.

yes Gabe. brazil is awesome! love that movie

SBD -- don't all films manipulate space? Isn't that the combined result of cinematography, art direction, and even editing? Don't directors take advantange of mise-en-scene, depth-of-field, and other technicalities to manipulate space?

There are some great films that emplot production design and art direction to maipulate space. Besides Murnau's films, one should see Jean Renoirs La Régle de Jeu, and see how public and private space are compressed within a single scene.

Clockwork Orange, Battle Royale, Survive Style 5, City of God, Gattaca.

Most of PhoneBooth was shot in LA BTW

anyone ever seen avalon? its a low budget movie about being inside of a video game. whole thing shot in sepia tone. really annoying. but the set it interesting enough.

film 101: the kuleshov effect. learn it. it will be on the final.

i liked the use of section to describe space on the ship in the life aquatic; however my list of what i didn't like about the movie is much longer.

Vado, please elaborate on the relationship of the 'kuleshov effect' and spatial manipulation through film art techniques.

The reason I inquire is that I actually took a lower level film art class in my 4th yr of school and found that my arch. backround significantly gave me a head start in comprehending the material... and I still find myself trying to draw those correlations in any movie I see.

...Confession: I have to admit I had a tough time with Battleship Potemkin and it's 'architectural' relevance.

cabinet of dr caligari

i only got an aversion to borscht from the battleship potemkim
although, "potemkin village" is an architecturally relevant term

Spaceballs!

I always thought TRON did an admirable job (although cheesy by today's standards) of trying to tackle converting the conceptual world of computer science into a "tangible" physical realm.

what about tarantino movies.....pulpfiction
also chk this out http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=94

This looks awesome....

http://www.renaissance-lefilm.com/accueil.htm

TRON is a given for sure. How about the Cube? Crap movie, simple idea of space...the best part is that the architect is trapped inside his own creation. Brilliant.

upside down
the Carpenter movie is titled "dark star" or something like that. Hilarious movie, and one of the best representation of the claustrophobic condition of space human hinabitat, and by extension of any indoor living actually. I think there's even direct references to heidegger when the captain has to discuss philosophy with the self destructing system of the ship to disarm it.