Abstract
Cinematic Cartography makes a significant intervention in the intersecting fields of film geography, spatial theory, and media studies. Known for his foundational work in cinematic geography over the past two decades, Lukinbeal consolidates and expands his contributions in this monograph, framing film not merely as a representation of space but as an active cartographic agent. As he succinctly puts it, ‘Cinema provides topographies in motion through narration’ (p. 108).
What distinguishes this book from earlier influential works in the field – Giuliana Bruno’s Atlas of Emotion (2002) or Tom Conley’s Cartographic Cinema (2007) – is its methodological precision and emphasis on scale. While prior scholarship leans toward metaphorical or affective understandings of space, Lukinbeal integrates tools from critical GIS and cultural geography to chart the material and political dimensions of cinematic spatiality. His framework of scale, analysis, and topography pushes beyond familiar tropes like setting or mise-en-scène, offering a more rigorous vocabulary for how films construct, and at times, distort geographic knowledge.
Lukinbeal resists treating cinema as a passive mirror of reality. Instead, he argues that film functions as a spatial practice that materially reshapes our understanding of regions, cities, and landscapes. He analyzes how cinematic geographies are structured through ideologically charged lenses – including the colonial gaze – and materially embedded within industrial practices such as film tourism and location work. His readings, grounded in both theory and cartographic analysis, remind his readers that cinematic landscapes are never neutral – they are commodified, politicized, and shaped by labor and logistics.
A notable contribution of the book lies in its careful bridging of theory and practice. Lukinbeal moves fluidly between abstract spatial theory and the concrete workings of the film industry. Lukinbeal’s discussion of cinematic scale – contrasting cartographic and cinematographic scales, such as the map versus the long shot or close-up – brilliantly exposes how abstraction, materiality, and bodily experience converge onscreen. His interrogation of the ‘topographer’s gaze’ in relation to the Western genre further reveals cinema’s role in reproducing colonial spatial logics. As he notes, ‘Cinematic scale is the invisible architecture that allows the seen to become the scene’ (p. 86).
Lukinbeal explores how regional film productions interact with land use and location management, connecting cinematic representations to their material foundations. His analysis extends from production archives to contemporary GIS practices, emphasizing the ideological and logistical implications of location use. As he observes, ‘cinematic region is a never-ending product . . . landscape is produced through human labor, a commodity that hides the labor of its making’ (p. 110). Lukinbeal also reflects on the way cinema ‘empties out the meanings associated with lived space, constructing anesthetized space’, where ‘real locations are constantly commodified into filmic spaces to produce visual products for profit’ (p. 110). This critique resonates with broader concerns around commodification of space and the distortion of local meanings by global film industries.
In the final chapters, Lukinbeal demonstrates the methodological innovation of cinematic cartography. Chapter 8, for instance, introduces a compelling practice of geocoding film permit data to produce what he terms ‘affective geospatialization’ – a means of combining the cartographic ‘view from above’ with cinematic and emotional perspectives. Chapter 9 offers a detailed geomapping of Old Tucson Studios, showing how studio architecture and cinematic narrative interact. These chapters exemplify how GIS can serve not only film scholars, but also geographers and policymakers, revealing new ways to approach production logistics, regional economic development, and spatial preservation.
If the book has a limitation, it is that its early chapters can be dense for readers unfamiliar with the technical language of both geography and cinema. However, Lukinbeal’s use of maps, archival illustrations, and visual examples across the book ultimately enhances accessibility.
In sum, Cinematic Cartography reaffirms Lukinbeal’s centrality to the field while offering a timely and innovative methodological blueprint for scholars exploring the spatial dimensions of cinema. For cultural geographers, the book’s engagement with scale, materiality, and ideology offers a vital extension of debates on how landscapes are represented, commodified, and lived. Lukinbeal’s integration of cinematic analysis with critical GIS provides cultural geography with new tools for examining the interplay between media, place-making, and spatial justice.
Ultimately, Lukinbeal shows how cinematic cartography can open fresh perspectives on power, identity, and belonging within spatial inquiry. The book should be an essential reading for anyone interested in how film shapes the spaces we inhabit, imagine, and contest in an age defined by global flows, digital mapping practices, and conflictual spatial politics.
