It is difficult to imagine cinema taking place in a vacuum. Without the scene to fill each storyline, we cannot be transported away from our reality to the world of the film we are immersed in. Within Godard’s list of ways to make films, we can add another: cinema as architecture. The interaction between cinema and architecture – “the inherent architecture of cinematic expression and the cinematographic essence of architectural experience” is a complex, often multifaceted dialogue between both disciplines. [2]
Regarding the production of these two distinct “art forms”, the architect Juhani Pallasmaa emphasizes that both are realized with the help of a team of specialists and assistants as a result of collective effort. However, another aspect emerges: both are the arts of the author, the fruit of a creator, an individual artist. Let us turn our attention to this and other moments in which these arts intersect.
Set construction is undoubtedly one of these moments of intersection. Allowing for great control over shooting conditions, sets built in closed studios enable the possibility of getting rid of limitations related to the climate, lighting and eventual setbacks that may occur in shooting in “real” environments. Alfred Hitchcock is an example of a filmmaker who has made extensive use of sets to create spaces of tension and horror in his productions.