Film and the City: The Urban Imaginary in Canadian Cinema
Most Canadians are city dwellers, a fact often unacknowledged by twentieth-century Canadian films, with their preference for themes of wilderness survival or rural life. Modernist Canadian films tend to support what film scholar Jim Leach calls “the nationalist-realist project,” a documentary style...
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| المؤلف الرئيسي: | |
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| التنسيق: | Online |
| اللغة: | الإنجليزية |
| منشور في: |
Athabasca University Press
2021
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| الموضوعات: | |
| الوصول للمادة أونلاين: | 16236 |
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| _version_ | 1869518197415215104 |
|---|---|
| author | George Melnyk |
| author_browse | George Melnyk |
| author_facet | George Melnyk |
| author_sort | George Melnyk |
| collection | Directory of Open Access Books |
| description | Most Canadians are city dwellers, a fact often unacknowledged by twentieth-century Canadian films, with their preference for themes of wilderness survival or rural life. Modernist Canadian films tend to support what film scholar Jim Leach calls “the nationalist-realist project,” a documentary style that emphasizes the exoticism and mythos of the land. Over the past several decades, however, the hegemony of Anglo-centrism has been challenged by francophone and First Nations perspectives and the character of cities altered by a continued influx of immigrants and the development of cities as economic and technological centers. No longer primarily defined through the lens of rural nostalgia, Canadian urban identity is instead polyphonic, diverse, constructed through multiple discourses and mediums, an exchange rather than a strict orientation. Taking on the urban as setting and subject, filmmakers are ideally poised to create and reflect multiple versions of a single city. Examining fourteen Canadian films produced from 1989 to 2007, including Denys Arcand’s Jésus de Montréal (1989), Jean-Claude Lauzon’s Léolo (1992), Mina Shum’s Double Happiness (1994), Clément Virgo’s Rude (1995), and Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg (2007), Film and the City is the first comprehensive study of Canadian film and “urbanity”—the totality of urban culture and life. Drawing on film and urban studies and building upon issues of identity formation in Canadian studies, Melnyk considers how filmmakers, films, and urban audiences experience, represent, and interpret urban spatiality, visuality, and orality. In this way, Film and the City argues that Canadian narrative film of the postmodern period has aided in articulating a new national identity. |
| format | Online |
| id | doab-20.500.12854ir-47627 |
| institution | Directory of Open Access Books |
| language | eng |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publishDateRange | 2021 |
| publishDateSort | 2021 |
| publisher | Athabasca University Press |
| publisherStr | Athabasca University Press |
| record_format | ojs |
| spelling | doab-20.500.12854ir-476272022-01-31T09:43:08Z Film and the City: The Urban Imaginary in Canadian Cinema George Melnyk Quebec studies Atom Egoyan Film criticism Robert Lepage Bruce McDonald Postmodern film Guy Maddin Bruce Sweeney Patricia Rozema Canadian film Mina Shum Urban studies Deepa Mehta Jean-Claude Lauzon Denis Villeneuve Clement Virgo Gary Burns Denys Arcand Jim Leach Most Canadians are city dwellers, a fact often unacknowledged by twentieth-century Canadian films, with their preference for themes of wilderness survival or rural life. Modernist Canadian films tend to support what film scholar Jim Leach calls “the nationalist-realist project,” a documentary style that emphasizes the exoticism and mythos of the land. Over the past several decades, however, the hegemony of Anglo-centrism has been challenged by francophone and First Nations perspectives and the character of cities altered by a continued influx of immigrants and the development of cities as economic and technological centers. No longer primarily defined through the lens of rural nostalgia, Canadian urban identity is instead polyphonic, diverse, constructed through multiple discourses and mediums, an exchange rather than a strict orientation. Taking on the urban as setting and subject, filmmakers are ideally poised to create and reflect multiple versions of a single city. Examining fourteen Canadian films produced from 1989 to 2007, including Denys Arcand’s Jésus de Montréal (1989), Jean-Claude Lauzon’s Léolo (1992), Mina Shum’s Double Happiness (1994), Clément Virgo’s Rude (1995), and Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg (2007), Film and the City is the first comprehensive study of Canadian film and “urbanity”—the totality of urban culture and life. Drawing on film and urban studies and building upon issues of identity formation in Canadian studies, Melnyk considers how filmmakers, films, and urban audiences experience, represent, and interpret urban spatiality, visuality, and orality. In this way, Film and the City argues that Canadian narrative film of the postmodern period has aided in articulating a new national identity. 2021-02-11T13:40:03Z 2021-02-11T13:40:03Z 2014-08-04 17:04:53 2014 book 16236 9781927356593 9781927356609 9781927356616 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/47627 eng image/jpeg Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120232 Athabasca University Press 10.15215/aupress/9781927356593.01 10.15215/aupress/9781927356593.01 6b1b8af7-79e4-4b18-b297-b983df0f073f 9781927356593 9781927356609 9781927356616 319 open access |
| spellingShingle | Quebec studies Atom Egoyan Film criticism Robert Lepage Bruce McDonald Postmodern film Guy Maddin Bruce Sweeney Patricia Rozema Canadian film Mina Shum Urban studies Deepa Mehta Jean-Claude Lauzon Denis Villeneuve Clement Virgo Gary Burns Denys Arcand Jim Leach George Melnyk Film and the City: The Urban Imaginary in Canadian Cinema |
| title | Film and the City: The Urban Imaginary in Canadian Cinema |
| title_full | Film and the City: The Urban Imaginary in Canadian Cinema |
| title_fullStr | Film and the City: The Urban Imaginary in Canadian Cinema |
| title_full_unstemmed | Film and the City: The Urban Imaginary in Canadian Cinema |
| title_short | Film and the City: The Urban Imaginary in Canadian Cinema |
| title_sort | film and the city the urban imaginary in canadian cinema |
| topic | Quebec studies Atom Egoyan Film criticism Robert Lepage Bruce McDonald Postmodern film Guy Maddin Bruce Sweeney Patricia Rozema Canadian film Mina Shum Urban studies Deepa Mehta Jean-Claude Lauzon Denis Villeneuve Clement Virgo Gary Burns Denys Arcand Jim Leach |
| topic_facet | Quebec studies Atom Egoyan Film criticism Robert Lepage Bruce McDonald Postmodern film Guy Maddin Bruce Sweeney Patricia Rozema Canadian film Mina Shum Urban studies Deepa Mehta Jean-Claude Lauzon Denis Villeneuve Clement Virgo Gary Burns Denys Arcand Jim Leach |
| url | 16236 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT georgemelnyk filmandthecitytheurbanimaginaryincanadiancinema |