Aristotelis-

you should also check out Ming Liang-Tsai's works, especially "The Hole"
and "Good Bye, Dragon Inn". oh, and "The River".
in a similar vein of what was here said about horror films, in Tsai's
work, the nature of how the architecture is cinematically presented
informs the viewer about the protagonists' inner states. there is even a
substituion going on- the acting is minimal, bleak, detached and
elliptic, even spanning between different movies, many of which use the
same "sets", i.e. the main protagonist's home. The architecture is
infused with what the characters lack. no understanding of their motives
and actions is possible without taking into account their carefully
selected surroundings, which bind action, people, and atmosphere into a
frayed whole.
imho, in a sense, Tsai tackles and implicitly deconstructs the question
of, oh boy!- meaning in film, and also in architecture. you inevitably
must have stumbled upon theories of semiotics in architecture- film
theory is infused with that, too. both film and architecture have real
and pressing difficulties in adapting to linguistic and, more generally,
semiotic thinking. one of the reasons for that is the apparent
impossibility of modelling the linguistic/semiotic signifier/signified
relationship on architectural/cinematic entities that are
quintessentially vague in what "meaning" they evoke. a word is a word
meaning something in a given language via its difference compared to
other possible words. the absence of the other informs the present.
Derrida goes further than that and describes to possibility of a
Translation as what makes the Original original in the first place.
similarily, in Tsai's work, the assumed absence of devices such as plot,
even dialogue,; the reduction of stylistic means resulting in 10 minutes
long, or even longer, static shots; all of these things open up a
universe of endless possibility that questions any understanding of
cinema and architecture as a hermetically sealed, teleologically defined
means of entertainment and utilitarian function, respectively.
I believe that the core problem of
assigned/interpreted/reconstructed/deconstructed/permutated meaning in
arch. and film is what strongly binds both together. architecture theory
has an extreme history of dealing with that question; from classic
theory via the beginnings of industrialization via Expressionism via
Modernism via Regionalism via Rationalism via Post-Modernism via
Neo-Modernism via Deconstructivism via Deleuzian Fluidity etc- there is
the constant, nagging question of how to produce adequate meaning in
architecture for a given moment in time. that discourse could be traced
in great detail.
to me, there are a few key moments buried in all of that- when Vidler
self-consciously states that Architecture can now refer only to itself,
and when Derrida postulates that "architecture must have a meaning, it
must present it and, through it, signify."
the symbolical value directs syntax and structure from the *outside*.
at that moment, I feel that Arch. is theoretically a lot closer to film,
all of a sudden, since the need and possibility to be a merely
utilitarian artefact collapses (it did before, of course, but here are
some very strong aftershocks). in the vocabulary of deconstructivist
architecture, there are a myriad devices akin to cinematic devices,
cuts, grafts, oppositions etc. perhaps there are such things not only in
deconstructivism. I believe you could find them elsewhere, too.
how does film really inform architecture? how does architecture inform
philosophy? does it at all? or are they entwined as modes of practice?
the way Derrida sees Philosophy and Architecture as mutually inscribed
Metaphors? The way Venturi loves Contradictions? The way Virilio
perceives technology? The way Eisenmann views History?
I don't know. If I were you, I'd look for singularites- nodes in theory
and practice where an understanding of architecture transcends
established bounds, and intersect these with whatever drives you in film.

best wishes,

Max
fellow architect. student & cinema junky etc. etc.

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