Three Degrees of Oswald Spengler
In a recent issue of AD: architectural design, I call film noir a 'mental megalopolis'. Then I read this in Nicholas Christopher's book, Somewhere in the Night:
'The city as labyrinth is key to entering the psychological and aesthetic framework of the film noir. As the German historian Oswald Spengler wrote in Decline of the West, speaking of the megalopolis or "world city" of the twentieth century: "The city is a world, is the world." He went on to characterise twentieth-century man as one who "is seized and possessed by his own creation, the City, and is made into its creation, its executive organ, and finally its victim"' (p.16).
Lesson: I'm less original than I think I am, but more optimistic than Oswald Spengler.
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Books mentioned available here (UK):
'The city as labyrinth is key to entering the psychological and aesthetic framework of the film noir. As the German historian Oswald Spengler wrote in Decline of the West, speaking of the megalopolis or "world city" of the twentieth century: "The city is a world, is the world." He went on to characterise twentieth-century man as one who "is seized and possessed by his own creation, the City, and is made into its creation, its executive organ, and finally its victim"' (p.16).
Lesson: I'm less original than I think I am, but more optimistic than Oswald Spengler.
------------------------------------------
Books mentioned available here (UK):
posted by Graham | 11:00 am
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