Visitors, cosmopolitans and migratory cinematic visions of a superdiverse city

Global London on screen presents a mélange of films by directors from the Global South and North, portraying everyday life to the more fantastical, odious, or extraordinary in terms of circumstances as captured cinematically in this superdiverse city. This book portrays a segment of such superdiversity by historicising and theorising various cinematic reproductions of London by filmmakers coming to this megacity from abroad. As visitors, cosmopolitans, or even migrant filmmakers, their treatment of London's zonal locations as both foreign and familiar is fascinating; their narratives and visualisations of London's spatial and architectural uniqueness is given a sojourners' touch; while other foreign filmmakers showcase and sometimes problematise London's socio-cultural globality and locality as both British and a city open (and sometimes closed off) to the world.

Reviews

'This collection opens up vistas to what is often forgotten or not seen in a global city like London. The contributors reveal deep histories of the different Londons on screen, and their profound knowledge about the subject make this a great read.'
Saskia Sassen, The Robert S. Lind Professor of Sociology, Columbia University

Introduction: Global London on screen: visitors, cosmopolitans and migratory cinematic visions of a superdiverse city - Keith B. Wagner
1 'God is everywhere!': engineering the immigrant landscape of Emeric Pressburger's Miracle in Soho - Jingan MacPherson Young
2 Dropping out: interiority, claustrophobia and decadence in cosmopolitan London cinema of the 1960s and 1970s - Kevin M. Flanagan
3 On location in 1970s London: an interview with Gavrik Losey - Paul Newland
4 Outside in: Twilight City and the birth of global London - Malini Guha
5 'Where I come from, we eat places like this for breakfast': Aki Kaurismäki's I Hired a Contract Killer as transnational representation of local London - Claire Monk
Bollywood's London: the moral-political undertow of London's Hindi cinema presence - Shakuntala Banaji and Rahoul Masrani
7 Brazucas on screen: the Brazilian diaspora in London as depicted in Henrique Goldman's Jean Charles - Stephanie Dennison
8 A critical analysis of the Nollywood film Osuofia in London - Uchenna Onuzulike
9 Poetics of double erasure: British East/South-East Asian cinema and Lilting - Victor Fan
10 Global Hollywood and the London set piece - Lawrence Webb
11 Performative liveness in Lost in London: cinematic streaming and the digital happening in globalising London - Michael A. Unger and Keith B. Wagner
12 Borders and cosmopolitanism in the global city: London River - Ana Virginia López Fuentes
13 Utopia as a cosmopolitan method in Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men - Mónica Martín
Epilogue: The rise of sourdough bread: The Street, gentrification and Brexit - Charlotte Brunsdon
Index

Editors

Keith B. Wagner is a Visiting Lecturer at Sungshin Women's University
Roland-François Lack was a Senior Lecturer in French Studies at University College London