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Architecture & Film Feature

Architecture and Film #10 Backlot

By the end of the nineteenth century the population of industrialised nations had shifted decisively from the countryside to cities. Work was the driver, but such vast numbers of people in close proximity also gave rise to new forms of relaxation, and to new kinds of transgression. The Impressionists were the first visual artists to […]

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Feature Four Frames

Four Frames: Harold’s long goodbye in The Long Good Friday (John Mackenzie, 1980)

The ending of John Mackenzie’s seminal British gangster film is regarded by many, this author included, to be a work of art, befitting the superb fall-from-grace story of London crimelord Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins). Having just abruptly ended a business deal with the New York mafia, “The mafia? I’ve shit ’em!” Harold storms into his […]

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Feature On Location

On Location: MacArthur Park as featured in ‘Drive’ (Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011)

The brief scene at Los Angeles’s MacArthur park comes exactly half way through Nicolas Winding Refn’s slick and stylish thriller as Driver, drawn out of his solitary existence by new love interest Irene and her young son Benicio, takes on a risky grab-n-go getaway gig to protect them from harm. As befalls every criminally minded […]