Time, Space, and Capital: Walter Benjamin in Apollinaire's "Zone" and Clair's Paris qui dort
Public Deposited- Last Modified
- February 26, 2019
- Creator
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Clark, Andrew
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Romance Studies
- Abstract
- From the Exposition Universelle of 1889 to the aftermath of the Great War, Paris witnessed the promise and horror of a mechanized future, enduring a fundamental upheaval in the nature of urban experience. Developments in engineering which drove the construction of the Eiffel tower and the first airplanes also brought the machine gun and mustard gas, and production advancements which brought new standards of material well-being expanded consumer culture, promulgated financial speculation, and strengthened means of economic exploitation. Commodification and industrialization permeated deep into the lifeworld by the turn of the century, altering the dynamics of life and thought. While global time became standardized, individual experience was marked by shock, stimulus, and discontinuity. Traditional spatial hierarchies were leveled as well. Spiritually, the Church ceded power in the face of secularization and physically, limits on human elevation were surpassed through aviation, architecture, and film technology. Guillaume Apollinaire’s “Zone”, often held as the quintessential modernist poem, and René Clair’s lesser studied 1924 film Paris qui dort exemplify this transformation in life and thought in early twentieth century Paris. Both works examine the fragmented rhythm of modern life through non-linear, personal temporalities. Images of the old and new world are juxtaposed as Clair and Apollinaire study the dynamics of urbanization in Paris, most notably the formidable presence of the Eiffel tower. This project studies the treatment of urban dynamics in Clair’s film and Apollinaire’s poem through a discussion of the writings of Walter Benjamin, focusing on how Benjamin’s formulations of experience, time in hell, bourgeois life, and utopian dreams can be found in and understood through these two works, ultimately leading to an understanding of the tension between liberation and domination which defines modern development...
- Date of publication
- spring 2018
- Keyword
- DOI
- Resource type
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Advisor
- Rudosky, Christina
- Degree
- Bachelor of Arts
- Academic concentration
- Romance Languages
- Honors level
- Honors
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Graduation year
- 2018
- Language
- English
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