Detroit

A City Imagined in Film

By: Carmela Cucuzzella, Aristofanis Soulikias

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eText | 22 December 2025 | Edition Number 1

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Detroit: A City Imagined in Film is a survey of prominent feature films depicting or referring to Detroit, and how they have captured and fed popular perceptions about the Motor City. Detroit, a magnifying glass, through which one sees an exaggerated portrait of America, has rendered itself to the eye of the cinematographic camera for over a century as background, stage, and even character.

Guided by Henri Lefebvre's The Production of Space, the authors analyse an array of fiction films filmed and/or set in Detroit from 1928 until today and examine filmic practice as one through which the city has been perceived, conceived, and lived, and thus continually reproduced, socially and materially. The book thus sheds light on how the imaginary around a city can shape or reinforce perceptions that affect it in return, making the reading informative about the tangible power of cinema, the cinematic nature of the city, and ultimately the common threads that weave the story of Detroit.

The book is for film lovers, students and enthusiasts of Film Studies, Architecture, and Urban Studies, and all those who are interested in Detroit, its history, places, and culture.