The mobile garden : exploring the space of the garden in selected British films

• Main Author: Brydon, Lavinia Elizabeth
• Published: Queen Mary, University of London 2012
• Subjects: 791.43; Film
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.564465

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the garden as a cinematic space. It centres upon the idea that cinematic spaces accommodate and advance the medium’s peculiar relationship with movement. Previous study of cinema’s spatial specificity, the deployment of geographically identifiable places on film, and the role of space in constructing cinematic meaning has led me to identify an academic bias that considers other spaces, such as the city or the road, as fundamentally cinematic but curiously neglects the garden. My thesis will correct this critical blind spot and, moreover, promote the garden as the most complex of such spaces. It draws on the work of geographers, philosophers, and film scholars engaged with questions of space including, but not limited to, Doreen Massey, Michel Foucault and Giuliana Bruno. I especially build on their assertions that all space is mobile, political and sensorial and apply these insights to the overlooked space of the garden. I frame this research within the context of British film culture, arguing that this national cinema offers exemplary representations of the types of movements that I have chosen to explore, for example, colonialism. A secondary research question thus involves the garden’s role in articulating Britain’s somewhat fragmented national identity. The project takes a range of films as case studies, from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s A Canterbury Tale (1944) to Richard Laxton’s Grow Your Own (2007).