Chrono-Urbanism and Single-Night Narratives in Film. Issue 1 (1st May 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Straw, Will
• Is Part Of: Film studies. Volume 12:Issue 1(2015)
• Page Start: 46
• Page End: 56
• Publication Date: 2015-05-01
• Subjects: Motion pictures -- History -- Periodicals; Motion pictures -- Periodicals; 791.43
• DOI: 10.7227/FS.12.0006
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1469-0314

Abstract

Abstract : This article examines fictional film narratives from the perspectives of a 'chrono-urbanism', concerned with the ways in which cinema maps the unfolding of time in cities. It examines how films treat the urban night – as territory, as one side of a boundary, as a substance which 'falls' upon the city. These treatments are explored by examining a limited corpus of 'single-night narratives', films whose narratives unfold over a single night. Drawing on a variety of recent texts that trace the history of the night in cities, this article distinguishes between different narrative patterns within which the urban night unfolds and becomes meaningful.