Category: Lecture 1 Architecture, Film and the Modern City

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Reading response:NOIRS: The City, the Woman and Other Spaces

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The passage shows a particular aspect of the proceed of modernization. Instead of focusing on skyscrapers and modern vehicles, some films spotlight female figures. What differs from the previous movies is that women are given more roles than housewives and mothers. For example, in the film black rose, women are seen as thieves who steal for the rich to help the deprived. Through the silhouette of a woman, the film shows the rise of the middle class in the city. Another example is the increasing entertainment activities women have. The typical figure is the factory woman workers. They are independent

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Cat Links Lecture 1 Architecture, Film and the Modern City

Reading Response: Barthes, R.

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As for Barthes, R., he considered leaving the movie theater as “the most vulnerable of powers: healing”, this comment reminds me my last experience at the M+ cinema theatre. Before I even entered the cinema, I was healed by the nearby sea. Across the sea, on the shore, there are the very busy modern buildings of Hong Kong with beautiful lights and gorgeous colors. Here, however, the whole coast is very quiet and peaceful with large grassy areas and pale-yellow streetlights. Families and couples can be seen sitting on the shore chatting or camping on the grass. The sea seems

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Reading Response: Roland Barthes

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Barthes documents the sensational experience of movie viewing in a cinematic theatre as he contemplates his personal experiences. He compares the experience to drifting into a hypnotic state as if our minds have been transported to elsewhere, fleeing from reality. I have never considered the grave importance of movie theatres in contributing to the success of a movie until I read this chapter. It made me rethink my past cinematic experiences. The surge of adrenaline in my body as I walked down the corridor to get to the cinema house. The dark, cooled room that is designed to soothe my

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Reading Response: Walter Benjamin

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Technological reproduction has gradually affected human life throughout history. “Reproduction” is an important element according to Benjamin. He discusses how mass production affects our appreciation of art. In Benjamin’s view, “aura” has disappeared as a result of the reproducibility of works of art. “Aura” is not easy to understand literally, since it is an original concept created by Benjamin. The concept concretizes the uniqueness of authentic works of art. According to my understanding, what he is trying to convey with the term “aura” is the sense of shock that comes from seeing the authentic works of art for oneself. We

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Reading Response: Roland Barthes

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Owing to the dark environment of the cinema as well as the sound and music of the movie, the author of “Leaving the Movie Theater” claims that attending the movie theater enables individuals to feel hypnotized. According to the author, the “twilight reverie” prefigures the dark environment of the movie theater and leads the person into a dimly lit cube where hypnosis can occur and where the body’s freedom is generated. People are relaxed and healed in the movie theater, away from the urban city. The comparison of the experience of watching Netflix at home versus at a cinema is

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[READING RESPONSE] Walter Benjamin

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In Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media. He explains the work of art’s uniqueness is equivalent to its involvement in the context of tradition. On the contrary, in the present age of reproducible general technology. Can a computer without emotion really provide artistic creativity? In my opinion, art is something that people put their emotions and time into, and people appreciate the ideas and the thoughts in it. However, if skill can reach or even surpass the level of human intelligence, then what does this mean for us

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L1 Reading Response – Barthes

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  According to the ‘Leaving the Movie Theater’ by Roland Barthes, he describes the cinematic experience as “hypnotic”. I highly agree with his expression of watching a film at the cinema as I also felt engulfed and overwhelmed whenever I have finished a movie at the theater. Especially in this era of high technology, the innovation of 4DX has been implemented. Within 4DX, cinemas offer multi-sensory hypnotic effect. While the film was only confined to the screen before 4DX, nowadays the enhanced ambience and multi-dimensional effects draws audiences into the movie. I would like to shed a light on the

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Reading Response: Roland Barthes

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Barthes captures your typical viewing experience of the coming and going of a cinema. The metonymy, “The darkness of the theatre is prefigured by the “twilight reverie.” Is what I completely identify with Barthes’s feelings towards the idea of a cinema. We are immersed in the box of hypnotic light accompanied by relaxing seats and the sound of ecstasy. Our every sense is dulled to only concentrate on the projected film. Whether the genre is paced slowly or fast, our minds can’t help to be static and pierced by the dancing lights of the screen. For Barthes and I,  the

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Reading Response: Roland Barthes

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“In this darkness of cinema (anonymous, populated, numerous – oh, the boredom, the frustration of so-called private showings) lies the very fascination of the film.” I relate to this sense of anonymity. I find this cinematic darkness inviting, often even comforting. I yearn to be consumed by the void of the theatre. It is an entirely different experience viewing a film in a theatre versus on a television screen in your home. For the film’s entire runtime, I am completely immersed in the world it creates, indeed as Barthes mentions it is “hypnotic”. My attention does not waver, there is

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Reading response: Roland Barthes

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In the article of “leaving the movie theater”, it makes readers to think of the role of cinema in the contemporary society. The title indicates that author wants to describe the experience of watching movie at cinema and he emphasizes on the darkness of the theater that brings audience into a dim, anonymous and indifferent cube. In my opinion, this darkness can give audience a sense of being, engagement in the film. Compared with watching movie at home, the familiar space and darkness is erased, people cannot make themselves into the same situation as the film character, the darkness in

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