The following piece is a continuation of a series, Behind the Frame by Chris Rogers, which analyzes how the built environment has been represented on the big screen. Interiors will post future pieces on INTJournal.com.

Destruction of the built environment has been a feature of moving pictures since the silent days. Buster Keaton integrated real buildings, model work and – famously – collapsing scenic flats to show the impact of a cyclone in Steamboat Bill, Jr. and although later directors have declined to place themselves at the literal centre of such mayhem, all have recognised that, whatever their generation or preferred genre, breaking down an architectural reality must be as convincing as building it up.

Entering the era of colour, the Hollywood epic provided renewed opportunity for ambitious scenes of urban devastation. An entire city burned in Gone with the Wind, driven by civil war but paralleling the tempestuous relationships of the lead characters. Extensive existing sets on a Californian backlot, including one constructed to represent Skull Island in King Kong, were re-fronted and then set ablaze – filmed separately, the conflagrations were merged via optical compositing to increase the sense of spectacle.

The global conflicts that followed are an obvious source of convincing architectural destruction in film. Ken Annakin’s recreation of the D-Day assault on the port of Ouistreham for The Longest Day begins with a single, sustained aerial shot that shadows Allied soldiers charging along the quayside before revealing their objective to be a fortified casino – during the bitter battle that follows one building is blown apart, disintegrating in near real time. Nearby Port-en-Bessin stood in for the town, its own inlet a close match; the ‘casino’ was built there especially for the production and designed to undergo a phased collapse. Use of a helicopter as the camera platform gave a sure sense of the sequence’s geography. Simulating an attack in this way is feasible when the target is a single building but for multiple road and rail bridges subjected to mass aerial bombing an alternative is needed. With The Bridges at Toko-Ri Mark Robson brought the Korean War to cinema audiences through a fictionalised account of an actual US Navy raid on a heavily defended valley. Repeated strikes on the titular structures were executed by flying model aircraft on wires above a realistic terrain model the size of a football field, featuring inch-to-the-foot scale bridges so large a person could walk through their arches and working trains. Set against a mountain backdrop outside Los Angeles for further realism, a helicopter was again used with pyrotechnics providing the explosive destruction.

Peacetime brought its own tensions. Echoing wider societal concerns, the disaster movie of the 1960s and 70s frequently conveyed distrust of authority and distaste at corporate greed as hubristic feats of construction were ravaged in widescreen and Sensurround. For sheer scope Earthquake leads this field, even if its dramatic tropes were already clichés. Mark Robson again peels apart the infrastructure of modern life – here a collapsing row of stilt houses, there a falling freeway overpass – through painstakingly realised miniatures enhanced by subtle photographic effects such as aerial perspective and motion blur.

If demolition on the silver screen has been principally driven by natural or man-made cataclysm, The Medusa Touch draws on both in its story of a misanthrope with telekinetic powers whose flashes of rage have increasingly horrifying effects. To show this director Jack Gold crafted depictions of everyday architecture turned catastrophic that are still disturbing today. The collapse of a crowded cathedral unfolds with implacable logic from the first teetering pinnacle; an airliner crashing into a tower block still shocks even after world events saw that particular nightmare become a reality. Real buildings, miniatures and physical effects were once again combined for these scenes.

Two examples of what Larry Gross called the “big, loud action movie” (‘BLAM’) each feature a key scene in which devastating a building is a plot-specific act. The Nakatomi Corporation in Die Hard is decapitated hierarchically with the murder of its chief executive but an explosion on its rooftop accomplishes the feat literally – large-scale miniatures of Fox Plaza where the film was shot were employed, along with optical compositing. The present is destroyed to save the future in Terminator 2: Judgment Day when an explosion obliterates a semiconductor factory’s contents, foreshadowing an ending that repeats the moment at the micro scale. A false extra floor was added to a genuine technology company’s building in Fremont, California and then detonated for the shot.

As the above have shown, complete destruction of an actual building for a film is seldom necessary and rarely possible. But if reality is the goal and this its ultimate expression, some directors have succeeded.

The Battle of Huế is the setting for the final act of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, as a squad of US Marines is trapped by an enemy sniper. Streets and buildings have been shattered and refashioned, and new pathways lead to death or survival. Enough of the derelict Becton Gas Works in East London echoed the French colonial architecture of the Vietnamese city to make filming there feasible, with set dressing with appropriate signage and advertisements adding another layer of verisimilitude. Already due for demolition, the director and production designer Anton Furst chose certain structures for early attention to further serve the story. For the bravura opening sequence of Demolition Man, in which the hero gains his titular nickname, director Marco Brambilla secured agreement to delay the planned implosion of a former manufacturing plant in Louisville, Kentucky until after dark and exaggerated the modest blasts needed for the job with much gasoline.

The apotheosis of cinematic destruction has an other-worldly origin. In alien invasion satire Mars Attacks! the fictional Galaxy Hotel tower in Las Vegas is sliced vertically by a flying saucer’s ray gun, the halves tumbling to the ground one after the other. The more prosaic truth was that the 31-storey Landmark hotel and casino in that city, a suitably space-age design from 1969, was being redeveloped and a necessary step in the process was recorded for Tim Burton’s film.

Whether adding narrative meaning or simply enjoyment, demolition in film is seldom a careless act.

Chris Rogers writes, speaks and creates tours about architecture and other aspects of visual culture. He has written three books, including How to Read London – A crash course in London architecture (Ivy Press, 2017), a publisher's best-seller. His work and thoughts on architecture, film, art, design and television can be found at www.chrismrogers.net

Think Pieces

Beyond the Frame #15: Blow-up

Interiors