Science Fiction Cinema and the Crime of Social-Spatial Reality
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11061422 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Richard Swope (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2002 |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue | Part 2 |
| Pages | 221-246 |
| Publication date | 2002-07-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Science Fiction Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0091-7729 • E-ISSN: 2327-6207 |
| Publisher | University of California Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1525/sfs.29.2.0221 |
| OpenAlex | W4409354137 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
This article analyzes the recent films Dark City and The Thirteenth Floor (both 1998) as metaphysical detective stories in which the detective protagonist’s investigation of a murder turns into a confrontation with the nature and limits of the spaces he inhabits. Using Henri Lefebvre’s notion that space is a social product, I suggest that both films contribute to an understanding of the production of social space in their exploration of the recent technological “advances” through which late capitalism has sought to extend its reign over space and of the role that virtual spaces have played within the “ideological fantasy” that constitutes our present social (spatial) reality. I conclude that these films ultimately reveal that while “advanced” technologies promise to produce new, liberated spaces, they in fact extend the Enlightenment/capitalist dream of a social space that can be rationally ordered and controlled
Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Movie theater · Sociology · Utopian, Dystopian, and Speculative Fiction
| Citations per year | 0.25 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2022 - 2022 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |