Cinema and/as infrastructure in interwar avant-gardes and empire aviation documentaries

Abstract

This article analyses cinematic exposition of aeriality in empire documentaries and avant-garde cinema from the interwar period to interrogate cinema as infrastructure, its weaponisation and deployment in the imperial project, and its convergence with aerial infrastructure which united the perception of Empire with the experience of modernity. I argue that the use of aeriality in the aestheticisation of infrastructures in avant-garde films like De Brug (Joris Ivens, 1928) and La Tour (Rene Clair, 1928) cannot be divorced from the ideology that is on overt display in Empire aviation documentaries such as Wings over Everest and Contact.

Keywords

• modernity
• infrastructure
• aeriality
• cinema