Architecture: Public Places - Movie Review Example

ARCHITECTURE: PUBLIC PLACES (Analysis of a church in the film) ID Number: of (affiliation) Location of University: Professors Name: May 15, 2014 Introduction Architecture and the film medium give us more of a physical reality than any other art forms. These two are total art forms and these made people think that the way to an ideal artistic perfection lies in approaching nearer and nearer to what is euphemistically termed as physical reality. There is a strong link between the creation of films and the development of our built environment, whether imaginary or not, at least in the exploration of volumetric space in time. In both cases, reality is offered to the viewer and it is left to the imagination to fill in the gaps, the key difference being the element of mastery and ascendancy over both versions of reality. The actual experience of an architectural space within that space has many similarities to the viewer’s perception of selected scenes in a film. Films are able to amplify and magnify a specific scene to portray a view as immense, impressive, immortal, towering, or extraordinary; this requires films to create virtual worlds. This paper will investigate and analyse the meanings of the relationship between a conventional historical understanding of the Saint-Sulpice Church interiors and how that interior is represented in a film in what is called as photographic realism.1 Additionally, the examination will cover the techniques that were used in the film to achieve a rich portrayal of the church’s interiors. The movie that had been chosen to be analysed with a historic public interior is entitled “The Da Vinci Code.” This was a 2003 novel written by author Dan Brown and released as a film in 2006 by director Ron Howard.2 In a scene (00:35:57~ 00:37:50), a person and a nun were seen to be having a conversation inside the Church of Saint-Sulpice. Discussion Starting from the beginning of the church and its architecture, its history indicated that early Christians were using small buildings such as their houses to create a place for worship known as house churches. The house church was mentioned in New Testament as an important religious place to think about as a beginning for its eventual development architecturally. Later on, the Christian society grew in size, wealth, and power and people prayed as a group in their private homes joined together and formally called this as a church (Norris, 1993, p. 62). The word “church” came from a Greek term ekklesia which means an “assembly” and also “to call out” (McCallum & DeLashmutt, 2012). Historians discovered the earliest buildings to belong to Christians were at Dura Europos on the Euphrates River in eastern Roman Syria. A certain house that came into Christian possession was renovated in the 240s so two rooms were combined to form the assembly room and another room became a baptistry—the only room adorned with pictures. Use of this secret restructured house was rather short-lived as Dura was destroyed by the Sassanian Persians in 256 (Snyder, 2003, p. 128) as shown in Figure 1. The architectural styles of great church buildings followed the prevailing building styles in consonance with the time period in history and there various revivals of these styles in the late 18th to early 20th century and then followed by the Modern style in conformity with the modern times. Based on research, St. Sulpice architecture showed influences of the Romanesque and Baroque styles. The abbots of Saint-Germain founded a small parish church for their labourers and dedicated it to St. Sulpicius, bishop of Bourges in 621 (www.travelfranceonline.com, 2014, para. 12). It was enlarged and transformed over the next three centuries and was torn down in 1634. The construction work of the present Saint Sulpice Church started in 1646. It was completed only in 1732 due to the lack of funds. Saint Sulpice Church has unique dimensions .Its architecture reflects 140 years of on-off work under the direction of the most prestigious architects of the time (ibid.). Thus, its gallery shows how the church had influenced the culture and society during this period. Saint Sulpice looks like a Romanesque church with very solid Corinthian-topped pilasters and what looks like to be a barrel-vaulted ceiling; the pretty ceiling consisted of Roman groin vaults built on a catenary curve rather than a circle, allowing for very large windows (please see Figure 2). A catenary curve is the shape a cable or chain takes when hanging freely on its own weight and supported only at both ends. The ledge circles the nave at the top of the columns and merits notice to the length of the building. While the decorations were in Baroque style, there is evidence in Saint Sulpice church of the Baroque style of architecture. For example, the baroque interiors of the Lady Chapel (as rebuilt by Servandoni in 1729) are evident after the chapel was badly damaged by a fire (please refer to Figure 3). Because filming is not allowed inside a Catholic church, Rainmaker UK created precise wire-framed and textured CGI (computer-generated imagery) models of Saint Sulpice. Director Ron Howard employed a wide range of subtle visual effects in the film, showing the various houses (which also included The Senate, Brainstorm Digital and Double Negative) through to bring these to life without overly focusing on any of the CGI sequences used to support the films narrative. Analysis will examine the differences of the CGI model and the real Saint Sulpice. People who work in the visual effects speciality profession built a model of Saint Sulpice. The model was scaled down to fit the purpose of the work because the church was too enormous to re-build on the movie set. They planned on a film shoot for columns that were only10-feet high but these were actually 30-feet high in the real church. They built just the first 10 feet and then link into them and connect with the CGI (DiLullo, 2006) as shown in Figure 4. Indeed, the real church is 119 meters long and 57 meters wide with a vault of 33 meters above floor level (www.traveltoeat.com, 2014). The model that they built consisted of about 200 chairs and then they built about four columns on both sides as their reference to where they were in the church. They also built an altar and then another little corner painted and adorned with frescos on the wall. The entire set had a 360-degree green-screen that was about 40-feet high (DiLullo, 2006). They built a half of the church using wood as material and painted it to reflect the real Saint Sulpice environment. The other half of the model was built using CGI (computer- generated imagery) techniques. It is to show the audience how to find an interesting way of making something look completely photo-real (as shown in Figure 5). For the film maker, they set the lens of the camera video to look at what they want the audience see from their perspective within the church, so they could angle that up and get it looking like what they wanted. Also, they set different levels of light to hide some details. The drawing below shows the lighting that was set up in the CGI model. It can be seen clearly that lighting had different brightness and colours. The red line in the drawing indicated to the white light which seemed to be either fluorescent light or the moonlight. Its spot is in different areas inside church that it is not related to light source itself. It seems that the film maker wants to show some parts of the church and give a feeling of the texture. The blue line in the drawing shows the candle light that gives the feeling of warmth in some parts of the surface walls and columns. The other part of the drawing has a deep darkness. The film maker might want to make the audience feel of the place as mysterious as the story of the Da Vinci Code. However the real church has different atmosphere at night. The altar is very bright, especially when contrasted against the muted colors of the lower chapels that were built by the pastor Charles de Pierre in white marble and lights up with a yellow light on balance. Thus visitors who will enter the church at night will see the details and colour in much finer detail. Windows are not able to let moonlight in to enter the place so no white light reflects on wall surfaces to enhance the viewing pleasure of church visitors. Drawing 1: Lighting of the CGI model used on the movie set There are also some details that are missing but instead show other replacements or enhancements. The drawing below showed the spot of those places. The blue lines represent the missing organ. The organ that was located at the west end of the nave is missing in the CGI model. The music organ is an important icon in the church built in the 18th century is one of the worlds largest with 6,588 pipes. The organ was constructed by Aristide Cavaille-Coll (please see Figure.6) as told by Eugene Atget (1857-1927). But the film makers ignored this impressive feature. They light it off and they shot the actors close up so nothing can be seen in the background. The blue dotty circle represents the electronic lights that are missing in the scenes. Also, the green circle represents the candle lamp. They removed the candle lamps in place of electronic lights (Figure7). Indeed, the candle lamps used were actually electronic and do not emit real flames. So what they did was film these candles flaming for hours on end, blowing on them to make the candles appear more to be flickering. Thus, the filmmakers wanted to add new life in addition to their CGI model to make these candles appear very realistic by even showing there is a blowing wind on the top of the flaming candles (DiLullo, 2006). Shown above is the real Saint Sulpice Church during night time (Source: http://www.stsulpice.com/ ). Inside the church to either side of the entrance are the two halves of an enormous shell. These function as holy water fonts and rest on rock-like bases sculpted by Jean-Baptiste Pigalle (Figure 8). The yellow circle in the drawing signifies the holy water that shifts to the centre of the nave in the film scenes. The first shot in the film is a camera extreme close-up above the holy water and the actors head. So the water reflects only part of the mans face and the interior of  Saint Sulpice Church. In shot number three, it can be seen on the background and the holy water contained in a vessel made of wood and is not shaped like a shell like that in the actual church. The last green and yellow circles epitomize the confessional room and the gnomon. The gnomon is an important icon in the film as it implies something very ancient (Gazale, 1999, p. 6). A gnomon is the section of a sundial which casts the shadow. It was built by the clock-maker-astronomer Mr. Henry Sully. You will find a brass line inlaid into the marble floor and on the shaft of an 11-meter high marble obelisk which is topped with a cross. The confessional room is located next to the gnomon (Figure 9). In the CGI model, the scale and the textures were totally false between the confessional room and gnomon. The confessional room is dressed by a red curtain and its look very royal and its lighting more than the gnomon (Figure 10). In reality, the said confessional room has no curtains at all and it is only made from dark wood. Also, the gnomon looks thin and skinny compared to the real one (as shown Figures 9 and 10) which is a marked difference between the real and the film version. Drawing 2: Missing details shown and the places that were changed The last two drawings (numbers 3 and 4) represent some of the camera movements made during the scenes. The drawings illustrated: Shot two, camera shot very distant view and location with an extreme long shot (XLS). Also it moved the dolly in to show the church interiors. This shot represents the feeling of a person who looking inside massive place and magnify it. Shot three cameras shot close ups but moved the dolly out while the actors are moving forward. Shot four camera move is depressed, down and diagonal of movement of the camera from the one at the columns in the church which is also an extreme long shot (XLS). Shot 16: the camera dolly moved out while one person moved forward to the camera until she leaves the place. Then the camera focused on the man to take a long shot (LS) to show the entire subject and location. The section drawing demonstrated: Shot number 5: camera tilted down from the ceiling until it shows the window in the high altar. Shot number 7 : camera tilted up from the ground to show Gnomon. Drawing 3: This diagram shows the camera movements during shooting of the film Drawing 4: Sectional diagram that details the various camera angles Conclusion Film making allows an experience of altered reality perhaps because of changed perceptions. Film allows for a “passage” to another world, transporting the audience to spaces that perhaps make them feel more “real” than anything experienced before because of an altered perception. People are transported to an entirely different world shaped by altered perception that in turn becomes a new reality that relies more on the manipulation of mental, spiritual, and psychological spaces than on actual, physical, and experiential factors. The environment has been altered sufficiently enough for people to feel being transported to an entirely new world. Both forms of art (films and architecture) define the situations of human interactions by which to understand the world better; however, I feel “The Da Vinci Code” film has an unparalleled ability to affect both our emotions and our memories in the same ways that quality architectural spaces do even if they had changed some details in the scenes by using the new technology and camera movement. Architecture has never been just about the walls and columns that make it up, just as a film is more than just montages of images put together on a wide screen for our viewing pleasure. The film shows how architecture can be used for the sublime while at the same time give people that feeling of grandiosity found in massive and intricate religious structures that seemed to reach for the sky as people pray to the heavens to grant their intentions and wishes. Both film and architectural engineering are able to compress or project the concept of space-time in a new specialty known as tectonics from the Greek word “tekton” which means a builder or a carpenter.3 Indeed, a new tectonic mindset now prevails in architecture as spatial ingenuity enhances the effective realization of a space-time compression as shown in the film.4 Reference List Collins, P. (1960). Tectonics. Journal of Architectural Education, 15, 31-33. DiLullo, T. (2006, May 22). Cracking Da Vinci Code’s Crafty VFX. Retrieved May 13, 2014 from http://www.awn.com/vfxworld/cracking-da-vinci-code-s-crafty-vfx Gazale, M. J. (1999). Gnomon: From pharaohs to fractals. Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press. McCallum, D. & DeLashmutt, G. (2012). From the introductory study guide: Understanding ministry. Retrieved May 12, 2014 from http://www.xenos.org/classes/um1-1a.htm Norris, F. W. (1993). Review of L. Michael White “Building Gods house in the Roman world: Architectural adaptation among pagans, Jews, and Christians.” Church History, 62, 101-102. Snyder, G. F. (2003). Ante Pacem: Archaeological evidence of church life before Constantine. Macon, GA, USA: Mercer University Press. Travel France Online (2014, January 23). St.-Sulpice Church – Da Vinci Code – History. Retrieved May 13, 2014 from http://www.travelfranceonline.com/st-sulpice-church-da-vinci-code-history/ Travel to Eat (2013, May 03). Cathedrals and churches: Saint Sulpice, Paris. Retrieved May 13, 2014 from http://traveltoeat.com/saint-sulpice-paris/ Appendix Figure 1. House at Dura used as an early church. Source: www.boundless.com Figure 2. Large church windows because of use of a catenary curve. Source: www. traveltoeat.com   Figure 3. Lady Chapel as designed by Charles de Wailly. Source: www. traveltoeat.com Figure 4. Use of CGI technique to portray large church columns. Source: www.awn.com Figure 5. Photo-realism using CGI techniques.  Source: www.awn.com Figure 6. The church organ. Source: www.stsulpice.com Figure 7.Source: www.commons.wikimedia.org Figure 8. Source: www. traveltoeat.com Figure 9. Source: www.en.wikipedia.org Figure 10. Source: The Da Vinci Code film advertising clip Read More