THE RUINS OF IDEOLOGY IN CINEMA

Ruins have always held a fascination for the human mind, evoking powerful emotions within us, of
mortality, time and death. Their beauty and power has been discussed throughout the centuries.
"Our glance lingers over the debris of a triumphal arch, a portico, a pyramid, a temple, a palace and we
retreat into ourselves; we contemplate the ravages of time, and in our imagination we scatter the rubble
of the very buildings in which we live over the ground; in that moment silence and solitude prevail
around us, we are the sole survivors of an entire nation that is no more. Such is the first tenet of the
poetics of ruins"
1

Diderot's 'The Salon of 1767' focuses on what is possibly the key feature of scenes of ruin, they have an
unrivalled ability to convey the inevitable passage of time and the temporal nature of human
endeavours.
"The life that you are seeking you will never find. When the gods created man they allotted to him death,
but life they retained in their own keeping"
2

"The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is the mainspring of
human activity- activity designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some
way that it is the final destiny for man"
3

Since humans have been able to comprehend their inevitable death, they have feared it, and this fear
influences much of our lives. We seek immortality, whether through magic, medicine, offspring or the
creation of material artefacts, nearly all human endeavour can be viewed as an attempt to cheat death
and live beyond the span of our own lives. Even religion and politics themselves can be seen as
manifestations of this desire, attempts to give our lives a greater meaning.
The most visible legacy of these endeavours are the physical structures we create. Ruins then can be
seen as the most visible sign of the futility of our quest for immortality, more so even than the deaths of
other mortals, seeing that which we have counted on to be our legacy crumble away.
Georg Simmel discusses the aesthetics as well as the meaning of ruins in his essay of 1911, 'Die Ruine'.
He talks of the interplay of natural and manmade forces, which reach an equilibrium in architecture but
become unbalanced as soon as decay begins to take hold. He considers ruins as works of art created by
the forces of nature itself, their revenge for having been forced to serve the interests of man within
architecture.

1
Dillon, Brian. Ruins. The MIT Press, 2011. Print.
2
Epic of Gilgamesh (Circa 18
th
C BC)
3
Becker, Ernst. The Denial of Death. Free Press, 1973. Print.

The rise of cinema and the quickening pace of societal change in the 20th century allowed filmmakers to
use the powerful imagery of ruins to portray, discuss and predict the collapse of political ideologies.

Albert Speer, chief architect for the National Socialists from 1934, dreamed of creating buildings that
would not only serve the regime but survive as ruins beyond its collapse. His theory of ruin-value
(Ruinenwert) came from discussions in which Hitler expressed his view that, "Ultimately, all that
remained to remind men of the great epochs of history was their monumental architecture", "Periods of
weakness are bound to occur in the history of nations, but at their lowest ebb, their architecture will
speak to them of former power"
4
. Together they envied Mussolini's ability to "point to the buildings of
the Roman Empire as symbolizing the heroic spirit of Rome", they hoped that in the same way, "Our
architectural works should also speak to the conscience of a future Germany centuries from now".Speer
writes that some in the upper echelons of the party thought imagining the third Reich in ruins was
blasphemy. This highlights an interesting juxtaposition in the theory, between the megalomania of
wanting a legacy to survive, even in ruins, and an acceptance of the rise and fall of empires
Speer was not the first to consider such issues, while designing the Bank of England John Soames
requested that his employee and close associate for forty years, Joseph Gandy, paint an aerial
perspective of the Bank in ruins.
5
The image was not made available to the public for several decades
and points towards a private understanding between them of the ultimate futility of their endeavours.
In 1838, the year after Soames death, Gandy exhibited at the Royal Academy exhibition for the last time
before being committed to an asylum until his death. In his first painting an orang-utang builds a
thatched hat, in the second, 'A design for a Cast-Iron Necropolis' imagines a future in which dead
Londoners are inserted in metal cylinders, and slotted into cast-iron catacombs in the shape of giant
pyramids. The art of construction begins as a response to the demands for shelter and protection, it
ends as a vain monument to death.

It would seem that even knowledge of inevitable decay is not enough to stifle the human desire to
outlive death through physical structures. The onset and eventual loss of WW2 meant that Speers
ambitions went largely unrealised, his most lasting architectural legacy is probably his most temporary,
his 'Cathedral of Light' for the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremburg is still an iconic image and an
early example of the creation of space through light. One of the few buildings he completed in
accordance with his principles of ruin-value was the new Reich Chancellery in Berlin.


4
Speer, Albert. Inside the Third Reich. Trans. Richard and Clara Winston. The MacMillan Company, 1970. Print.
5
Woodward , Christopher. " Let there be light" The Guardian., April 2006. Web. 09 May. 2014








In the bombed out remains of the Reich Chancellery two boys are selling a record to foreign troops, one
of them hurriedly loads it onto a gramophone and Hitlers staccato shatters the dim stillness of the
gutted building. As he speaks of his pride and trust in the German people, telling them "Set your hearts
at rest! We will overcome! Victory awaits us in the end!", we see images of the devastated streets of
central Berlin.
This scene from Roberto Rossellini's 'Germany Year Zero'
6
is characteristic of the 'Rubble films'
(Trmmerfilm) of postwar Germany. Using the destroyed remains of Germany as their set, they
attempted to communicate the gritty reality of life amongst the ruins of an occupied and defeated
country. Rosselini was a founder of the Italian Neo-Realist movement and many of the rubble films
demonstrate characteristics of this movement; shooting on location, the use of non-professional actors,
stories set among the poor and working class. The movement was a reaction against the propaganda
films produced by Goebbels and Mussolini, portraying utopian dreams of fascist ideals, and the
imported escapism that had followed their defeat. Partly a result of this same reaction, the Rubble films
also carried a strong political message about the terrible crimes of Fascism. Characters are not only
struggling to survive but also to come to terms with the events of Germanys recent past, the shattered
structures that surround them reflect their state of mind.
In Murderers Among Us
7
every character carries some pain, burden or guilt from the war, the only
exception being the war criminal Captain Ferdinand Bruckner. Dr Hans Merten is the most troubled, he
begins the film as an anguished recluse, living in a half derelict building. Susanna Wallner's arrival and
their growing affection for one another comforts him and we see fewer images of ruin and signs of a
return to normal life. When he discovers that his captain from the war, whose crimes he bears the guilt
for, is alive and posing as an upstanding member of society, his emotional turmoil returns and along
with it the imagery of ruin. In his first attempt to assassinate Captain Bruckner, he leads him deep into
the ruined city. Bruckners uncaring remarks about the state of the city further emphasise his

6
Germany Year Zero. Dir . Robert Rossolini. McMillan Films Inc., 1948. Film
7
Murderers Among Us (Die Morder sind unter uns). Dir . Wolfgang Staudte. Deutsche Film (DEFA), 1946. Film


Marble Gallery of the New Reich Chancellery (1939) The same view in 'Germany Year Zero' (1948)
Dr Merten leads Bruckner into the ruins in
'Murderers among us' (1946)
unforgivable lack of remorse and denial of responsibility, in
stark contrast to Mertens all-consuming guilt. This guilt is
portrayed as an admirable quality
Many of the films of this genre, and particularly those in
which these themes of remorse and guilt is most evident
were funded by the DEFA, the state owned film studio of
East Germany. The ruins that Hitler and Speer had intended
to inspire German pride centuries later were instead
symbols of guilt after less than a decade.

The actions of the various occupying forces in Germany in terms of the supply of film to the populace in
their sectors is a revealing glimpse of their various political and historical attitudes. While DEFA'S
productions reinforced the horrors of Fascism, forcing Germans to face their recent past, the Western
occupied sectors screened escapist Hollywood films. Goebbels fascist dream was being replaced by the
American one, and a healthy desire for American films and goods being established amongst European
consumers.
Eldar Shengelaia was a key figure in the Georgian Independence movement and a member of the
Georgian Parliament from 1990 to 2004. Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union he was a
Communist party member and part of the Georgian SSR Supreme Soviet, during this period of his life he
made a number of films. His skilled use of satire allowed him to make criticisms of the Communist
system with a minimum of disapproval, and even some degree of positive recognition from the state.
The last film he made before the collapse of the Soviet Union, 'Blue Mountains or Unbelievable Story'
8
is
the tale of young writer Soso's attempt to have his novel published by the state controlled publishing
house. Set entirely within their offices in an aging building which symbolises the inefficiencies and decay
of the system, its dramatic collapse at the end foreshadowing that of the USSR.
The poor state of the structure is evident from the very first scene, in which Vaso is greeted on his
arrival at the office by chunks of plaster from the ceiling scattered across his desk. His constant attempts
to remove the huge and precariously mounted painting from above his desk result in frustration and
anger against being forbidden from taking action himself and unable to acquire the correct forms and
signatories to process its official removal. Although this and other incidents in the film are repeated to
comic effect their message on the inefficiencies of the bureaucratic system is clear.
Throughout the film we see further of material decay, deep cracks in the concrete walls and broken
windows. In scenes on the steps at the rear entrance of the building the noise of the boiler threatens to
drown out conversation and bursts of steam erupt out of vents, forcing the characters to shout at one

8
Blue Mountains or Unbelievable Story (Tsisperi mtebi anu daujerebeli ambavi) . Dir . Eldar Shengelaia. RUSCICO, 1983. Film

The collapsing building at the end of
'Blue Mountains' (1983)
another in order to be heard. On one such occasion Soso is asked upon his return into the building "Why
are you yelling? You're not in the forest". After the discussion in which the Motoball associations use of
motorbikes on the open ground across the street is blamed for cracks in the building, the director
reveals that they are no longer receiving money for major repairs due to a "breakdown in the deficit"
and remarks that, "No one's going to lift a finger until the ceiling falls down on us".
At the end of the film this is exactly what happens,
during a conference in the main hall a large crack opens
up in the wall behind the painting that Vaso has finally
managed to have relocated. As it drops from the wall
Vaso is crushed beneath it. Minutes later the entire
building begins to collapse, the staff and hangers-on
vacate the building rapidly, some with evident pleasure.
In the final scene we see the characters enter their new
office, a typically utilitarian soviet municipal building in a
similar state of disrepair. This finale predicts the
eventual but not imminent collapse of the soviet union
after years of slow decay.
The International Congress of Modernist Architecture dreamt in the first half of the 20th century of
running cities as machines. More than just an aesthetic movement, the organisation always aimed to
effect social and political change through architecture, at CIAM 6 Gropius still spoke of the need to "re-
plan society", asserting that "land is not a commodity, to be traded in shops over counters".
9
Although
ideologies varied with time and between its members, socialist ideals of communalism, efficiency and
equality run throughout their work, but alongside there is often a patriarchal sense of control and a
tendency to simplify the complexities of human existence to algorithms.
By the 70's this dream had largely faded, across the world buildings and areas built in the mould of
modernism were failing. In Terence Davies quasi-documentary 'Of Time and the City', about the
Liverpool he grew up in, some of the shortcomings of the modernist movement are explored and
perhaps exaggerated through his nostalgic visions of a changing city.
We see footage of the old terraces being demolished and burnt and the land they occupied stripped
back to the naked soil, then sweeping panoramas of the new estates. A ladies voice sings, "and when the
kids grow up and leave us we'll sit and stare at that same old view" and the severity of the break with
the familiar landscape of the past becomes brutally obvious. The new buildings seem grotesquely large
in comparison with the old, and alien to the city that the film has introduced us to. Views of elderly
women, bored and isolated on their new balconies, force comparisons with earlier scenes of women
chatting together on the steps of the terraces. The loss of community and dehumanising effect of the
uniformity that has been imposed is evident.

9
Mumford, Eric. The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism, 1928-1960. The MIT Press, 2002. Print.
No sooner have we seen the new estates rise from the ashes of the old city, than they have become
derelict. Lone figures walk quickly through deserted open spaces, vandalism and graffiti scars
everything, abandoned buildings open to the elements are filled with litter. Terence observes that
municipal architecture is "Dispiriting at the best of times, but when combined with the British genius for
creating the dismal, makes for a cityscape which is anything but Elysian".
While 'Of Time and the City' is tinged with nostalgia it is not overly judgmental of the changes occurring
in the city. Images of the abandoned and decaying dockyards are treated in the same manner as those
of the derelict modernist housing. Human nature is shown as unchanging while the city it inhabits
morphs from one form to another. The ruins in the film seem as much as fragments of a lost past as they
are fragments of unrealised futures.
Despite funding from the Ministry for Culture of Russia, Ilya Khrzhanovskiy's '4'
10
was initially banned on
its release in 2005 for "dirty language and inclusion of disgusting scenes". In the official government
newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta the same ministry condemned the film, saying "Out of decency and
respect for their country, no English or American producer would release such a film".
11

Whether a bureaucratic mistake reminiscent of those in Shengelaias work, genuine offense at the films
content or something more calculated, the ban was redacted in the same year. It seems likely that it will
have been beneficial to the films exposure, in Russia and internationally.
In the first scene a group of stray dogs scatter as construction machinery begins to demolish the road
surface, we are then introduced to three characters at their places of work, a prostitute, a meat packer
and a piano tuner. By co-incidence all three meet at a bar and have a long conversation during which
they all invent alternative versions of their lives. The key turning point in the film comes the next day
when the prostitute, Marina, sets of on a long journey back to the village she was born in. The journey
takes her through a desolate misty landscape of post-industrial wastelands and uninhabited half-ruined
villages. When she arrives in her own village it is also in a state of irreversible decay.
Ilya Khrzhanovskiy has said repeatedly that the film "has nothing to do with my vision of Russia. It is too
easy and too false to treat it as a parable about contemporary Russia, to relegate all the unease to a
vast, mad, distant country in the grip of yet another catastrophe. The truth is that it says as much about
America, Egypt or Australia as it does about Russia"
12

Beyond its language, the film certainly doesn't seem specific to Russia, the city and the bar in which the
three protagonists meet could be anywhere in the developed world. Looking more specifically at the
ruins, the abandoned village could be in any country experiencing rapid urban migration, while the relics
of previous industries scatter landscapes throughout the industrialised world.

10
4. Dir . Ilya Khrzhanovskiy. Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual (ICA), 2005. Film
11
Glatter , Pete. " Everything is not what it seems" Socialist Review., Sep 2005. Web. 12 May. 2014
12
Tumarkin , Maria + Justin Clemens. "Khrzhanovsky Is Not a Dirty Word." New Matilda. Cordell Media Pty Ltd., 19 Oct 2005.
Web. 14 May. 2014
In Requiem for Detroit
13
Julian Temple returns to a more political interpretation of ruin, he uses imagery
of the collapsing and decayed remains of the once thriving city as a message on the failing of various
American policies, of free-market capitalism and even a harbinger to the total collapse of
industrialisation. In the introduction the story of Detroit's decline is described as a "a darkly cautionary
tale for the entire industrial world", and it is claimed that amongst its ruins lies "the first pioneers map to
the post-industrial future".
The story is one of the birth of mass production and consumerism in a city controlled and planned by
the car manufacturers which formed its only industry. Policies of racial segregation, city planning and
economics are all criticised through images of the city they created in ruin.
Desolate landscapes stained or flooded by oil are punctuated only by the remains of structures and the
bright flames and black smoke of burning wells.
14
As these images slide across the screen, a
monotonous voice reads passages from the book of revelations to a background of haunting Wagnerian
music.
Although the footage shows the aftermath of the Iraqi destruction of Kuwaiti oilfields during the first
gulf war, it is deliberately dissociated from geographic or historical references. The effect is alienating,
as Herzog puts it, "the film has not a single frame that can be recognised as our planet, and yet we know
it must have been shot here".
The ubiquity of the ruins in 'Lessons of Darkness' is more total than in Khrzhanovskiy's '4', but both films
achieve a similar effect by looking at ruined structures without implicating any particular ideology for
their downfall . By depriving the viewer of an easily understandable cause for their destruction we are
forced to look beyond placing blame at the feet of one group of people or set of ideas.
As the competing ideologies of the 20th century have, one after another, collapsed into ruin,
globalisation leads us toward an increasingly homogonous world. Perhaps cinema is starting to return to
a purer consideration of images of ruin, rather than manipulating the emotions it evokes to deliver
criticism of a particular ideology, we should examine the traits of human nature that lead to the
eventual collapse of all civilisations and systems. If human actions are driven by our desire to cheat
death, then ruin is an inevitable result of those endeavours. Is this what makes ruins so evocative, the
simultaneous effect of reminding us of our mortality while also demonstrating the futility of attempting
to overcome it?



13
Requiem for Detroit. Dir . Julien Temple. BBC, 2010. Film

14
Lessons of Darkness. Dir . Werner Herzog. Werner Herzog Filmproduktion, 1992. Film

Bibliography
Films
Germany Year Zero. Dir . Robert Rossolini. McMillan Films Inc., 1948. Film
Murderers Among Us (Die Morder sind unter uns). Dir . Wolfgang Staudte. Deutsche Film (DEFA), 1946.
Film
Blue Mountains or Unbelievable Story (Tsisperi mtebi anu daujerebeli ambavi) . Dir . Eldar Shengelaia.
RUSCICO, 1983. Film
Of Time and the City. Dir . Terence Davies. Hurricane Films, 2008. Film
4. Dir . Ilya Khrzhanovskiy. Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual (ICA), 2005. Film
Requiem for Detroit. Dir . Julien Temple. BBC, 2010. Film
Lessons of Darkness. Dir . Werner Herzog. Werner Herzog Filmproduktion, 1992. Film

Articles
Tumarkin , Maria + Justin Clemens. "Khrzhanovsky Is Not a Dirty Word." New Matilda. Cordell Media
Pty Ltd., 19 Oct 2005. Web. 14 May. 2014
Glatter , Pete. " Everything is not what it seems" Socialist Review., Sep 2005. Web. 12 May. 2014
Woodward , Christopher. " Let there be light" The Guardian., April 2006. Web. 09 May. 2014
Moore , Calvin Conzelus + John B. Williamson. "The universal fear of death and the cultural
response" New Matilda. Cordell Media Pty Ltd., 19 Oct 2005. Web. 14 May. 2014

Books
Speer, Albert. Inside the Third Reich. Trans. Richard and Clara Winston. The MacMillan Company, 1970.
Print.
Dillon, Brian. Ruins. The MIT Press, 2011. Print.
Mumford, Eric. The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism, 1928-1960. The MIT Press, 2002. Print.
Becker, Ernst. The Denial of Death. Free Press, 1973. Print.
Epic of Gilgamesh (Circa 18
th
C BC)