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The Cinematic Cairene House and its Context in the Cairo Trilogy.
Abstract
Films produced within the Arab world particularly by Arab filmmakers have always provided scholars not only in the west but also in the Arab region a window into social life and its transformations from tradition to modernity. Film also serves as an important medium for the analysis of Arab domestic space since it pierces an eye into the interior space of the family that is otherwise guarded by silent walls. The paper will examine how spatial and social relationships form and transform over time in Cairo as articulated by director Hasan Al-Imam in the Cairo Trilogy: a film sequel adapted from Naguib Mahfouz’s three novels Palace Walk or Bayn Al-Qasrayn covering the period between 1917-1919; Palace of Desire or Qasr Al-Shuuq covering the period between 1924-1927, and Sugar Street or Al-Sukkariyya covering the period between 1935-1944. Through Al-Imam’s cinematic adaptation the traditions of a middle class Cairene family and the traditional nature and content of the Arab house as articulated by the Trilogy will be investigated. Moreover, I aim to look into the modalities of production through Mahfouz’s eyes, his nationalistic agenda at the time he wrote the novels (1956-1957) and the ways in which this may have augmented the narrative of the home space and its familial associations. My entry into the subject will be through the spaces that accommodate essential activities including sleeping or sexual relations (in most instances the bedroom); eating (in some cases a dinning room in others a living room); entering (as in spaces for guests and outsiders); and other outdoor private spaces (such as the courtyard or the roof). Summarily, the paper will focus on the ways in which Al-Imam’s articulation of Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy, had the capacity to present, construct, or reinvent the image of a Cairene house and it’s family- with a focus on the content of these traditions which included hyper patriarchy, subjugated femininity, the fluctuating traditions of the haptic and its gender dynamics, and the ways in which these cinematic representations articulated the changing physical domestic landscape through sets and décor.
Discipline
Archaeology
Geographic Area
Egypt
Sub Area
19th-21st Centuries