'Chain' -- A New Film About Sprawl

Jem Cohen's movie "Chain" demonstrates the bland, alienating anonymity of contemporary privatized urban landscapes.

1 minute read

January 26, 2005, 2:00 PM PST

When filmmaker Jem Cohen realized that he "could travel anywhere in the world and shoot footage that you couldn't identify in terms of where it came from" he decided to make a movie that explored the "superlandscape" of shopping malls, parking lots and freeways. "The full power of...Chain doesn't hit until the closing credits, which reveal that the movie's anonymous landscape of chain stores and highway interchanges was shot in seven countries and 11 American states...Cohen has become an archivist of public space at a time when much of that space has been colonised - and de-historicised - by corporations and transient consumer desires."

Thanks to Michael Dudley

FULL STORY: All the world's a car park

Tuesday, January 25, 2005 in The Guardian Unlimited

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