physicsl set of 1967 film, Playtime
virtual set of 2006 film Renaissance
architecture and film: how uncanny!
the blending of real and virtual sets
In the production of film, set design can play one of the most significant roles in setting the tone of the film, however it is often not the most consciously recognised aspect of the movie. A set provides a director with a canvas to be manipulated and designed, precisely to express their own vision. Over time, this manipulation has become much more available through technology, and the ability to realize extreme imaginations has dramatically altered the approach to filmic set.
Although not always consciously observed, the set creates the film atmosphere. Whether the film takes place in a recognisable location, at a comfortable scale, in a completely foreign landscape, or in an exaggerated and disorienting space. Here several films and their use and creation of set to establish an atmosphere of dystopia and the unhomely, are discussed to explore this topic.
‘... architecture reveals the deep structure of the uncanny in a more than analogical way, demonstrating a disquieting slippage between what seems homely and what is definitely unhomely. As articulated by Freud, the uncanny or unheimlich is rooted by etymology and usage in the environment of the domestic, or the heimlich, thereby opening up problems of identity around the self, the body and its absence: thence its force in interpreting the relations between the psyche and the dwelling, the body and the house, the individual and the metropolis.’
Anthony Vidler, The Architectural Uncanny, p.x (preface)
Vidler points out here the subtle ability of architecture to affect ones sense of identification, and psychological relation to self and place. This schism produces the sensation of uncanny, and unhomely with respect to architecture. This effect of architecture is the quality exploited in the most effective film sets. Similar to the theory of the uncanny valley by Mashiro Mori, in the human response to physical surroundings, the unhomely quality increases as the surroundings begin to have an unreal quality, and peaks when the surroundings are nearly real, ‘but just enough off kilter to seem eerie or disquieting’. Here we will analyse different methods used in a variety of films to create this impression