With the support of the Universiteit van Amsterdam, the Netherlands Architecture Fund, several other funds, and the city of Rotterdam, film scholar Paalman researched and prepared this in-depth study that engages some territory coming to the fore in the field of film studies. The focus is on the social role of cinema and how cinema both shapes and represents the space and architecture of cities. Rotterdam is the case study. After an introductory chapter describing the study's broader purposes, material is presented chronologically: the emergence of a cinematic city in the 1920s and 1930s, cinematic reconstruction in the 1940s and 1950s, and cinematic proliferation in the 1960s and 1970s. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)