week 5 EARLY MODERNISM + ARCHITECTURE

Donald Albrecht's Designing Dreams: Modern Architecture in the Movies discusses the evolution of cinema as the seventh art.  At first merely a Parisian experiment considered not much more than an interesting spectacle, film eventually allied itself with the other "high arts" namely the architectural component of modernism, and became an accepted art form.  What is most fascinating about this alliance is its mutal dependency.  It was a complete coincidence that the science of cinema was born on the eve of modernism's debut but it was not an accident that their rise in public artistic prominence occurred simultaneously.

The art direction of L'Inhumaine (1924, Director: Marcel L'Herbier), the first film to use modern architecture, was tackled by a team of set directors and the combination of their input produced an overt, almost "pretentious attempt at promoting modern architecture." (Albrecht 45)  However, it was received by critics as "a striking example of what a synthesis of the arts can accomplish when enlisted in the service of the modern cinema." (Albrecht 50)  This early, avant-garde portrayal of modernism became propaganda in the name of art.  Although it did not do well with the pubic, the critical success of the film encouraged the production of more, similarly styled films and eventually the glamor of modern architecture became accepted by the public.  It was at this point that film was able to abandon the use of propaganda and modernism as a true and pure art form could exist in film.

À Nous la Liberté (1931, René Clair) was designed by Lazare Meerson and is considered one of the best examples of the use of modernism within a film that is "neither partisan or propagandist for the modern movement" fulfilling the essential tenant of Le Corbusier's aesthetic ideal by presenting a world of "plastic facts, clear and limpid, giving rest to our eyes and to the mind the pleasure of geometric forms."(Albrecht 60)  In this film we see modernism presented as the environment in which the plots unfolds - it is where regular life can now take place.


Propaganda in film today is almost exclusively associated with the documentary format, specifically for political gain via the salacious presentation of information or power.  The most obvious example being Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (1934).

In this format, a specific style is used to promote a new political agenda by reinforcing specific sentiments such as strength, solidity and mass-appeal.  It is fascinating to think that before this, film propaganda was used merely to encourage the acceptance of an aesthetic ideal.  Architectural history does not often identify film as an influence on the emergence of modernism as prominent architectural style of the last century when in fact film was one of the critical components of the movement.