Thanks a ton, Michael!
Minnie
--- Michael Chanan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> First problem: the history is forgotten. For
> example, a 'New Latin American
> Cinema' first arrived on world screens in the 1960s,
> and was integrally
> associated with the internationalist political ethos
> of the decade. African
> cinema began to emerge in the 80s. Then there was a
> wave of Chinese Cinema,
> and now Iranian cinema is the centre of attention.
> (This is just a
> simplified version. A more comrehensive account
> would have to talk about the
> Western reception from the 1950s on also of
> individual directors like
> Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, Chahine, etc.)
>
> Second: what does this history suggest? It needs
> interrogating from several
> angles. For a start, the political economy of
> cinema. Cinema was a model of
> transnational operation from very early on - long
> before the term
> transnational came into use in economics - Hollywood
> began its overseas
> operations in the closing years of the First World
> War. Cinema in
> underdeveloped countries was late starting, since
> the technology came from
> the First World, and was always at a disadvantage.
> Several countries
> nonetheless established sizeable industries
> primarily serving local cultural
> needs, whose products remain unknown beyond their
> own linguistic region.
>
> The films which surface internationally, mainly
> through festivals, represent
> only a certain type of cinema which appeals to
> arthouse audiences in the
> First World (inevitably mediated by the critics'
> circles.) The movements
> they represent began largely in the process of
> cultural and/or political
> decolonisation and nationalism after the second
> world war, but nowadays they
> occur in the context of globalisation, which allows
> them tentative entry
> into a world market. But their distribution remains
> extremely limited, and
> this pattern repeats the underlying and age-old
> syndrome of Western
> hegemony, and its universalist claims, in which
> cultural production and
> values from the periphery are treated as entirely
> marginal to a value system
> which is structured to keep them so.
>
> Another thing this history therefore raises is the
> question of how these
> films get used in the First World, what they are
> taken to represent, how
> their Otherness is perceived. The Cuban director had
> a word for this
> problem. When praised for all the wrong reasons by
> the New York critic
> Andrew Sarris, he criticised what he called Sarris's
> 'tendentious
> ignorance'. To move beyond this sorry position
> (which also crops up from
> time to time on this list) all that is needed is to
> see how the critic's
> functions (and certain theoretical positions) are
> embedded in structures of
> power and authority which are contested in certain
> ways in the films
> themselves. And to pursue this will eventually lead
> almost anyone to a
> re-evaluation of cinema and its history - and of
> assumptions about the
> dominant examples which, as some correspondents have
> been observing, tend to
> monopolise this list.
>
> Michael Chanan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Film-Philosophy Salon
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
> Behalf Of fili houtman
> Sent: 12 May 2001 11:01
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Cinema, World Cinema and Foreign Films
>
>
> its true Panini, there used to b a wave a thirll
> worl cinema in the start
> approx.89, then dicreased probably because of
> capitalis, i dont know where
> all these are coming now. but it's stange this wave
> is over. just because
> the relations between script guilds and hollywood
> blockbusters are no that
> rainy, but when it start raining man, ho ho!. after
> a while it be better.
> but relying on critics won't help the tiles. better
> collab.between the sets
> is a good foggy magnetic athmosphere.
>
> (my two cents).
>
> FiliH;
>
> >From: Panini Gupt <[log in to unmask]>
> >Reply-To: Film-Philosophy Salon
> <[log in to unmask]>
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: Cinema, World Cinema and Foreign Films
> >Date: Sat, 12 May 2001 00:27:08 MDT
> >
> >
>
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