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City Out of Time

This Colin Low documentary from 1959 depicts Venice in all its splendor. In the tradition of Venetian painter Canaletto, the film captures the great Italian city’s elusive beauty and fabled landscapes, where spired churches and turreted palaces soar into a blue Mediterranean sky. Narration by William Shatner.
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This Colin Low documentary from 1959 depicts Venice in all its splendor. In the tradition of Venetian painter Canaletto, the film captures the great Italian city’s elusive beauty and fabled landscapes, where spired churches and turreted palaces soar into a blue Mediterranean sky. Narration by William Shatner.

Visual Arts Tourism Architecture Foreign Countries All subjects
  • director
    Colin Low
  • producer
    Tom Daly
  • script
    James Beveridge
  • photography
    Georges Dufaux
  • editing
    John Spotton
  • sound editing
    Don Wellington
  • re-recording
    George Croll
  • narrator
    William Shatner
  • music
    Robert Fleming

Education

Ages 14 to 17

Notes

Have students discuss some of the artists or artistic styles mentioned in the film. Discuss the distinction the film makes a distinction between art that has an "enduring quality" vs. art that belongs in the "junk heaps of history." Can these ideas change from generation to generation? Can students name other cities that rely on their beauty or art to draw in tourists? What very contemporary problem is Venice facing today (rising water line)?

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City Out of Time
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