Futures past and present: history, architecture and dystopia in Brazil (1985) and the Hunger Games series (2012-15)

ABSTRACT

This article examines the temporality of recent science fiction films, specifically the ways in which architectural histories are used to imagine and characterise dystopias of the future. Drawing on the writing of Fredric Jameson and particularly on François Hartog’s analysis of ‘presentism’ in historical discourse, the article proposes that the dystopias shown in many recent science fiction films provide visions of the future which have been decoupled from modernist notions of historical progress. This argument is developed through analysis of the built environments of Brazil (1985) and the Hunger Games series (2012–15). In the former, historicising and modernist architecture are combined to create a dysfunctional, highly bureaucratic dystopia from which escape is impossible. In the latter films, monumental classical forms are the dominant architectural element in a dystopia marked by excessive state violence and surveillance. The postmodern housing project Les Espaces d’Abraxas, designed by Ricardo Bofill, features in both Brazil and the final Hunger Games film, providing common ground for their repudiation of utopian modernist design. The strong presence of architectures from the past in science fiction films is thus more than pastiche; instead, it establishes a temporality in which aspects of the past continue to haunt and encroach on present-day notions of the future.

KEYWORDS:

• Science fiction
• architecture
• dystopia
• temporality
• presentism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The terms ‘historicising’ and ‘classicising’ are used to refer to the imitation or recreation of historical and classical styles. For more on the link between architectural style and meaning in science fiction films, see Kiessel and Stubbs (2022) and Kiessel and Stubbs (2023).

2. As James Tweedie notes, the predominance of CGI in modern films represents a further convergence of architecture and cinema, with the same computational design tools being used to create both digital effects and architectural projections (2021, np).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jonathan Stubbs

Jonathan Stubbs is a Professor in the Faculty of Communication at Cyprus International University, North Cyprus. His research focusses on the representation of history in film, British film policy, the economic and cultural relationship between Hollywood and the British film industry. He is the author of Hollywood and the Invention of England: Projecting the English Past in American Cinema, 1930–2017 (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019) and Historical Film: A Critical Introduction (Bloomsbury Academic, 2013). His work has also appeared in various journals, including The Historical Journal of Film and Television, The Journal of British Cinema, The International Journal of Cultural Policy and The Journal of Commonwealth and Imperial History.

Marko Kiessel

Marko Kiessel studied Classical Archaeology, Art History and History at the universities of Trier, Köln and Bologna. After graduating with a PhD in Classical Archaeology from the University of Trier in 2005 he conducted a research project as affiliated university scholar for an international exhibition on Constantine I. He has been working as architectural and art historian in academic institutions in North Cyprus since 2006. Publications about Greek and Roman architecture and ceramics, and on the vernacular, modern and contemporary architecture of Cyprus are the result of his studies and projects. He has been leading a research project about an ancient rural site in the Karpas peninsula in Cyprus since 2016. His interest in the intersection of architecture and film dates back to the design of a postgraduate architectural course in 2013. In 2018 he joined Arkin University of Creative Arts & Design.