Walter Benjamin and Discovering the City through Filmmaking

 From the desk of Vitasta Raina

Time: Irrelevant

How films enable us to imagine 'better cities'

Walter Benjamin has stated that it only through the medium of a film that one can capture the 'essence of a city'. Now my reading of Benjamin is at best limited, as I believe I do not yet possess the wisdom to fully absorb and understand the nuances of his writing, but there is something to be said about the relationship between movies and the cityscape they inhabit. 

Cinema is often considered the most powerful medium for visualizing culture and capturing social changes. Films have the capacity for elucidating abstract concepts that enable us to grasp complex ideas and gain an understanding of multiple, and often outsider perspectives. With its ability to activate powerful emotions, put forward stories and narratives of forgotten realities, heritage, or demands for social justice, cinematic storytelling and documentary filmmaking have increasingly become tools for driving sociopolitical change. Films can also help us in mapping internal stories of conflicts, identity crises and moral dilemmas in an ever complex and interconnected urban society. It is important to note however, that while cinema is a tool for illuminating perspectives, societal change is driven through strong policy action.

In reading The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, the contrast between the art of still photography and filmmaking is made apparent. While both mediums- film and photography, present us with visual information, it is often only through film that we can grasp the entirety of human experience through a phase in time i.e films have the capacity for illuminating continuity. 

Filmmaking techniques and the addition of audio to visuals often enhance reality and bring out deeper empathy. Cinematic expression has thus emerged as an important cultural art form because it enables us to imagine lived histories, often transporting us to locations, places, and built forms where characters, communities and mass societies within the narrative of the film dwell, giving us not only an insight into their lives, but also enabling us to understand their primary concerns, issues and intricacies.

Patrick Geddes has said of a city as being more than a place in space, but rather being a drama in time. Film constructs through a study of people, situations and built form through set-designs, have the ability to replay the drama of a city's transformation through time.

 Documentary films can capture and enhance a city's reality, or present its enthusiasm, suffering or the banalities of its day-to-day life, to give us an experience of essentially 'everything'. However, it is when the film makes the city as a character within its narrative, presenting it as a quality that is intrinsically interwoven with the identities of films protagonists, that the essence of a city's ability to shape our lives is understood. An example of this is seen in Mira Nair's seminal 'Salaam Bombay' (1988).

Posters for Satyajit Ray's Mahanagar (The Big City) (Left) and Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay (Right)

While films such as Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa (1957) and Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar (1963) deal with cities as a reflection of society, most contemporary mainstream Indian cinema alludes towards an escape from the reality of cities. Such films target the marginalized and informal sections of urban society and offer them an alternate, fantasy existence that they cannot aspire to achieve, acting as a placebo for a failure of government action. But can films help us in imagining better cities for ourselves and aspire for a sustainable, equitable future? The question is still open.

*

More on this and Walter Benjamin Later!

**