The Cinema of the Swimming Pool (New Studies in European Cinema)

Description

The swimming pool frequently appears in film not merely as a setting but as a dynamic site where social, political, cultural and aesthetic forces converge. What is it about this space that has so fascinated filmmakers and what kinds of cinematic investigations does it encourage? This collection features essays by an eclectic, international range of film researchers. Amongst the works analysed are classics such as The Cameraman (1928), The Philadelphia Story (1940) and La Piscine (1969); cult hits such as The Swimmer (1968) and Deep End (1970); and more recent representations of the pool in Water Lilies (2007), Sea Point Days (2009) and Ausente (2011). The pool is considered as a realm where artifice meets nature, where public meets private, where sexualities morph and blend; and as a space that reconfigures the relationship between architecture and narrative, in which themes of pollution, spectacle and reflexivity find unique expression. Approaching the swimming pool from a wide range of methodological perspectives, the essays in this collection stake a claim for the enduring significance of this exciting cinematic space. Cover Contents Illustrations David Trotter Foreword Acknowledgements Christopher Brown and Pam Hirsch Introduction: The Cinema of the Swimming Pool Chris O'Rourke 1 The Municipal Plunge: Silent Cinema and the Social Life of Swimming Pools Sheri Chinen Biesen 2 Cinematic Comedy and the Swimming Pool: Gender, Class, Coming of Age and Sexual Identity from The Philadelphia Story (1940) to Legally Blonde (2001) Alex Naylor 3 'The Anatomy of Atavism’: American Urban Modernity, Gothic Trauma and Haunted Spaces in Cat People (1942) Edward Saunders 4 From Stadium to Street: Generations and Gentrifcation in Berlin Pool Scenes Axel Andersson 5 The Artifice of Modernity: Alienation by the Pool Side in the Cinema of Michelangelo Antonioni Christopher Brown 6 The Pool of The Swimmer (1968): Exurbia, Topography, Decay François Penz 7 The Atmosphère d’Eau Sauvage: Reflections on La Piscine (1969) Pam Hirsch 8 A Dangerous Age: Deep End (1970) Rose Hepworth 9 Staging Embarrassment in The Last Picture Show (1971) and Morvern Callar (2002) Monika Keska 10 Filming the Splash: David Hockney’s Swimming Pools on Film Clara Garavelli 11 The Swimming Pool as a Site of Subversion during the Spanish Transition: The Case of Pepito piscina (1978) Matilda Mroz 12 The Aesthetics of Overfow: Andrei Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia (1983) in Duration Micah Trippe 13 Urban Guerilla Playfare, or Skating through Empty Cinematic Pools in Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001) Sophie Mayer 14 Gutta cavat lapidem: The Sonorous Politics of Lucrecia Martel’s Swimming Pools Emma Wilson 15 'The sea nymphs tested this miracle’: Water Lilies (2007) and the Origin of Coral Piotr Cieplak 16 Swimming in Post-apartheid Cape Town: Sea Point Days (2009) Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns 17 Cartographies of Desire: Swimming Pools and the Queer Gaze Notes on Contributors Index