Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
There has also been an interest in fi lm as a means of interpreting
society and place, but in this example a British geographer, David
Clarke, closely interweaves his interpretation with an interest
in critical theory. He sees the theoretical stance that he takes as
an essential lens for understanding how the fi lm works. Patrick
Keiller's
The City of the Future
is a fi lm, based on an adventure
story, in which an individual, who becomes the narrator, travels
back in time to seek a historical fi gure, Dr Karl Peters, who was
German and wrote a topic called
England and the English
in
1904. Peters, who had worked for Germany in colonial East
Africa, was thought by some to be an inspiration for the character
of Kurtz that Joseph Conrad introduced in his novel
Heart of
Darkness.
The plot in
The City of the Future
was for the time
traveller to intercept Peters in his journey around England and in
so doing change the course of history to avert subsequent disasters
such as World War I.
The images used in the fi lm explore the contrasts between the
familiarity of the old city fabric, the strangeness of the past, and
the newness of present-day experience. Time travel is used as a
narrative device against which the plot unfolds. Keiller follows
the line that Britain was 'peculiarly capitalist', with a brand
of London-based colonial capitalism that ensured differences
from the rest of Europe. He uses the images to show that built
environments of the British cities against all the expectations
of modernism have changed at a snail's pace compared with
everything else. His images of the past are strangely familiar, yet
everything else in the environments of the city bears witness to
the fact that they belong to a different age. There is a contrast
between the familiar-looking landscapes and the unfamiliarity
of the society glimpsed within them (Figure 27). Keiller sees an
unheimlich
effect, 'a profound disjuncture between society and
space with the loss of both the humane city and its utopic future'.
The
City of the Future
is presented as an adventure story, but its
journey into history is an attempt to recuperate the past in an
effort to redeem the future.
The
City of the Future
rests on the
