Looking at the Big Picture: Adapting Film Theory to Examine Map Form, Meaning, and Aesthetic

Abstract

Film and maps have much more in common than is often believed. In this paper, it is argued that film offers cartographers many concepts that can be used to better understand map form, aesthetics, and meaning. After reviewing these concepts as taught in film studies and originally formulated by Kenneth Burke, this article explores how these concepts can be applied by cartographers in their map design and by map critics. Several examples of adapting these theories to understand maps are provided. The paper concludes by arguing that cartographers can only benefit by more whole-heartedly embracing and adapting film theory concepts and methods. Doing so will likely result in clearer communication, storytelling, and argumentation, as well as offer a more nuanced method for determining what makes certain maps memorable.

Visual Storytelling with Maps

“…"Spatial narratives," "story maps," and "visual storytelling" are now commonplace terms in the cartographic lexicon, often evoked to simultaneously describe a mode of individual expression, a visual design method, and a technological platform. Research on "narrative cartography" is as diverse as that on maps themselves, with storytelling opening new intellectual spaces for cinematic (e.g., Caquard and Taylor 2009;Muehlenhaus 2014), imaginative (e.g., Joliveau 2009;Caquard 2011), Indigenous (e.g., Chapin, Lamb, and Threlkeld 2005;Pearce and Louis 2008), literary (e.g., Moretti 2005;Bushell 2012), multimedia (e.g., Monmonier 1992;Cartwright 1999), and participatory (e.g., Elwood 2006;Miller 2006) mappings. Maps can give spatial structure to oral, written, and audio-visual forms of storytelling (Caquard and Cartwright 2014), and often are combined with graphics, images, videos, and text to provide a deep account of people, places, and events (Macfarlane 2007).…”

Cartographic Design as Visual Storytelling: Synthesis and Review of Map-Based Narratives, Genres, and Tropes

“…Caquard and Cartwright (2014) outline three storytelling formsoral, written, and audio-visualfor which maps provide spatial structure to enhance the storytelling experience. Each exchange between maps and an alternative story form has disciplinary influences and emerging spaces of hybridization: oral storytelling drawing from anthropology, folklore, and history and taking shape in Indigenous (e.g., Chapin et al, 2005;Pearce and Louis, 2008) and participatory (e.g., Elwood, 2006;Miller, 2006) cartographies, written storytelling building upon linguistics, literature, and cartooning and forming in literary (e.g., Moretti, 2005;Bushell, 2012) and imaginative (e.g., Joliveau, 2009;Caquard, 2011) cartographies, and audio-visual storytelling integrating art, music, and film for cinematic (e.g., Muehlenhaus, 2014) and multimedia (e.g., Monmonier, 1992;Cartwright, 1999) cartographies. Taken together, these roots ground narrative cartography, and the intersections of maps with oral, written, and audio-visual storytelling frame a cartographic research agenda for the digital, spatial, and geo humanities.…”

“…In film, journalism, and literature alike, the narrative sequence typically is defined by the temporal order of events, which together form the plotline (Phillips, 2012). A narrative that hangs upon a temporal plot explicitly evokes one-dimensional linearity in its organization, although storytellers can break dramatically from the temporal order of events to foreshadow or surprise (Muehlenhaus, 2014). However, maps and other visualizations using a spatial metaphor are inherently two-dimensional and thus often lack a temporal sequence or relevant linear axis to inform a plotline (Mocnik and Fairbairn, 2018).…”

“…However, animated maps need not represent real-world time, with display time instead used to explain a geographic process or fly-through a landscape (Lobben, 2003), or fluidly transition between frames in a linear narrative (Heer and Robertson, 2007). Animation is fundamental to emerging cinematic cartography, combining film techniques with audiovisual content to make the story more compelling (Caquard, 2009;Muehlenhaus, 2014). Narrating over data-driven animations also is a powerful way to embed the designer's voice and situated perspectives into a visual story, a technique introduced to cartography by Monmonier (1992) as 'graphic scripts' and made popular in visualization by the Rosling et al (2005) commentaries on GapMinder.…”

Interactive video maps: A year in the life of Earth's CO2

“…By far the most common form is a stand-alone map video, which, when combined with sound effects and voiced-over narration, Muehlenhaus (2014) calls film-maps. A film-map is displayed by standard video player software with customary playback controls.…”