World Film Locations: Toronto (Book)

Edited by Tom Ue

Toronto is a changing city that has been a source of reflection and inspiration to writers and artists whose work focuses on the conditions and prospects of human life. A city on the move, it demands policies and regulation, and it offers the pleasures and perils of the massive and the anonymous. As a site of study, the city is inherently multidisciplinary, with natural ties to history, geography, sociology, architecture, art history, literature and many other fields. 

World Film Locations: Toronto explores and reveals the relationship between the city and cinema using a predominately visual approach. The juxtaposition of the images used in combination with insightful essays helps to demonstrate the role that the city has played in a number of hit films, including Cinderella Man, American Psycho and X-Men and encourages the reader to frame an understanding of Toronto and the world around us. The contributors trace Toronto’s emergence as an international city and demonstrate the narrative interests that it has continued to inspire among filmmakers, both Canadian and international.

With support from experts in Canadian studies, the book’s selection of films successfully shows the many facets of Toronto and also provides insider’s access to a number of sites that are often left out of scholarship on Toronto in films, such as the Toronto International Film Festival. The 2014 release of this attractive volume will be a particularly welcome addition to the international celebrations of the city’s 180th anniversary.

Edition

Toronto is a changing city that has been a source of reflection and inspiration to writers and artists whose work focuses on the conditions and prospects of human life. A city on the move, it demands policies and regulation, and it offers the pleasures and perils of the massive and the anonymous. As a site of study, the city is inherently multidisciplinary, with natural ties to history, geography, sociology, architecture, art history, literature and many other fields. World Film Locations: Toronto explores and reveals the relationship between the city and cinema using a predominately visual approach. The juxtaposition of the images used in combination with insightful essays helps to demonstrate the role that the city has played in a number of hit films, including Cinderella Man, American Psycho and X-Men and encourages the reader to frame an understanding of Toronto and the world around us. The contributors trace Toronto’s emergence as an international city and demonstrate the narrative interests that it has continued to inspire among filmmakers, both Canadian and international. With support from experts in Canadian studies, the book’s selection of films successfully shows the many facets of Toronto and also provides insider’s access to a number of sites that are often left out of scholarship on Toronto in films, such as the Toronto International Film Festival. The 2014 release of this attractive volume will be a particularly welcome addition to the international celebrations of the city’s 180th anniversary.

Tom Ue is Assistant Professor in English of the Long Nineteenth Century at Cape Breton University and Advising Editor of The Complete Letters of Henry James (University of Nebraska Press). He is the author of Gissing, Shakespeare, and the Life of Writing (Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming) and George Gissing (Liverpool University Press, forthcoming); and the editor of George Gissing, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming). Professor Ue is an Honorary Research Associate at University College London and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Maps/Scenes

Scenes 1–6 – 1966–1984

Scenes 7–12 – 1984–1995

Scenes 13–18 – 1996–2000

Scenes 19–24 – 2000–2002

Scenes 25–30 – 2002–2004

Scenes 31–37 – 2005–2009

Scenes 38–44 – 2010–2013

Essays 

Toronto: City of the Imagination – Tom Ue

Raw Youth – Steve Gravestock

The Yongue Street Strip – Steve Gravestock

Distilling Toronto History: How a Victorian Industrial Site Became a Hollywood Backlot – David Fleischer

The Toronto New Wave – Steve Gravestock

At Home in Toronto: Houses and Apartments that Signify the City – Richard Dennis

Everywhere and Nowhere: David Cronenberg's Toronto – David Fleisher

The Anonymous Metropolis – David Fleisher

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) & the City – Piers Handling

'Much of Canada considers Toronto a place far too obsessed with money-making to consider anything less consequential, but World Film Locations: Toronto tells a different story. In essays and photos pulled together by Tom Ue, the editor, Toronto looks like a place of fantasies and dreams, where local myths flourish and major buildings encourage cinematic hallucinations.' 

Robert Fulford, National Post

''World Film Locations: Toronto contains an array of voices and perspectives. Although it is fairly small, it offers something for everyone. It focuses on the city’s growth over the past two decades while keeping an optimistic eye on its future. And it is slightly jumbled at times. In other words, it’s more than a little bit like Toronto itself.''

Carmen Siu
Related Titles