Thanks to Stephan Wagner for the reminder.
USA; 20. Century; Christian; film; City: New York
Tag: USA
… with wall to protect the city from the creatures of the deep in the movie Pacific Rim (2013)
and now, or rather, in reality…
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USA, China; 21. Century; Christian; Movie; City: Hong Kong
USA; 20. Century; Christian; Movie; City: Rome
In this scene from the movie “Aquaman” (2018) Atlantis sinks into the ocean. Unlike in all other disaster movies I know, the scene is pictured from a horizontal view line, not from a vertical one. The camera levels with the sea and thus we see both parts of the city: the buildings above water and the buildings below the water line.
This perspective is appropriate for Atlantis, as the city does not perish with it’s submersion but becomes what it is known for through history – and what carries the whole plot of the movie too – a fabled underwater empire.
But the camera position is also noteworthy, as it puts the viewer on the same treshold between the two elements and in a very uncomfortable place. We see the city sink while we ourselves are in the water up to our necks. The change from bird’s eye view – actually it is “plane eye” – to level view is crucial because it means leaving a superhuman and very powerful perspective up in the sky and taking on a more human but also much more involved position. In fact, it’s what a deluge would look like for most people, aas opposed to this:
USA; 21. Century; Christian; movie; City: Atlantis
There are many projects for the visualisation of the effects of rising sea levels. The US-American company Climate Central presents dozens of photo-realistic images of potentially flooded areas. Like the flooded Super Bowl Stadium in Florida:
They even offer animated gifs and other before-after-imagery. In this example a section of Hamburg in Germany now (left side) and 50 years from now (right).
A different approach is the speculative cartography by designer Jeffrey Linn. His “retrofuture” maps appear like antiques but depict future scenarios. In this case, a partially flooded San Francisco Bay. His work is for sale here
USA; 21. Century; Christian; Photography, Maps, Illustration; Cities: San Franscisco, Hamburg
In the US-American 2014 movie Godzilla, the cityscape – in this case the coastal city San Francisco – experiences an interesting reversal of the culture-nature-dichotomy. The city here is not the place of culture and humanity, but the battle site of a fight between two animal species (Godzilla and the Mutos) – a jungle where creators fight one another mercilessly. In this first image, the soldiers with their parachutes are descending from heaven like fallen angels. The imagery implies, that the city is in fact the underworld, hell.
Once the fight is over and nature has had it’s way (Godzilla killed the Mutos while apparently dying herself too) the shape of Godzilla’s body on the ground morphes with the ruins of the city. Animal and city appear as one. But the image also quote another deaster, that was caused by humans and NOT nature: 9/11.
The monster Godzilla is originally a Japanese creation and has been adapted by Hollywood. Gojira, as she is originally called, is part of the extraordinarily rich cultural heritage of desaster metaphors and narratives in Japan, reflecting the seismic instability of the islands and the long experience in dealing with natural desasters and extreme weather events. The US-american movie shows how the trope is adapted to a different cultural setting.
Soldiers Grove is a village situated along the Kickapoo River in Crawford County, Wisconsin, in the United States. The population was 592 at the 2010 census. The town has become a case study in best practices for managed retreat. In 1978, flooding inundated the Soldiers Grove area. In the aftermath of the disaster, $900,000 in federal funds were provided to assist in relocating the village’s business district to higher ground. Construction of the new business district began in 1979 and was completed by 1983. A park replaced the old downtown area along the river. It later became the self proclaimed “America’s First Solar Village”. (Quote: Wikiepdia)
USA; 20. Century; Policy, Managed Retreat; City: Soldiers Grove
In this image from the disaster movie “2012” (200) the visual style is clearly remeniscent of Rennaissance and medieval paintings. This shot in particular reminds me of depictions of Golgatha.
USA; 21. Century; Christian; Film; Art History;
In the movie “2012” – for reasons unclear to me – the White House is hit not only by a gigantic ocean wave but by a gigantic ocean wave carying a US-Navy aircraft carrier. The movie is from 2009.
USA; 21. Century; Christian; Film; City: Washington