The architecture historian Airat Bagautdinov, one of the founders of the fascinating project Moscow From the Eyes of an Engineer, has joined forces with Moskino to produce a series of online lectures about architecture in film -- specifically, what role architecture has playing in Western and Russian/Soviet films from the very begining to this day.
The talks in Russian will be held from May 13 to 22 at 7 p.m. Moscow time (noon in New York, 5 p.m. in London). The first two lectures are about Western films (May 13 and 15) and the second two are about Russian/Soviet films (May 20 and 22). You can see them in the Live section of the mos-kino.ru site and on the Москино page in Facebook.
Lecture #1: "Metropolis" to "Blade Runner"
The first talk on May 13 looks at works by Fritz Lang, George Lukas, Stanley Kubrick and Ridley Scott. You see some flashbacks to architecture in 1930s "noir" cinema and flashforwards to images of the future.
Lecture #2: From "Ghostbusters" to the "Truman Show"
This talk considers the image of Art Deco and post-modernist architecture in American and British cinema. Friday May 15 at 7 p.m.
Lecture #3: From "Aelita" to the Thaw
The third talk looks at some of the very first films made in the 1920s through the Thaw period of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Bagautdinov will consider the dark and almost demonic images of Moscow in some of the early films as well as the almost dream-like Moscow of private apartments in the post-war period. This talk will be held on May 20 at 7 p.m.
Lecture #4 From "Irony of Fate" to Today
If there was ever a film based on architecture, it's the New Year's classic "Irony of Fate" about the same house, same address, same apartment and even same key to the front door in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The talk will look at the image of the architect as well as architecture in contemporary films. This will be held on May 22, also at 7 p.m.
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