With at least 23 different views of maps, 49th Parallel is one of the most map-intensive feature films I have come across. The film is also distinctive in its insistent correlation, as above, of the place on the map and the place in the film. The journey of the U-boat men towards the US border from Winnipeg is traced on the map, each time presented as a dissolve out of the real world and then back into it: Canada as setting is established in the film's opening by the same procedure, passing from an aerial view through clouds to a view of a map then to a view of a specific place on the map: Through most of the film similar dissolves to and from maps establish connections between an action and a locality: One of these transitions speaks of the complicity between cinematography and map-making through a correspondence of shapes, if not an exact topographical match: Maps also appear within the diegesis, unsurprisingly. The Germans consult them to know where they are or where they should head: There are some maps in the background of scenes: And in an impressive operations room, including a map with a screen onto which a detailed section is projected, still within the diegesis: Towards the end of the film a competing cartography is presented through views of Nazi radio broadcasters standing in front of German maps: These are countered by views of Canadian broadcasters, sharing the authority of the film's narrative voice by dissolves to or from maps of Canada: Whether as narrational device or element in the mise-en-scène, maps are so much present in the film that they acquire a strong symbolic force, equal at least to that of the film's cartographic title. Two shots in particular suggest what a cartographically informed symbolism has to compete with. In the U-boat the camera looks first at a photograph of Hitler, placed in front of a volume containing nautical maps, 'nautische karten'. It then pans down to show the lieutenant consulting such a map: Later, as the lieutenant and a French-Canadian trapper are looking at a German-made map of Hudson Bay, the Nazi argues for the virtues of his ideology and shows him a book: 'This is the Bible. You must get a copy. It will explain everything to you as it has to me': The Canadian's seemingly facile response - 'You better look up how to get out of Canada, then' - is an argument for cartography over ideology, though of course Powell's film is itself as ideological as it is cartographic. The opening discourse says as much, affirming an ideology as it speaks of map-making: 'I see a long straight line athwart a continent. No chain of forts or deep flowing river or mountain range, but a line drawn by men upon a map, nearly a century ago, accepted with a handshake and kept ever since. A boundary which divides two nations yet marks their friendly meeting ground. The 49th parallel: the only undefended frontier in the world.' (My thanks to Jason Woloski in Winnipeg for making me think of rewatching this film.)
0 Comments
- 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:
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. 106/ Seven Days Till Noon (Roy Boulting 1950) & The Wrong Arm of the Law (Cliff Owen 1963)22/7/2011 The only maps in Espoir are in an operational headquarters. An early sequence, three minutes in, establishes the interpretation of maps as a key to military strategy. Later, a local who has specific knowwlege of an enemy base, but no knowledge of maps, isn't able to point to the place on a map. As a consequence, he has to go with the bomber crew so that he can point to it in reality. Viewing his world from the air for the first time, the terrain is as unfamiliar and unreadable as the map, and it seems the mission will have to be aborted. But finally, in a moment of apotheosis, he is able to say: ‘it is there’, and the mission can be accomplished.
Of the five spaces in which maps figure in L'Argent, the first is the most spectacular. We follow an agent of the banker Gundermann as he is led by a butler into an antechamber decorated to represent the reach of the banker's power. In combination with the cinematography, this mise-en-scène also displays the distorting, disorienting force of money. The second space is more conventional: in their modest apartment. the naive adventurer hero Hamelin and his wife Line examine a map of the Americas, though it becomes a mere backdrop to the expression of their love for each other. Later, in the same space, Hamelin explains his plans to the banker Saccard, with a view of a more detailed map of the region that Hamelin proposes to exploit for oil. We first see the scene diffusely, in a mirror, before passing to two readable mapshots. Next, in a room at the airport from which Hamelin will take off on a solo flight across the Atlantic, Line looks on in terror at the thought of the danger he will face. He enters, first seen as a shadow cast over a map of Europe and North Africa, which then becomes the backdrop to their passionate embrace on parting. The most often shown space in the film is the banker Saccard's office, dominated by a map of the world. Against this backdrop we see Saccard manipulate markets on a global scale, we see him attempt to seduce Line, and finally we see him arrested for fraud. Prior to Saccard's arrest we see Hamelin in Guyana (here with Antonin Artaud as Saccard's secretary). A map on the wall serves as establishing decor, but it cannot compete with the cartographic spectacles on display back in Paris. Hamelin returns to France and we see two policemen waiting to arrest him in the same room at the airport where he had kissed Line farewell. This time we see more of the cartographic decor, including the west coast of France: The film's denouement involves Line approaching Gundermann, and we see again, in more detail, his spectacular antechamber: The decor of L'Argent is one of Lazare Meerson's finest achievements, especially in the cartographic configurations of this last, framing space.
When, in 2011, I first posted about the maps in this film I said they appeared in only one scene. Seeing the film again this afternoon at the ICA, in a beautiful print, I spotted my mistake in not spotting the very large globe, above. Many thanks to The Badlands Collective for organising the screening, on the film's 40th birthday. Maps appear in Barry Lyndon in only one scene, but they cover the known world, from Asia through Africa and Europe to the Americas. And there is a globe on the table in front of the first map.
|
|