Central Park in Film: Architecture as the Structure of Desire
Open Access
- Author:
- Tehrani, Sadra
- Graduate Program:
- Architecture
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- August 10, 2018
- Committee Members:
- Mehrdad Hadighi, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Reggie Aviles, Committee Member
Kevin J Hagopian, Committee Member
Donald Kunze, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor - Keywords:
- Architecture
Central Park
Landscape
Film
Cinema
movies
design
Olmsted
New York
Desire - Abstract:
- This thesis aims to trace Central Park’s filmic structure on two accounts: (A) The park – as the most filmed location in the world – consists of specific spatial and landscape configurations –of solids and voids – which enable it to bring surprise through a fluid intertwined system of framed views. In directing the eye by what it can’t see, the park inherently becomes resistible to definition. An explanation of the park’s resisting features shows how the park works as not only an opening in the city, but also as a lens – an optical quality that allows the park to produce dynamic rather than static boundary conditions. (B) Furthermore, this thesis aims to delineate not only the spatio-cinematic qualities of Central Park, but also how filmmakers use them to turn Central Park into a spatial structure for the movies’ form and development. Therefore, this research aims to propose a filmic-driven methodology of exploring these views through an analysis of movies rather than through conventional architectural vocabulary. This thesis uses an application of Lacanian psychoanalysis to film and media in exploring the structure of the park’s ocular logic deployed in films. Structure describes the specific relationships between interiority and exteriority, as well as the diagrammatic functions of psyche that are triggered by void-ness, movement and appearance. Discussing films such as Portrait of Jennie, Marathon Man, Manhattan and Wall Street, this thesis provides explanation of filmic techniques and dissection of the films’ structure and form. It describes not only relationships between characters, space and the storyline, but also the structural relations that make the park an inseparable part of the films’ cinematic space.