1st Edition

Cinematic Cartography Scale, Analysis, Topography

By Chris Lukinbeal Copyright 2025
    256 Pages 76 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This book uniquely bridges the conceptual gap between the history of geographic, cartographic thought and film theory with the technological and cultural shifts that shaped the emergence of cameras and cinema.

    Adorned with illustrative figures, examples and case studies throughout, the book explores how cinema lends itself to cartography and, in turn, how cartography relates to both individual and collective experience of cinema. By using cartography to understand space and scale in film, the book moves away from textual analysis or the analysis of representation to focus on the locational attribution of the sites where the cinematic landscape is being produced. It contends that viewers of moving images are active players in a complex network of cultural and mental geographies.

    This volume is essential reading for students, scholars and academics of cinematography, human, cultural and social geography, cartography and media studies, as well as those with an interest in these areas more generally.

    1. Cinematic Cartography

    Introduction

    Current Trends in Cinematic Cartography

    Forthcoming Book Attractions

     

    2. The Gaze from Above and Below

                Introduction

                Cartographic Paradox

                Cartographic Anxiety

                Geography, Chorology, Topography

                Perspectivalism

                Projectionism

                The God’s Eye Trick

                Dangerous Scopic Regimes and the Paradox of Vision

                From Animated Photography to Narrative Cinema

                Montage and Bricolage

                Mobilizing the Cartographic Paradox

                Conclusion

     

    3. Scale

                Scalar Debates

                Etymology of Scale

                Scale as Mentifact

                Scale as Sociofact

                Metrum

                Treaty of the Metre

                Conclusion

     

    4. Cartographic Scale

                Introduction

                Representative and Expressive Analogy

                Grid as Skin

                Removal of the Viewing Subject

                Scale as Disembodiment

                Scale as Dissociation and Alienation

                Difference as Separation/Difference as Multiplicity

                Conclusion

     

    5. Cinematic Scale

                Introduction

                Cinematic Scale

                Long Shot

                Close Up

                Cinema’s Shock Effect

                The Mise en Abyme

                Conclusion

     

    6. Topographic Cinema of Hombre

                Introduction

                Cinema as Topography

                Topographical Image Facts

                Topography of Hombre the Novel

                Topography of Hombre the Film

                Hombre the Topographer

                The Topographies of Race

                Conclusion

     

    7. Chorological Cinema of San Diego

                Introduction

                Cinematic Chorology as Incorporation or Work

                            Case Study of a Television Show

                            Case Study in Cinematic Land Use Mapping

                            Conclusions

     

    8. Geographic Cinema of 500 Days of Summer

                Introduction

                Touring the Architectonics of Cinematic Space

                Film Production Data

                Cartographic Ground Truthing

                Cinematic Ground Truthing

                Indexing Spatially, Temporally, and via Media

                Indexing Cinema Socially and Spatially

                Mapping 500 Days of Summer

                A Geovisualization of 500 Days of Summer

                Conclusion

     

    9. Geospatial Cinema of Old Tucson Studios

                Introduction

                Colombia Pictures Art Department’s Map

                3d Precision Geospatial Modelling

                The 1995 Fire and Mapping the Aftermath

                Putting Motion Pictures in their “Place”

                Conclusion

     

    10. Conclusion

                Conclusion

     

    References

    Biography

    Chris Lukinbeal is a Professor of the School of Geography Development and Environment and founding Director of Geographic Information Systems Technology Programs at the University of Arizona, USA.