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Illuminating Spaces: Cinematic Travels and Emotional Inhabitation of Tokyo in

image of Illuminating Spaces: Cinematic Travels and Emotional Inhabitation of Tokyo in Café Lumière

This chapter introduces a cinematic approach for studying space, by analyzing the architecture of the shot and how emotions are conveyed through the experience of travel in Café Lumière (2003) set in Tokyo. The director Hou Hsiao-hsien's insistence on shooting in real locations reveals how each location is unique and replete with audio-visual cues that can be extracted from the mises en scène. Strategies that privilege the haptic senses are employed to apprehend the spaces and landscapes featured in the film. These methods, derived from film studies and architecture, exploit the synergistic potential offered by the two disciplines: just as moving images constitute the primary medium for filmmakers, drawings are utilized by architectural practitioners to tangibly express and idea or fact. The actualization of drawings can disclose new information about the source material. This methodology underscores cinema's deeply entrenched and intertwined relationship with space.

Keywords: architecture of the shot ; audio-visual cues ; Café Lumière ; cinematic approach ; co-embodiment ; drawings ; emotional inhabitation of the city ; long take ; mise en sc#x000E8;ne ; real locations ; spatial planes ; Tokyo ; trains ; travelling shot ; visual spatial information

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Illuminating Spaces: Cinematic Travels and Emotional Inhabitation of Tokyo in Café Lumière
Intellect , 141 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1386/9781789389807_9
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References

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  6. Bordwell, David, and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction, 9th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill International, 2010.
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  7. Bruno, Giuliana. Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film. New York: Verso, 2002.
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  8. Burdeau, Emmanuel. ‘Entretein 1 (août 1999).’ [‘Interview 1, August 1999’.] In Hou Hsiao-hsien, edited by J.-M. Frodon, 67–112. Paris: Cahiers du Cinéma, 2005.
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  28. Tan, Ed S. ‘On the Cognitive Ecology of the Cinema.’ In In the Mind's Eye: Julian Hochberg on the Perception of Pictures, Films, and the World, edited by M. A. Peterson, B. Gillam, and H. A. Sedgwick, 562–71. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
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