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Part of Intellect’s World Film Locations series, World Film Locations: Helsinki explores the relationship between the city, cinema and Finnish cultural history. Cinematic representations of Helsinki range from depictions of a northern periphery to a space of cosmopolitanism, from a touristic destination to a substitute for Moscow and St. Petersburg during the Cold War. The city also looks different depending on one’s perspective, and World Film Locations: Helsinki illustrates this complexity by providing a visual collection of cinematic views of Helsinki. This cinematic city is a collective work where individual pieces construct a whole, and one which we, as viewers, then shape according to our perspectives. The contributors emphasize the role of the city in identity and cultural politics throughout Finnish film history and its central role as the locus for negotiating Finland’s globalization.

Maps/Scenes Scenes 1-7 1927 - 1952 Scenes 8-14 1952 - 1962 Scenes 15-20 1965 - 1978 Scenes 21-26 1979 - 1988 Scenes 27-32 1997 - 2005 Scenes 33-38 2005 - 2011 Essays Helsinki: City of the Imagination - Pietari Kääpä Reality Bites: Documenting Helsinki's Changing Landscapes - Pietari Kääpä Designer City: Architects in Helsinki Films - Silja Laine Creative Geography: Helsinki as Body Double (Part 1) - Susanna Paasonen The Same But Different: Helsinki as Body Double (Part 2) - Susanna Paasonen From Hämeentie: The Local Logic of Aki Kaurismäki’s Helsinki - Sanna Peden Comic Spaces: Helsinki's Social Districts in Film Comedies - Kimmo Laine

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History of film

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Publié par	Intellect Books
Date de parution	29 avril 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781841507453
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	4 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0950€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Edited by Pietari K p and Silja Laine
First Published in the UK in 2013 by Intellect Books, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First Published in the USA in 2013 by Intellect Books, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright 2013 Intellect Ltd
Cover photo:
The Man Without A Past © 2002 Sputnik Oy / The Kobal Collection
Copy Editor: Emma Rhys
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written consent.
A Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
World Film Locations Series
ISSN: 2045-9009
eISSN: 2045-9017
World Film Locations Helsinki
ISBN: 978-1-84150-722-4
eISBN: 978-1-84150-745-3
Printed and bound by
Bell Bain Limited, Glasgow

CONTENTS
Maps/Scenes

Scenes 1-7 1927 - 1952

Scenes 8-14 1952 - 1962

Scenes 15-20 1965 - 1978

Scenes 21-26 1979 - 1988

Scenes 27-32 1997 - 2005

Scenes 33-38 2005 - 2011
Essays

Helsinki: City of the Imagination
Pietari K p

Reality Bites: Documenting Helsinki s Changing Landscapes
Pietari K p

Designer City: Architects in Helsinki Films
Silja Laine

Creative Geography: Helsinki as Body Double (Part 1)
Susanna Paasonen

The Same But Different: Helsinki as Body Double (Part 2)
Susanna Paasonen

From H meentie: The Local Logic of Aki Kaurism ki s Helsinki
Sanna Peden

Comic Spaces: Helsinki s Social Districts in Film Comedies
Kimmo Laine

Backpages
Resources
Contributor Bios
Filmography

INTRODUCTION
World Film Locations Helsinki
IN HIS BEAUTIFULLY CONCEIVED documentary Helsinki ikuisesti/Helsinki Forever (2008), director and film historian Peter Von Bagh suggests that in watching films about Helsinki it is most important to focus on the actors' movements. The plot of the film does not matter as much as seeing how the human body relates to the environment of the city. It is these contact points and the reciprocal responses that emerge in them which reveal to us the film s unique perspective on the state of society.
This is a great starting point for thinking about the history of representations of Helsinki as it is this sort of elastic reciprocity that is key to understanding humanity s relationship with the cinematic city. Far from an unresponsive material environment, the city is best conceptualized as an organic entity, where humanity, the city, and the surrounding natural environment correspond to one another in interactive ways. And it is the material traces of correspondence - cinematic images - that function as the primary material for constructing a book such as this.
When looking at representations of Helsinki throughout the history of Finnish cinema, we can find constant indications of this elasticity. When Uuno Turhapuro, a comic anti-hero, walks through the city centre, we see an entirely different version of it from an Aki Kaurismäki film. While the fundamental building blocks of the city remain the same in the mise-en-scène, the cinematic capture unavoidably responds to the sort of life philosophy the character embodies and, accordingly, morphs in front of our eyes.
The cinematic city is thus a collective work where individual pieces construct a whole that is ultimately shaped by the knowledge each spectator brings to the cinematic canon. Each film provides a set of particular insights into the constantly in-construction archive that is the cinematic city, which we, as viewers, then shape according to our perspectives. This collection provides an instance of precisely such an archive as a collective effort to understand Finnish culture and its part in the world.
As we will see, cinematic Helsinki consists of a range of different interpretations. Thus, we include works of golden age directors such as Valentin Vaala to recent internationally acclaimed work by Aki Kaurismäki. Our historical scope extends from Finland as a part of the Russian empire, to the networked information society of contemporary times. Ideologically, Helsinki acts as the source of nationalist pride and domestic ideological division, geopolitical friction and a space of cosmopolitanism. But for the people living in the city, newcomers or natives, it is also a home.
Pietari Kääpä and Silja Laine, Editors
IN DISCUSSING THE cinematic imagining of Helsinki on screen, one faces the ironically appropriate fact that one of the most well known feature films to include 'Helsinki' as part of its title does not actually feature Helsinki on screen. The title of the film - Mika Kaurismäki s Berlinset Helsinki Napoli: All Night Long (1987) - tells us all we need to know. This is the internationally prevalent image of Helsinki as the northernmost European capital. It is a periphery, as different from the rest of Europe as the southern Naples is. The film s exploration of West Berlin as a Cold War-era city of two zones evokes another crucial geo-imaginary frequently associated with Helsinki, that of a borderline between the East and the West, with Finns keen to emphasize the 'Westness' of Helsinki, as Kaurismäki arguably does in the film s title.
International perceptions of Helsinki often align with these geocultural coordinates - north, east - or they evoke a version of the city seen in the films of Aki Kaurismäki, a space of lonely, sad individuals in films such as Tulitikkutehtaan tyttö/Match Factory Girl (1990). Helsinki is not only a 'kaurismäkicity' but has also featured as the pinnacle of modernism in early documentary and fiction films. The city has been used as a way to support Finnish self-conceptions of cosmopolitanism (or 'worldliness'), displaying a range of design styles and architectural wonders. But in the Finnish imagination, one of its main functions has been to embody the divergence between the city and the countryside, a theme of lingering persistence in Finnish cinema.
Migration from the rural areas to Helsinki became a concrete social problem as alienation and the changes in lifestyles were captured by the 'New Wave' films of the 1960s and the 1970s. Taking their cue from the rebellious aesthetic and thematic work of the nouvelle vague, the films of Risto Jarva, Mikko Niskanen, and others took a sociorealist approach to imagining the city. Some of the films explored the alienation of women in modern suburban life (Jaakko Pakkasvirta s Vihreä leski/Green Widow [1968]). Others provided chronicles of the unpredictable economic circumstances of the internal immigrants (Risto Jarva s Yhden miehen sota/One Man s War [1973]), where life in the city was depicted as claustrophobic and hostile to interpersonal relations. Generational changes have also found their imagined representations in the unyielding grayness of Helsinki s suburbs (Täältä tullaan, elämä/Right on, Man [1980]) or they work to reflect the 'worldly' attitudes of the protagonists (Arvottomat/The Worthless [1982]). As Helsinki takes on different forms according to the specific producer/audience demographic, the cinematic imaginations of the city become a collection of cultural political perspectives contributing to its development.
Occupying simultaneous ideological functions between an inspirational pinnacle of artistic achievement and a corrupting influence, Helsinki s cinematic role has been heavily politicized. This is not only to do with the ways it has been used as a historical mirror to strengthen the sense of Finnish sovereignty in the face of Soviet aggression - see Helmikuun manifesti/ The February Manifesto (1938). It has also acted as a statement that aligns Finland culturally to the West as with Olympics related films such as Kultamitalivaimo/Gold Metal Wife (1947). This politicization has taken on alternative connotations as Hollywood producers have used Helsinki as a substitute for Moscow and other Soviet cities. This is of course ideological in its own right as the Soviet Helsinki of Gorky Park (1983) is a haven of corruption, a space so oppressive that the only option is escape. Simultaneously, Finnish produced films such as Vodkaa Komisario Palmu/Vodka Komisario Palmu (1969) have been criticized for their pro Soviet stance where Helsinki is now imagined as the battleground for heroic Soviet soldiers.

Depictions in the twenty-first century continue to use the city in subjective ways, reflecting the diversity of social/ideological perspectives it attracts. Thus, for a director like Aku Louhimies, Helsinki in, for example, Jäätynyt kaupunki/Frozen City (2005) is a space for depicting the fallacies of the welfare state. Meanwhile, Louhimies' Kuutamolla/Lovers and Leavers (2001) paints it in glamorous terms as host to romantic fantasies and nostalgic evocations. For others, the city is now a late capitalist haven that sustains class divisions (Leijat Helsingin Yllä/Kites over Helsinki [2001]), or it has transformed into a fantasy world of colourful characters compensating for strained family ties (children s films such as Pelikaanimies/ Pelican Man [2004] and the Risto Räppääjä series [2008-]). In capturing a sense of the sociocultural zeitgeist, Helsinki has also become a networked epitome of the information society in Nousukausi/ Upswing (2004) and Hymypoika/YoungGods (2004). Underneath their seemingly leftist critical exteriors, they construct a structured view of the city, divided into its slums and exclusive neigbourhoods.
Yet, even here, the city is constantly re-imagined as previously maligned or marginalized neighbourhoods are gentrified for young urban consumers. Cinematic imagination plays a key role in films like Pussikaljaelokuva/Six Pack (2011) and Monte Rosso (2008), which emphasize hipness and a certain air of nouveau bohemianism in their depictions of Kallio and Punavuori, respectively. Simultaneously, they commercialize local cultural elements and r