From Empire to the World

Investigates London and Paris as 'migrant cities' in contemporary British and French cinema. The study of globalisation in cinema assumes many guises, from the exploration of global cinematic cities to the burgeoning 'world cinema turn' within film studies, which addresses the global nature of film production, exhibition and distribution. In this ambitious new study, Malini Guha draws together these two distinctly different ways of thinking about the cinema, interrogating representations of global London and Paris as migrant cinematic cities, featuring the arrival, settlement and departure of migrant figures from the decline of imperial rule to the global present. Drawing on a range of case studies from contemporary cinema, including the films of Michael Haneke, Claire Denis, Horace Ove and Stephen Frears, Guha also considers their world cinema status in light of their reconfiguration of established forms of filmmaking, from modernism to social realism. Features an illuminating analysis of London and Paris in world cinema from the vantage point of migrant mobilities, From Empire to the World explores the ramifications of this historical shift towards the global, one that pertains in equal measure to cityscapes, their representation as world cinema texts, and to the rise of 'world cinema' discourse within film studies itself. Develops innovative conceptual tools for understanding and analysing the depiction of space in the cinema; draws insights from the field of cultural geography in order to produce an interdisciplinary study of migration as featured in film and Offers new ways of thinking about cities in the cinema while also revisiting older images and tropes associated with the urban experience.