Reviews
BOOK REVIEW
Urban Film and Everyday Practice:
Bridging Divisions in Johannesburg
A
lien spaceships hovering over
mine dumps or the Hulk
smashing the buildings of the
inner city – these evocative
images linger in our minds
when thinking of and living
in Johannesburg. Although
belonging to the fictional world
of cinema these representations
of the city are absorbed into our
memories and knowledge of the real city. A
new book explores the intersection of cinema
and the city in the context of Johannesburg.
Urban Film and Everyday Practice: Bridging
Divisions in Johannesburg by Alexandra
Parker (Palgrave Macmillan) provides a
historical account of Johannesburg on the
silver screen but the heart of the book is an
exploration of the ways that films depicting the
city influence the everyday lives of its residents.
The city of gold is not often considered to be a centre of film production
(most often we think of celebrities swanning about in Cape Town) but there
are surprisingly a multitude of diverse films set in Johannesburg and this
is of course growing everyday. The most prominent of these films, Tsotsi
(2005), notable for having won the best foreign language film at the Academy
Awards, is thematically and spatially in a chapter on crime and the gangster
figure. Other chapters are arranged according to movement, identity and the
materiality or landscape of Johannesburg.
The book weaves together an understanding of the city with the
interpretations of residents in four neighbourhoods – Chiawelo, Soweto;
Fordsburg, the inner city; and Melville. If you are interested in the city or its
residents the book provides valuable insights. Similarly if you have an interest
in film and its context this book surveys a rich and assorted range of films that
all have Johannesburg in common.
AUTHOR: Alexandra Parker PUBLISHER: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 978-1-137-55479-6 PAGES: 242, Hardcover
Click here to buy the book
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