- Excuse me sir, but that looks as though the thing is heading for England.
- Quite...
When she reaches London, we shift to a different map room with a more localised map:
- Nara Island has been destroyed. Reconnaissance aircraft have sighted the creature in this area here. - Excuse me sir, but that looks as though the thing is heading for England. - Quite... After she has destroyed Nara, a fictitious island off the Irish coast, Gorgo's mother is tracked in her quest to retrieve her captured baby. This first map room is dominated by maps of the British Isles. When she reaches London, we shift to a different map room with a more localised map: Here it is confessed by the officer in charge that their mapping of her movements is not particularly effective: 'Piccadilly Circus? There's no way of telling where this thing will turn next...'. In effect such mapping is as difficult a task for the cine-tourist, since the monster is shown in successive parts of London (Trafalgar Square, London Wall, St Paul's, Piccadilly Circus, Battersea Park) with little respect for the topography of the city. This does of course communicate the general confusion of the terrified population as the city is indiscriminately destroyed: Add Comment There are two map rooms in Finye. The first, where the student protesters are printing clandestine tracts, has a world map, a map of Europe and another too indistinct to be made out. The world map is the dominant, signifying the students' openness to the world beyond Mali, and framed from different angles to emphasise the variety of perspectives that such openness entails. The second, the military governor's office, is dominated by a map of Mali, represented as isolated not only from the world but even from its immediate neighbours, removed from its African context. Within its borders, the country has rivers, a lake, varied terrain and differentiated regions, but beyond its borders there is nothing: Two parallel boardroom scenes mark a shift in attitude for the female protagonist. In the first she is all powerful, and the initial staging whereby she is blocked by the standing man in the centre is ironic. The framing and staging of the rest of the sequence will establish clearly her dominion over the men in the boardroom. Her positioning in relation to the two maps contributes to that impression. In the second sequence the initial staging indicates a diminution of power. Though this time she is immediately visible, she is off-centre in relation to the maps. In the course of the sequence there are framings that match those of the earlier sequence, and it is her change in dress and demeanour, rather, that underscore the what has changed in the cours of the narrative. ‘The evasion of reality is marked by Clive's two- dimensionalisation, as his substantial form is replaced on the screen by an ephemera, a walking shadow, an apposite nod to Macbeth, perhaps, for consequent upon the loss of his love, Clive's hunting life is a sound and a fury, a rampaging safari, signifying nothing. A similar montage immediately after the death of Clive's wife Barbara reinforces the point. Its status as a denial of historical progress is made clear as this second speeded journey through the inter-war period culminates in 1938 with a map of Munich and strains of the German national anthem. Clive later hangs Barbara's portrait in the 'den' along with his other trophies, emphasising what is now clear. It replaces, rather than proves, virility, and undoes Clive's self-appointed status as masculine epic hero.’ Andrew Moor, Powell & Pressburger: a Cinema of Magic Spaces (London: I.B Tauris, 2005), p.75 A 'Map of Lower Egypt and the Fayum' is the background to a scene from the time of Clive's 'masculine epic heroism': Maps of London are in the foreground of the events that will lead to his final emasculation: To bring to a close the theme of the last few days, this is a selection of more Nazis with maps. A film about a line drawn on a map, continuing the 'Nazis with maps' theme of the last few days. All of the maps are in the one room. ‘The long section devoted to the German convoy, for example, starts with a shot of the Resistance leader looking at a map, cuts to the German command looking at another map, cuts to the Transport Kommandantur, where two German officers consider a railway map and then fades to the same map, but this time being studied by two Frenchmen. The montage and continuities of content clearly establish an equivalence between the German and French leaderships. This equivalence will be underscored by subsequent cross-cutting between the two commands.’ Martin O’Shaughnessy, ‘La Bataille du rail: Unconventional Form, Conventional Image?’, in Nancy Wood & Rod Kedward (eds), The Libertation of France: Image and Event (Oxford: Berg, 1995), pp.20-21. ‘Two primal scenes take place at the beginning of the decade, in films that do not yet swing but are already modern. Victim (1961) begins at a building site, the substantial development around Stag Place including Esso House (briefly to be glimpsed in the protest march sequence of Blow Up). The location is an explicit metaphor for the film’s idea of a new world to be built (one where sex between men is no longer illegal). The Young Ones (1961) also begins at a high-rise building site, though here modern architecture expresses not newness but the rapacity of the old (in the form of the hero’s property-developer father – ‘the old one’). In the narrative climax the young ones connect with London’s traditional aspect and architectural heritage by putting on their show at the splendid Empire Theatre, Finsbury Park (built 1910). By preserving on film this vestige of the past before its actual demolition by developers the next year, The Young Ones ends on a note of deep irony about an oncoming modernity.’ R-F Lack, 'London Circa Sixty Six: the Map of the Film', in Gail Cunningham and Stephen Barber (eds), London Eyes: Reflections in Text and Image (Oxford: Berghahn, 2008) Both films also have map scenes in police stations. |