With its rich political and literary history, Dublin is a sought after destination for cinematographers who have made use of the city’s urban streetscapes and lush pastoral settings in many memorable films—among them Braveheart, The Italian Job, and the 2006 musical drama Once. World Film Locations: Dublin offers an engaging look at the many incarnations of the city onscreen through fifty synopses of the key scenes—either shot or set in Dublin—accompanied by a generous selection of full-color film stills.

 

Throughout the book, a series of essays by leading film scholars spotlight familiar actors, producers, and directors as well as some of the themes common to films shot in Dublin, including literature, politics, the city’s thriving music scene, and its long history of organized crime. Also included is a look at the representations of Dublin before, during, and after the Celtic Tiger era. Sophisticated yet accessible, this volume will undoubtedly take its place on the shelves of film buffs and those interested in Irish culture.

Outside of the capital London, no other British city has attracted more filmmakers than Liverpool. Sometimes standing in for London, New York, Chicago, Paris, Rome, or Moscow, and sometimes playing itself—or a version of its own past in Beatles biopics—Liverpool is an adaptable filmic backdrop that has attracted filmmakers to its ports for decades. A place of passion, humor, and pride, Liverpool evokes caverns and cathedrals, ferries and football grounds; it is a city so vivid we see it clearly even if we’ve never been there. From the earliest makers of moving images—among them the Mitchell & Kenyon film company, the Lumière brothers, and pioneering early cinematographer Claude Friese-Greene—who preserved the city, the river, the docks, the streets, and the people, Liverpool has endured as a cinematic destination. This collection celebrates that survival instinct and will be welcomed by enthusiasts of British cities, films, and culture.

Though the creative community of Reykjavík, Iceland, has earned a well-deserved reputation for its unique artistic output—most notably the popular music that has emerged from the city since the 1980s—Reykjavík’s filmmakers have received less attention than they merit. World Film Locations: Reykjavík corrects this imbalance, shedding new light on the role of cinema in a country that, partly because of its small population, produces more films per capita than any other in the world.

 

The contributors to this volume trace cinema in Iceland from the 1979 establishment of the Icelandic Film Fund—before which the country’s film industry barely existed—through today. In a series of illuminating scene reviews, they show how rapidly the city has changed over the past thirty years. In thematic spotlight articles, they go on to explore such topics as the relationship between Iceland and its capital city; youth culture and night life; the relationship between film and the local music community; cinematic representations of Scandinavian crime; and filmmakers’ response to the 2008 banking crisis. Together, these varied contributions show how films shot in Reykjavík have been shaped both by Iceland’s remoteness from the rest of the world and by Icelandic filmmakers’ sense that the city remains forever on the brink of desolate and harsh wilderness.