It’s High, High Cinema

The cinematographic art of the 21st century lean toward to visual effects and the narrative performance, skillfully using for this purpose the impressive images of high-rise architecture. Visual imagery and entourage of modern films are no less fascinating than their plot twists, while the spectacular views on the real-world or make-believe skyscrapers starting from the 30s of the 20th century evolved into one of the main artistic devices to emphasize dramatic expressiveness of films.

The world motion-picture theater has been developed almost in parallel with high-rise construction forming in modern architecture. While vertical images of the past influenced the initial construction principles of the XX century skyscrapers, early fictional movies were inspired by methods and forms of antecedent theatre arts. However, the further transformation of cinema into a separate kind of art and skyscrapers’ construction into an independent specific architectural typology led to the development of new system of artistic images not previously encountered in the world culture. So, it becomes even more interesting to put in cultural context variety of subtle details of these new for the humankind creative activities.

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Text by Marianna Maevskaya