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The Cinema of the Swimming Pool

by Christopher Brown (Volume editor) Pam Hirsch (Volume editor)
©2014 Edited Collection XX, 254 Pages
Series: New Studies in European Cinema, Volume 17

Summary

The swimming pool frequently appears in film not merely as a setting but as a dynamic site where social, political, cultural and aesthetic forces converge. What is it about this space that has so fascinated filmmakers and what kinds of cinematic investigations does it encourage? This collection features essays by an eclectic, international range of film researchers. Amongst the works analysed are classics such as The Cameraman (1928), The Philadelphia Story (1940) and La Piscine (1969); cult hits such as The Swimmer (1968) and Deep End (1970); and more recent representations of the pool in Water Lilies (2007), Sea Point Days (2009) and Ausente (2011). The pool is considered as a realm where artifice meets nature, where public meets private, where sexualities morph and blend; and as a space that reconfigures the relationship between architecture and narrative, in which themes of pollution, spectacle and reflexivity find unique expression. Approaching the swimming pool from a wide range of methodological perspectives, the essays in this collection stake a claim for the enduring significance of this exciting cinematic space.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • About the author(s)/editor(s)
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Contents
  • List of Illustrations
  • Foreword
  • Acknowledgements
  • Introduction: The Cinema of the Swimming Pool
  • 1 The Municipal Plunge: Silent Cinema and the Social Life of Swimming Pools
  • 2 Cinematic Comedy and the Swimming Pool: Gender, Class, Coming of Age and Sexual Identity from The Philadelphia Story (1940) to Legally Blonde (2001)
  • 3 ‘The Anatomy of Atavism’: American Urban Modernity, Gothic Trauma and Haunted Spaces in Cat People (1942)
  • 4 From Stadium to Street: Generations and Gentrification in Berlin Pool Scenes
  • 5 The Artifice of Modernity: Alienation by the Pool Side in the Cinema of Michelangelo Antonioni
  • 6 The Pools of The Swimmer (1968): Exurbia, Topography, Decay
  • 7 Atmosphère d’Eau Sauvage: Reflections on La Piscine (1969)
  • 8 A Dangerous Age: Deep End (1970)
  • 9 Staging Embarrassment in The Last Picture Show (1971) and Morvern Callar (2002)
  • 10 Filming the Splash: David Hockney’s Swimming Pools on Film
  • 11 The Swimming Pool as a Site of Subversion during the Spanish Transition: The Case of Pepito piscina (1978)
  • 12 The Aesthetics of Overflow: Andrei Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia (1983) in Duration
  • 13 Urban Guerilla Playfare, or Skating through Empty Cinematic Pools in Dogtown and Z Boys (2001)
  • 14 Gutta cavat lapidem: The Sonorous Politics of Lucrecia Martel’s Swimming Pools
  • 15 ‘The sea nymphs tested this miracle’: Water Lilies (2007) and the Origin of Coral
  • 16 Swimming in Post-apartheid Cape Town: Sea Point Days (2009)
  • 17 Cartographies of Desire: Swimming Pools and the Queer Gaze
  • Notes on Contributors
  • Index
  • Series Index

| ix →

Illustrations

Where the copyright to reproduce images has been sought and obtained, this is indicated below. In all other cases, images take the form of frame grabs, the use of which, for the purpose of academic criticism and review in this collection, is considered ‘fair dealing’, following current convention.

Chapter 1

1.1 The ‘Municipal Plunge’ in Buster Keaton and Edward Sedgwick’s The Cameraman (MGM, 1928).

1.2 Buster Keaton in The Cameraman (MGM, dir. Edward Sedgwick, 1928).

1.3 Chiswick Lido in the newsreel segment Water Babies (British Pathé, 1929). Copyright: British Pathé Ltd. Permission to reproduce obtained.

1.4 Members of the cast of the musical revue Brighter Blackpool parade for the Topical Budget camera in Aquatic Frolics (1926). Copyright: British Film Institute.

1.5 Victoria Baths, Manchester, in use as a public hall, c. 1910. Copyright: Manchester Libraries. Permission to reproduce obtained.

1.6 Postcard advertising films at the Prince of Wales’ Hall (Kentish Town Baths), October 1906. Courtesy of Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre.

← ix | x →

Chapter 2

2.1 Tracy (Katharine Hepburn) swims and remembers her yar yacht True Love in the pool in The Philadelphia Story (MGM, dir. George Cukor, 1940).

2.2 Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) floats and is eroticized in the pool in The Graduate (Embassy / United Artists, dir. Mike Nichols, 1967).

Chapter 4

4.1 Filming the diving sequence for Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia (1938) in Berlin, 1936. Copyright: International Olympic Committee / Lothar Rubelt. Permission to reproduce obtained.

4.2 Adam (Devid Striesow) and Simon (Sebastian Schipper) at the Badeschiff in Tom Tykwer’s Three (2010). Copyright: X Verleih AG. Permission to reproduce obtained.

Chapter 5

5.1 Roberto (Giorgio Negro) tells Lidia (Jeanne Moreau) not to follow the rich socialites at the Gherardinis’ party in Michelangelo Antonioni’s La Notte (1961 – Nepi Film / Silver Films / Sofitedip).

← x | xi →

Chapter 6

6.1 The empty pool in The Swimmer (Columbia Pictures / Horizon Pictures / Dover Productions, dir. Frank Perry, 1968).

6.2 Ned (Burt Lancaster) struggles to paddle in a cold pool in The Swimmer (Columbia Pictures / Horizon Pictures / Dover Productions, dir. Frank Perry, 1968).

Chapter 7

7.1 Jean-Paul (Alain Delon) lying by the pool in La Piscine (Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie (SNC) / Tritone Cinematografica, dir. Jacques Deray, 1969) and Victor Olgyay diagram. Olgyay, Design With Climate: Bioclimatic Approach to Architectural Regionalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 16.

7.2 The bastide today (left) and the map of the area (on right, the arrow points to the bastide). Map data from Google Earth: Google, TerraMetrics (2014).

7.3 The pool’s panorama, made up of frames over Days 1 to 4, from La Piscine (Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie (SNC) / Tritone Cinematografica, dir. Jacques Deray, 1969).

7.4 Pool and chapel in La Piscine (Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie (SNC) / Tritone Cinematografica, dir. Jacques Deray, 1969).

← xi | xii →

7.5 Long shot versus medium shot in La Piscine (Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie (SNC) / Tritone Cinematografica, dir. Jacques Deray, 1969).

7.6 Harry (Maurice Ronet) contemplates the pond in La Piscine (Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie (SNC) / Tritone Cinematografica, dir. Jacques Deray, 1969).

7.7 Aérolande’s ‘Tore’ stools and armchair (background) and orange Brionvega radio in La Piscine (Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie (SNC) / Tritone Cinematografica, dir. Jacques Deray, 1969).

Chapter 8

These three stills are reproduced here with permission of Maran / COKG / Kettledrum / Paramount / The Kobal Collection.

8.1 Susan (Jane Asher) flirts with Mike (John Moulder-Brown) by the pool in Deep End (Maran Film, Kettledrum Films, Bavaria Film, dir. Jerzy Skolimowski, 1970).

8.2 Mike (John Moulder-Brown) is ‘out of his depth’ with a client (Diana Dors) in the private bathroom in Deep End (Maran Film, Kettledrum Films, Bavaria Film, dir. Jerzy Skolimowski, 1970).

8.3 Susan (Jane Asher) in the empty swimming pool in Deep End (Maran Film, Kettledrum Films, Bavaria Film, dir. Jerzy Skolimowski, 1970).

← xii | xiii →

Chapter 9

9.1 Jacy (Cybill Shepherd) feigns a confidence that she almost certainly does not quite feel. The Last Picture Show (Columbia Pictures/BBS Productions, dir. Peter Bogdanovich, 1971).

Chapter 10

10.1 Hazan compares the canvas with sequences showing the sprays of water formed by a swimmer in A Bigger Splash (Buzzy Enterprises / Circle Associates, dir. Jack Hazan, 1973).

10.2 The tiles that cover the pools walls and floor form a grid, similar to that of Muybridge’s backgrounds in Making A Splash (Media Software International / Mecca Leisure, dir. Peter Greenaway, 1984).

Chapter 11

11.1 The establishing shots of Pepito piscina (Acuarius Films S. A. / EMSE, dir. Luis María Delgado, 1978) situate the swimming pool as the principal enclave where the deals take place.

11.2 Towards the end of Pepito piscina (Acuarius Films S. A. / EMSE, dir. Luis María Delgado, 1978), the swimming pool acts as a place of punishment for the protagonist’s scams.

← xiii | xiv →

Chapter 12

12.1 The flooded interior of Domenico’s house in Nostalghia (Opera Film Produzione / Rai 2 / Sovinfilm, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983).

Chapter 13

13.1 Jay Adams in Dogtown and Z-Boys (Agi Orsi Productions / Vans Off the Wall, dir. Stacy Peralta, 2001).

13.2 Skater in a pool with cypress trees in Dogtown and Z-Boys (Agi Orsi Productions / Vans Off the Wall, dir. Stacy Peralta, 2001).

Chapter 17

17.1 Marco Berger explores the showers and changing rooms of swimming clubs as spaces of intimacy and sexual tension in Ausente (Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales / Oh My Gomez! Films, dir. Marco Berger, 2011).

17.2 Sexual tension and queer voyeurism build around the swimming pool in Sexual Tension: Volatil (Swift Productions / TLA Releasing, dir. Marco Berger and Marcelo Mónaco, 2012).

| xv →

DAVID TROTTER

Details

Pages
XX, 254
Year
2014
ISBN (PDF)
9783035306194
ISBN (ePUB)
9783035398076
ISBN (MOBI)
9783035398069
ISBN (Softcover)
9783034317832
DOI
10.3726/978-3-0353-0619-4
Language
English
Publication date
2014 (July)
Keywords
film architecture reflexivity narrative
Published
Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Wien, 2014. XX, 254 pp., 15 coloured ill., 18 b/w ill.

Biographical notes

Christopher Brown (Volume editor) Pam Hirsch (Volume editor)

Christopher Brown is Lecturer in Filmmaking at the University of Greenwich, where he teaches film and screenwriting. His articles have appeared in publications including Film Criticism and the Quarterly Review of Film & Video, and he has won several awards as a screenwriter. Pam Hirsch is Lecturer in English Literature and Film History and Theory at the University of Cambridge. She is the convenor of the undergraduate course Film, Culture and Identity and teaches on the MPhil in Screen Media and Cultures. Her most recent articles have appeared in publications including Feminist Media Studies and the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television.

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