Seriousness Of Cinematic Scenic Space

The paper examines the relationship and interaction between real space and the imaginary scenic space presented through the medium of feature film. Drawing on two research perspectives – cultural anthropological and filmological - the paper analyzes cinematic scenic space as any socially produced and socially constructed space (Low, 1996) into which meanings are inscribed by its planners, designers and users, as well as by all those who perceive and interpret that space. Cinematic scenic space emerges from real space and reflects it as its heterotopian and utopian image (Foucault, 2017), striving to be convincing and recognizable so that viewers can identify with the imaginary fiction world (Turković, 2012), even when it involves the reconstruction of the past or the prediction of the future. Cinematic scenic space is an affective space (Zanger, 2012) marked by a certain atmospheres, emotions, ideologies and worldviews. Gernot Böhme emphasizes the seriousness of real, lived space in relation to scenic space. The paper discusses Böhme’s thesis through the lens of social memory, a field where real and scenic spaces meet, overlap, and intertwine, creating a bricolage of images and sounds, details and descriptions, practices and rituals, emotions and affects that individuals and communities store in their memory about a particular place. Using examples of specific Croatian cities as film locations, the paper explores the ways in which life is inscribed into cinema and cinematic space, but also how cinematic space is inscribed into life, constructing a hybrid place in social memory composed of different images, both real and fictional. These processes are also involved in the politics of remembering, through which societies and cultures, individuals and communities manipulate social memory, making the art of creating scenic space profoundly serious and far from serene.