Challenging Ontological Order: Walls and Historical Space in Narrative Films

Introduction to Cinematic Space in Historical Narrative Film

in narrative fiction (i.e., literature, theater, and film), characters are always placed in the specific spaces and times in which the plot occurs; in film, they are placed within an illusion of three-dimensional space (as in realistic painting) that is a reproduction of an actual space (as in photography). In addition to the characters' movement in space (like in theater and dance), cinema is unique in that it provides a space in flux through camera movements and editing—two elements not possessed by any other art form.

Cinematic space has been amply theorized. I propose condensing these theoretic concepts into actualized space and illusionary space. Actualized space is either filmed on location or recreated elsewhere—what Anat Zanger, in applying Henri Lefebvre's first stratum of space (the physical, tangible) to cinema, describes as one owing "spatial qualities derived from the specific place and its physical topographies" (20). Jacques Levy terms this kind of space "geographicity" (Levy 2), while André Gardiès refers to it as "diegetic space" (in Levy 2). Architectural/historical elements (like the Berlin Wall) are easily identified as referents establishing a specific time and place in history when filmed in actualized spaces, whether authentic or recreated. Regarding the latter, Anton Kaes explains that the use of architectural reconstructions and decor (as well as clothing, hairstyles, and sound) that offer familiar visual or audio motifs from old photographs, news-reels, and radio broadcasts evokes specific historical times, constituting a vital contribution to the dual status of the narrative: "The viewer senses, even unconsciously, the irresolvable dual status of historical narrative, as document and fiction, authentically true and at the same time used within a freely invented story" (183).

Illusionary space is created by techniques that form the illusion of depth (in cinema, primarily through the camera lens and projection on the two-dimensional screen), much like two-dimensional artworks that use the rules of perspective (things appear to get smaller and less in focus in the distance) and shading via lightening.¹ This illusionary space is enriched by mise-en-scène and movement. Mise-en-scène includes characters, objects, and sets organized to create the illusion of a three-dimensional space (through their placement in the foreground, mid-ground, and background), as well as the composition of each shot (the creation of two-dimensional abstract forms derived from such placement). Movement includes the characters' movement in and out of the depth of field, or the frame, as well as camera movements in space (accompanying characters and objects or moving independently). This illusionary space involves both what Gardiès calls "narrative space" (characters are placed in space as part of the plot) and the viewers' space (quoted in Levy 2). The latter includes localization (the understanding of cinematographic language) and monstration (its interpretation).

In narrative historical films, actualized and illusionary spaces intertwine to form what Zanger defines as three parallel fields: "conventions of spatiality; the cultural conventions of the specific place; and the conventions of the cinematic medium as a machine of time, place and memory that sets in motion the image of place vis-à-vis the actual one" (4). However, such complexity is bound to remain in the obscure because space as such often goes unnoticed. As Lefebvre argues, although the object of architectural or urbanistic criticism ("the setting in which we live") is as important as the aesthetic objects of everyday consumption, compared to the criticisms of art, literature, music, and theater, architectural or urbanistic criticisms are scant because urbanistic space seems out of range: "Spaces sometimes lie just as things lie, even though they are not themselves things." (Production of Space 92) This prevents us from realizing that "architectural or urbanistic space appears as the intangible outcome of history, society and culture, all of which are supposedly combined within it" (92). This "intelligibility" is further complicated when it comes to the actualized space in cinema, what Levy refers to in the following quote as the "diegetic space":

On the whole, this evolution [of cinema] has served...