Youssef Chahine’s Cinematic Alexandria

Synonyms

Alexandria as an imagined city; Cinematic Alexandria; Contemporary Alexandria; Alexandria as a cosmopolitan city; Autobiographical view of Alexandria; Impressionistic view of Alexandria; Multiethnic Alexandria; Idiosyncratic Cinema; Multicultural Alexandria

Definition

Alexandria as an imagined city in Youssef Chahine’s autobiographical cinema.

Introduction

Edward Said describes a “Cairo person” as “Arab, Islamic, serious, international, intellectual” while an “Alexandria amateur” is “Levantine, cosmopolitan, devious, and capricious.” Even though he later describes this division of Cairene and Alexandrian characteristics as “severe” (Said 2003: 337), it does seem to capture the main differences between the writers, poets, directors, and musicians whose works came out of the two cities, both characterizing the cities and taking character from them. The Alexandrian director Youssef Chahine, who was highly professional and amateurishly experimental at once, was known for his...