Metropolis: The City In the Cinema

In anticipation of a major national conference on The City to be held in Halifax in April, this four-month film series looks at the long-running relationship between Cities and The Cinema. From 'City Symphony' films that reflected the fascination with acceleration, industrialization and ideology in the 1920s, to the dark Film Noir flicks of the '40s that pitted choice against fate in an urban setting, to the more quizzical and questioning movies from the 1960s onwards such as Blow Up, Fellini's Roma and Blade Runner, the City has always provided an engrossing frame for the Cinema from its very beginnings to the present day.

January 16 - Metropolis

Fritz Lang, Germany, 1927, 114 min

The landmark sci-fi film by Fritz Lang that supplied us with many iconic images of early modernism, Metropolis' futuristic vision of a city-within-a-city is a visual masterpiece.

January 23 - Berlin: Symphony Of A Great City

Walter Ruttman, Germany, 1927, 72 min. 

Walter Ruttman's documentary-in-motion sees Berlin as a single, organic machine whose lifeblood is people; the film's structure uses a five-act, symphonic flow.

January 30 - Three Penny Opera

G. W. Pabst, Germany, 1931, 112 min

Brecht's extraordinary play became Pabst's startling film, set in an exotic urban locale where gangsters and capitalism seem strangely complimentary.

February 6 - Bicycle Thief 

Vittorio De Sica, Italy, 1949, 93 mins

De Sica's Italian Neo-Realist Classic cooly examines the most elemental urban struggle of all: the fight to feed, shelter and clothe one's family while retaining some measure of dignity.

February 13 - The Naked City

J. Dassin, USA, 1948, 96 min

A tense murder case torn from the headlines on the streets of New York City when most doors remain unlocked.

February 20 - Love in the City

Fellini, Antonioni, Lattuada, Maselli, Zavattini, Italy, 1953, 105 mins

An omnibus film that looks at urban love in the immediate wake of Italian Neo-Realism. 

February 27 - Blow Up

Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy/UK, 1966, 111 min

The great portrait of 'Swinging London' through the eyes of a caddish photographer based on real life snapshot artist David Bailey.

March 19 - Fellini's Roma

Federico Fellini, Italy, 1972, 128 min

The Great Italian phantasist examines his home town in all its excess and glory, weighed down by history but leavened by the director's unique sense of whimsy.

March 26 - Manhattan

Woody Allen, USA, 1979, 96 mins

Woody Allen's love letter to his home town, in silvery black and white. 

April 2 - Blade Runner

Ridley Scott, USA/UK, 1982, 117 min.

The evergreen sci-fi film that blends Film Noir with stunning visual design, Blade Runner is also --arguably-- the most influential movie of the past fifty years.

April 9 - Life Classes

William D. MacGillivray, Canda, 1987, 118 mins

A rural single mother from Cape Breton comes to Halifax and finds her own voice as an artist in an echo of the great migrations of the 20th Century.

April 16 - Waydowntown

Gary Burns, Canada, 2000, 87 mins

A clutch of office workers in Calgary bet on who can stay the longest inside their interconnected buildings without ever going outside in this brisk ultra-urban comedy.

April 23 - City of God

F. Meirelles/K. Lund, Brazil, 2002, 130 min

In this landmark contemporary Brazillian drama, two young men --a photographer and a drug dealer-- dream of escaping their dead-end neighbourhood.