Urban Dystopia on Screen: The City, Architecture and Power in the Contemporary Science Fiction Film

Abstract

This paper investigates the urban, architectural and spatial mise-en-scène of major western 21st-century science fiction film dystopias portraying urban societies under totalitarian rule. While extensive scholarship exists on architecture, the city and power and similarly on architecture, the city and film, the triad of architecture/city, film and power remains under-researched. This paper therefore concentrates on how power is mediated through built form on screen. It also investigates whether recurring visualizations and meaning(s) of built form concerning power can be observed. Considering key works about the built environment and its relation to power, this study also uses a semiological approach in order to assess the symbolic-metaphorical use of urban, architectural and spatial form. We assume that producers, directors, set-designers, screenwriters on one side and the film audience on the other ‘speak a similar language’ and share cultural codes and symbols. The frequent recurrence of specific urban, architectural and spatial visualizations in science fiction films which mediate specific meanings of power may be proof of a widespread, conscious or subconscious reading of these visualizations and understanding of their meaning(s) with regards to power – meanings which may therefore be deeply rooted in the culture of western societies.