This book examines the dynamic relationship between cinema, the most important cultural form, and the city, the most important form of social organization, since World War Two, in an exciting new way.

Bringing together such disciplines as Film studies, Sociology, Urban Studies and Geography, the book focuses on:

the active role of film production, distribution and exhibition in the physical growth and identity formation of cities worldwide
the integral role of cinema in the contemporary global economy
the relationship between the uneven development of cities and their film cultures
the ways in which different forms of power and resistance, social organization and urban structure may be imagined and articulated in film and its political economy

The case-studies presented range from postmodern cities such as Los Angeles to the colonial and post-colonial. Specific attention is devoted to the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, Africa and Southeast Asia and the Pacific.