No sense of place

Places in American movies are mostly exchangeable.
There is very little local colour in them, so to speak.
Most stories could take place somewhere else just as well.
Cities and landscapes are 'background',
'locations', that are found by the 'location manager'.
They are no longer heroes,
like Monument Valley was in John Ford's westerns.
Of course, there are a few glorious examples that prove the opposite,
but there are no rules without their exceptions.
The exception only confirms the rule.
FARGO for instance, doesn't carry the name of a place
by coincidence.
Its story is deeply entrenched in local colour.
But let's not examine the exceptions,
lets look at the rule.

In my book,
The loss of place is a lost quality in movies.
It comes with a loss of reality,
a loss of identity.
Maybe it is a European distinction
to have more of a sense of place.
Of course: There are more borders,
more languages, more national identities.

Jeg googlet tilfeldig rundt, da jeg fant et foredrag av Wim Wenders om Der Himmel Über Berlin, og stedsfornemmelsen i hans film.

Jeg kommer til å tenke på Øyvind Rimbereids diktning. Mennesker gjennom steder og omvendt. Opplevelsen av sted og historie som en del av det poetiske arbeidet (som R snakket om på Opera fornylig). Selv om jeg har likt å forestille meg selv som postgeografisk, så må jeg innrømme at denne typen verk gir mer og mer mening for meg.