
The city today is as rationalised and regulated as a production process. The images which today determine the day of the city are operative images, control images. Representations of traffic regulation, by car, train or metro, representations determining the height at which mobile phone network transmitters are fixed, and where the holes in the networks are. Images from thermo-cameras to discover heat loss from buildings. And digital models of the city, portrayed with fewer shapes of buildings or roofs than were used in the 19th century when planned industrial cities arose, amongst them the Lille agglomeration. Despite their boulevards, promenades, market places, arcades and churches, these cities are already machines for living and working. I too want to "remake" the city films, but with different images. Limited time and means themselves demand concentration on just a few, archetypal chapters. Fragments, or preliminary studies.

The city today is as rationalised and regulated as a production process. The images which today determine the day of the city are operative images, control images. Representations of traffic regulation, by car, train or metro, representations determining the height at which mobile phone network transmitters are fixed, and where the holes in the networks are. Images from thermo-cameras to discover heat loss from buildings. And digital models of the city, portrayed with fewer shapes of buildings or roofs than were used in the 19th century when planned industrial cities arose, amongst them the Lille agglomeration. Despite their boulevards, promenades, market places, arcades and churches, these cities are already machines for living and working. I too want to "remake" the city films, but with different images. Limited time and means themselves demand concentration on just a few, archetypal chapters. Fragments, or preliminary studies.
2004-09-08
7
6.7Morning reveals New York harbor, the wharves, the Brooklyn Bridge. A ferry boat docks, disgorging its huddled mass. People move briskly along Wall St. or stroll more languorously through a cemetery. Ranks of skyscrapers extrude columns of smoke and steam. In plain view. Or framed, as through a balustrade. A crane promotes the city's upward progress, as an ironworker balances on a high beam. A locomotive in a railway yard prepares to depart, while an arriving ocean liner jostles with attentive tugboats. Fading sunlight is reflected in the waters of the harbor. The imagery is interspersed with quotations from Walt Whitman, who is left unnamed.
6.994-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
7.1When Singapore surrendered to the Japanese in 1942, the Allied POWs, mostly British but including a few Americans, were incarcerated in Changi prison. Among the American prisoners is Cpl. King, a wheeler-dealer who has managed to establish a pretty good life for himself in the camp. King soon forms a friendship with an upper-class British officer who is fascinated with King's enthusiastic approach to life.
6.9An innocent man turns fugitive as he reconstructs events that implicate him for a murder and robbery he did not commit.
6.7During World War II, a young man is called up and, with an increasing sense of foreboding, undertakes his army training ready for D-Day, June 6th, 1944.
6.0A nurse is forced to spring a wounded murder suspect from the hospital when the man’s brother kidnaps his pregnant wife and wants to make a trade.
5.9Friday Foster, a magazine photographer, goes to Los Angeles International airport to photograph the arrival of Blake Tarr, the richest black man in America. Three men attempt to assassinate Tarr. Foster photographs the melee and is plunged into a web of conspiracy involving the murder of her childhood friend, a US senator, and a shadowy plan called "Black Widow".
6.5Three friends discover a mysterious machine that takes pictures 24 hours into the future and conspire to use it for personal gain, until disturbing and dangerous images begin to develop.
6.7Arthur Bishop is a veteran hit man who, owing to his penchant for making his targets' deaths seem like accidents, thinks himself an artist. It's made him very rich, but as he hits middle age, he's so depressed and lonely that he takes on one of his victim's sons, Steve McKenna, as his apprentice. Arthur puts him through a rigorous training period and brings him on several hits. As Steven improves, Arthur worries that he'll discover who killed his father.
6.7Berlin in June of 1940. While Nazi propaganda celebrates the regime’s victory over France, a kitchen-cum-living room in Prenzlauer Berg is filled with grief. Anna and Otto Quangel’s son has been killed at the front. This working class couple had long believed in the ‘Führer’ and followed him willingly, but now they realise that his promises are nothing but lies and deceit. They begin writing postcards as a form of resistance and in a bid to raise awareness: Stop the war machine! Kill Hitler! Putting their lives at risk, they distribute these cards in the entrances of tenement buildings and in stairwells. But the SS and the Gestapo are soon onto them, and even their neighbours pose a threat.
6.6The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
8.0Advertising man Roger Thornhill is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.
6.2A group of friends' fishing boat capsizes off the coast of Mexico and they're left alone stranded at sea and struggling for survival.
6.1A World War II veteran hunts down the Nazi collaborators who killed his wife.
7.3Czechoslovakia, March 1939, on the eve of World War II. As the German invaders occupy Prague, inventor Axel Bomasch manages to flee and reach England; but those who need to put his knowledge at the service of the Nazi war machine, in order to carry out their evil plans of destruction, will stop at nothing to capture him.
7.1Wim Wenders' homage to Lisbon and films. A sound engineer obtains a mysterious postcard from a friend who at the moment is filming a film in Lisbon. He sets out across Europe to find him and help him.
7.8A photographer takes up newsreel shooting to impress a secretary.
6.1The story of a young boy in the Midwest is told simultaneously with a tale about a young girl in New York from fifty years ago as they both seek the same mysterious connection.
6.5When Pippa and Thomas move into their dream apartment, they notice that their windows look directly into the apartment opposite – inviting them to witness the volatile relationship of the attractive couple across the street. But what starts as a simple curiosity turns into full-blown obsession with increasingly dangerous consequences.