Lecture 06: Cities and Films

George Simmel was asked to lecture on the role of the life in the city but reverses the idea and writes about the effect of the city on the individual. At this time Freud writes about psycho-analysis -  resistance of the individual to being levelled, swallowed up in the social technological mechanism. Lewis Hine 1932 photo shows an individual building a skyscraper, all the rules of the city had to be learnt even crossing the roads.

Louis Sullivan the creator of the modern skyscraper, this was an idea that the taller building represents upward mobility showing that the sky is the limit.

Charles Scheeler was an advertising photographer for Ford. He photographs the plant in a modernistic way which shows the factory as a collection of shapes rather than a plant. Fordism - mechanised labour relations, the factory is so repetitive that the person becomes part of that routine. This is shown in Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times" film.