| Summary: | My doctoral thesis conducts an analysis of post-imperial Paris and London, as represented in the cinema. More specifically, this study develops a narrative of the intimate connection between the cinema and the city that parts ways from the founding story of the filmic city, which revolves around the birth of the modern metropolis and mobilities of the flâneur. This thesis engages in the exploration of the largely untold story of the relationship between empire and the cinematic city in Michael Haneke’s Code inconnu (2000) and Caché (2005), Claire Denis’ J’ai pas sommeil (1994) Stephen Frears’ Dirty Pretty Things (2002), Michael Winterbottom’s In This World (2002) and Tony Gatlif’s Exils (2004). This study investigates the lingering traces of imperial histories, spatialities, narratives and figures that can be located in more contemporary cinema. The first chapter of the dissertation entitled ‘Post-Imperial Paris’ is divided into two sections. The first investigates the construction of ‘post-imperial topographies’ in J’ai pas sommeil and Code inconnu, while the second posits dwelling spaces and their interiors as a form of city space specifically in relation to Caché. The second chapter, called ‘Post-Imperial London’, situates Dirty Pretty Things within a wider historical continuum of ‘migrant London’. This film is examined in relation to filmic depictions of Caribbean migration and settlement, in order to ascertain the way in which an older historical imaginary of the cinematic London can be detected in Dirty Pretty Things but also some of the salient differences between this film and its predecessors as related to the representation of space and place. The final chapter, titled ‘On the Road: The Journey to the City Narrative’ posits another narrative of the cinematic city concerning the depiction of migrant journeys to the city as represented in In This World and Exils.
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