Abstract:
This thesis explores the representation of Swinging London in three examples of
1960s British cinema: Blowup (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966), Smashing Time
(Desmond Davis, 1967) and Performance (Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, 1970). It
suggests that the films chronologically signify the evolution, commodification and
dissolution of the Swinging London era. The thesis explores how the concept of
Swinging London is both critiqued and perpetuated in each film through the use of visual
tropes: the reconstruction of London as a cinematic space; the Pop photographer; the
dolly; representations of music performance and fashion; the appropriation of signs and
symbols associated with the visual culture of Swinging London. Using fashion, music
performance, consumerism and cultural symbolism as visual narratives, each film also
explores the construction of youth identity through the representation of manufactured
and mediated images.
Ultimately, these films reinforce Swinging London as a visual economy that
circulates media images as commodities within a system of exchange. With this in view,
the signs and symbols that comprise the visual culture of Swinging London are as central
and significant to the cultural era as their material reality. While they attempt to
destabilize prevailing representations of the era through the reproduction and exchange of
such symbols, Blowup, Smashing Time, and Performance nevertheless contribute to the
nostalgia for Swinging London in larger cultural memory.
