World Film Locations: Vancouver highlights the work of such Canadian filmmakers who have received less attention than they merit, whilst bringing insight into how so-called ‘runaway’ productions from Hollywood use Vancouver to stand in for other locations, from Seattle, USA to Lagos, Nigeria. Analyses of 38 different film scenes reveal the cinematic city in its myriad forms, while spotlight essays provide insight into the creativity and contradictions of Vancouver’s film industry throughout the ages. The essays examine the following topics: the masking of Vancouver’s indigenous stories in filmic representations of the city; Australian screenwriter James Clavell’s Vancouver-set debut The Sweet and the Bitter; Sylvia Spring’s Madeleine Is..., the first female-directed feature in Canada; Jonathan Kaplan’s The Accused, for which Jodie Foster won an Oscar; and, the use of Vancouver locations in a number of US television crime series. World Film Locations: Vancouver offers new perspectives on the west coast city and in doing so sheds further light upon the relationship between the movies and the metropolis.

This book explores the rich history of films that have used the floating city as evocative backdrop and integral character. Few cities are as densely packed with picturesque cinematic locations. Extensively illustrated with maps, film stills, and present-day location photos, this book provides both a colorful guide to, and an incisive examination of, Venice on film. It contains insightful film entries describing carefully chosen scenes from each film, as well as six thematic essays, written by an impressive international selection of film critics, academics, and Venice experts. The grand and familiar tourist spots take on new significances, and the book highlights less well-known spots beyond the tourist trail, including gondola repair yards and legendary, but well-hidden, restaurants. From one of the earliest mobile shots in film history—a voyage up the Grand Canal shot in 1896—to classic depictions of the city like Summertime, Death in Venice, and Don’t Look Now, as well as recent big budget productions such as The Tourist, this book spans the history of filmmaking in Venice.

 

As France’s oldest city, Marseilles has a significant cinematic culture, dating back to the 1890s when the Lumière brothers shot many films there. Due to its prolific film industry in the 1920s, Marseilles was referred to as 'the French Los Angeles'. This volume showcases Marseilles’s diversity as articulated onscreen: from the winding streets of the Panier to the Old Port’s noisy markets, from the bustling Canebière to the dockyards of the Grand Port Maritime, from the cliffs of Provençal encircling the city to sun-drenched calanques leading to the dazzling cerulean sea. Marseilles, France’s oldest city, has a significant cinematic culture, dating back to the 1890s when the Lumière brothers shot many films there. Due to its prolific film industry in the 1920s, Marseilles was referred to as ‘the French Los Angeles’. World Film Locations: Marseilles features maps of film scenes, high quality screengrabs, and images of movie locations as they appear today, accompanied by original texts penned by leading international film scholars and critics. Essays treat Marcel Pagnol’s classic trilogy, firmly ensconced within the French collective unconscious; cinematic adaptations of the Marseillais novelist Jean-Claude Izzo; onscreen appearances of the Old Port and the Canebière, and immigrants in Marseilles films. Scene reviews are selected from 46 films, including œuvres by acclaimed directors such as Jacques Audiard, Jean-Jacques Beineix, Luc Besson’s Taxi franchise, Bertrand Blier, Richard Curtis, Jacques Demy, Jean Epstein, John Frankenheimer, William Friedkin, Jean-Luc Godard, Norman Jewison, Joshua Logan, Jean-Pierre Melville, Lázló Moholy-Nagy, Manoel de Oliveira, Jean Renoir, Ridley Scott, and Berlin School auteur Angela Schanelac.

  Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, is a megalopolis of dramatic diversity and heartbreaking extremes, with wealthy areas located just steps away from the searing poverty of its huge slums. The home of Bollywood, Mumbai is also the epicenter of India’s film industry and its foremost film location. Through the lens of Mumbai’s manifold cinematic representations, World Film Locations: Mumbai explores the sheer complexity of this incomparable city.   This volume comprises insightful essays and beautifully illustrated scene analyses by leading scholars and film critics who explore the ways filmmakers from India and abroad have represented Mumbai’s astonishing urban and human landscape. Taken together, these contributions show how movies have created in the imaginations of billions of spectators the vivid image of a city that constantly tempts people to escape their dreary existence and offers them chances to fulfill their dreams. The first book to focus on cinematic representations of what is perhaps the world’s most-filmed city, World Film Locations: Mumbai will be necessary reading for scholars and film buffs alike.

An illuminating and visually led guide to a selection of the films set wholly or in part in Melbourne, World Film Locations: Melbourne covers the big screen representations of life in the city from the Victorian era to the present day. Short analyses of iconic scenes and themed essays focusing on key directors and recurring themes and locations combine to highlight the city's relationship to cinema. Illustrated throughout with full colour film stills and photographs of the locations as they are now – from architectural landmarks to largely unexplored outer-suburbs – the book also contains city maps for those wishing to explore Melbourne's richly diverse cinematic streets.

From visions of Ned Kelly, via tales of sporting drama to the coming-of-age films of the 1980s and beyond, this accessible trip around the birthplace of the Australian film industry will both firmly cement Melbourne's reputation as a richly diverse creative hotbed and enhance the standing of the films and filmmakers associated with the city.

Though the creative community of Reykjavík, Iceland, has earned a well-deserved reputation for its unique artistic output – most notably the popular music that has emerged from the city since the 1980s – Reykjavík’s filmmakers have received less attention than they merit. World Film Locations: Reykjavík corrects this imbalance, shedding new light on the role of cinema in a country that, partly because of its small population, produces more films per capita than any other in the world. 

The contributors to this volume trace cinema in Iceland from the 1979 establishment of the Icelandic Film Fund – before which the country’s film industry barely existed – through to today. In a series of illuminating scene reviews, they show how rapidly the city has changed over the past thirty years. In thematic spotlight articles, they go on to explore such topics as the relationship between Iceland and its capital city; youth culture and night life; the relationship between film and the local music community; cinematic representations of Scandinavian crime; and filmmakers’ response to the 2008 banking crisis. Together, these varied contributions show how films shot in Reykjavík have been shaped both by Iceland’s remoteness from the rest of the world and by Icelandic filmmakers’ sense that the city remains forever on the brink of desolate and harsh wilderness.

 

With more and more filmmakers taking advantage of its rich and varied settings, New Orleans has earned star-studded status as the 'Hollywood of the South'. From the big-screen adaptation of the stage classic A Streetcar Named Desire to the Elvis Presley musical King Creole, many well-known films have a special connection with the Big Easy, and this user-friendly guide explores the integral role of New Orleans in American film history.

World Film Locations: New Orleans features essays that reflect on the city’s long-standing relationship with the film industry. Among the topics discussed are popular depictions of Hurricane Katrina on film, the prevalence of the supernatural in New Orleans cinema and recent changes to city ordinances that have made New Orleans even more popular as a film destination. As the most frequently filmed area of New Orleans, the French Quarter is given particular attention in this volume with synopses of scenes shot or set there, including The Big Easy, Interview with the Vampire and the much-loved Bond film Live and Let Die. Additional synopses highlight numerous other film scenes spanning the city, and all are accompanied by evocative full-colour stills. The historic neighbourhoods and landmarks of New Orleans have provided the backdrop for some of the most memorable moments in film history, and this book offers fans a guided tour of the many films that made the city their home.

World Film Locations: Madrid is a trip through the urban space conceived as film location. The premise is that these locations must have been protagonist of films shot in Madrid since the silent era to the present. Madrid is the film capital of the Hispanic World from the standpoint of production. Being also one of the most visited cities in the world, this book tries to discover its most imaginative side for the visitor who dares to take this journey. But it is a tour that is not covered in the guidebooks. The different suggestions are explained in a series of essays written by experts, which analyses the role that the city plays in the stories filmed in Madrid. This is a city of contrasts where lives high culture (the best universities, the Museo del Prado, etc.), with the most popular and sparkling nightlife that began with La Movida and Almodóvar.

These essays account for this life contrast, addressing from the corralas (popular architecture) in Egdar Neville’s films, to the underground cinema of Iván Zulueta. Madrid’s spaces and their films are visually discussed as well through 44 microanalysis of sequences, whose selection criteria has been its importance in the plot and its ability to represent the true spirit of the city, rather than its tourist attractive. Casual visitors or permanent inhabitants, and general lovers of Spanish culture in a broad sense, will find in these pages reasons to wander through Madrid’s films and streets.

'We’ll always have Paris,' Humphrey Bogart assures Ingrid Bergman in the oft-quoted farewell scene from Casablanca in which Bogart’s character, hard-hearted restaurateur Rick Blaine, bids former lover Ilsa Lund goodbye. The backdrop against which they first fell in love, Paris later serves as a reminder of their deep mutual longings. And with a host of different realisations by filmmakers from Philip Kaufman to Julien Leclercq to Woody Allen, there is no question that Paris has likewise endured in the memories of cinephiles worldwide.   World Film Locations: Paris takes readers on an unforgettable tour of the City of Lights past and present through the many films that have been set there. Along the way, we revisit iconic tourist sites from the Eiffel Tower – whose stairs and crossbars inspired more than one famous chase scene – to the Moulin Rouge overlooking the famously seedy Place Pigalle. Other films explore lesser-known quarters usually tucked away from the tourist’s admiring gaze. Handsomely illustrated with full-colour film stills and contemporary photographs, more than fifty scenes are individually considered with special attention to their use of Paris’s topography as it intersects with characters, narrative and plot. A host of important genres and cinematic movements are featured, including poetic realism, the New Wave, cinéma-verité, the literary works of the Left Bank Group, and Luc Besson’s slickly stylised cinéma du look. Meanwhile, essays foreground contributions from Francophone African directors and émigré filmmakers.   For centuries, Paris has reigned over the popular imagination. For those who have visited or those who have only imagined it through art, literature and film, World Film Locations: Paris presents a wonder-filled cinematic exploration of the mythical city that fans of French cinema – and new initiates – will appreciate.

World Film Locations: Tokyo gives readers a kaleidoscopic view of one of the world’s most complex and exciting cities through the lens of world cinema. 50 scenes from classic and contemporary films explore how motion pictures have shaped the role of Tokyo in our collective consciousness, as well as how these cinematic moments reveal aspects of the life and culture of a city that are often hidden from view. Complimenting these scenes from such varied films as Tokyo Story, You Only Live Twice, Godzilla and Enter the Void are six spotlight essays that take us from the wooden streets of pre-nineteenth-century Edo to the sprawling 'what-if' megalopolis of science fiction anime.

Illustrated throughout with dynamic screen captures World Film Locations: Tokyo is at once a guided tour of Japan’s capital conducted by the likes of Akira Kurosawa, Samuel Fuller, Chris Marker and Sofia Coppola while also being an indispensible record of how Tokyo has fired both the imaginations of individuals working behind the camera and those of us sitting transfixed in movie theatres.