Representations of the flâneur in Anglo-Saxon urban landscaping cinema (1980 – 2005)

Abstract

This work aims to update the attributes of the Benjaminian flâneur, taking into account the aesthetic experience of contemporary urbanism, which is characterised by the consequences of neoliberal urbanistic policies implemented between the second half of the XX century and the present day. The deregulatory measures enforced on urban land have led to the expansion of gentrified downtown lanscapes in every global city and a suburbial periphery occupied by the middle class’ residences. By analizying a compilation of landscaping films produced between 1980 and 2005 - works that fit somewhere between the categories of experimental cinema and documentary film - this article intends to define what effects this new type of architecture has in the psyche of the new “neoliberal” flâneur, the essence of which cannot possibly be the same as that Walter Benjamin defined when he rescued the archetype from Baudelaire about a century ago, since the capitalist invasion of social gathering centres has nowadays reached entirely new heights.