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National cinema is a term sometimes used infilm theory andfilm criticism to describe the films associated with a specific nation-state. Although there is little relatively written on theories of national cinema it has an irrefutably important role inglobalization. Film provides a unique window to other cultures, particularly where the output of a nation or region is high.
Like other film theory or film criticism terms (e.g., "art film"), the term "national cinema" is hard to define, and its meaning is debated by film scholars and critics. A film may be considered to be part of a "national cinema" based on a number of factors. Simply put, a "nation's cinema" can be attributed to the country that provided the financing for the film, the language spoken in the film, the nationalities or dress of the characters, and the setting, music, or cultural elements present in the film.[1] To define a national cinema, some scholars emphasize the structure of the film industry and the roles played by "...market forces, government support, and cultural transfers..."[2]More theoretically, national cinema can refer to a large group of films, or "a body oftextuality... given historical weight through common intertextual 'symptoms', or coherencies".[3] InTheorising National Cinema, Philip Rosen suggests national cinema is a conceptualization of: (1) Selected 'national' films/texts themselves, the relationship between them, which be connected by a shared (general) symptom. (2) an understanding of the 'nation' as an entity in synchronicity with its 'symptom'. And (3) an understanding of past or traditional 'symptoms', also known as history or historiography, which contribute to current systems and 'symptoms'.[3] These symptoms of intertextuality could refer to style, medium, content, narrative, narrative structure, costume,Mise-en-scène, character, background, cinematography. It could refer to cultural background of those who make the movie and cultural background of those in the movie, of spectatorship, of spectacle.
Canadian cultural and film critics have long debated how Canadian national cinema can be defined, or whether there is a Canadian national cinema. Most of the films shown on Canadian movie screens are US imports. If "Canadian national cinema" is defined as the films made in Canada, then the canon of Canadian cinema would have to include lightweight teen-oriented fare such asMeatballs (1979),Porky's (1981) orDeath Ship (1980). Other critics have defined Canadian national cinema as a "...reflection of Canadian life and culture." Some critics argue that there are "two traditions of filmmaking in Canada": The "documentary realist tradition" espoused by the federal government'sNational Film Board and avant-garde films.
Scott MacKenzie argues that by the late 1990s, if Canada did have a popular cinema with both avant-garde and experimental elements, that was influenced by European filmmakers such asJean-Luc Godard andWim Wenders. MacKenzie argues that Canadian cinema has a "...self-conscious concern with the incorporation of cinematic and televisual images", and as examples, he cites films such asDavid Cronenberg'sVideodrome (1983),Atom Egoyan'sFamily Viewing (1987),Robert Lepage'sThe Confessional (Le Confessionnal) (1995) andSrinivas Krishna'sMasala (1991).[4]
France's national cinema includes both popular cinema and "avant-garde" films. French national cinema is associated with theauteur filmmakers and with a variety of specific movements. Avant-garde filmmakers includeGermaine Dulac, Marie andJean Epstein.Poetic Realism filmmakers includeJean Renoir andMarcel Carné. TheFrench New Wave filmmakers includeJean-Luc Godard andFrançois Truffaut. The 1990s and 2000s "postmodern cinema" of France includes filmmakers such asJean-Jacques Beinex,Luc Besson andColine Serreau.[5]
During the GermanWeimar Republic, German national cinema was influenced by silent and sound "Bergfilm" (this translates to "mountain film"). During the 1920s and early 1930s, German national cinema was known for the progressive and artistic approaches to filmmaking with "shifted conventional cinematic vocabulary" and which gave actresses a much larger range of character-types.[6] During theNazi era, the major film studio UFA was controlled by Propaganda MinisterGoebbels. UFA produced "Hetzfilme" (anti-Semitic hate films) and films which emphasized the "theme of heroic death." Other film genres produced by UFA during the Nazi era included historical and biographical dramas that emphasized the achievements in German history, comedy films, and propaganda films.[6]
During theCold War from the 1950s through the 1980s, there were West German films and East German films. Film historians and film scholars do not agree whether the films from the different parts of Cold War-era Germany can be considered to be a single "German national cinema." Some West German films were about the "immediate past in sociopolitical thought and in literature".East German films were oftenSoviet-funded "socially critical" films. Some East German films examined Germany'sNazi past, such as Wolfgang Staudte'sDie Mörder sind unter uns (The Murderers Are Among Us).[6]
The New German Cinema of the 1970s and 1980s included films by directors such asFassbinder,Herzog, andWim Wenders. While these directors made films with "many ideological and cinematic messages", they all shared the common element of providing an "aesthetic alternativ(e) toHollywood" films (even though Fassbinder was influenced by the works ofDouglas Sirk) and "a break with the cultural and political traditions associated with theThird Reich"(159).[6]
After World War II, the Lódz Film School was founded in 1948. During the 1950s and 1960s, a "Polish School of Film" of filmmakers developed, such asWojciech Has,Kazimierz Kutz,Andrzej Munk andAndrzej Wajda. According to film scholarMarek Haltof, the Polish School made films which can be described as the "Cinema of Distrust". In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Wajda, Krzysztof Zanussi and Barbara Sass made influential films which garnered interest outside of Poland. However, even though Western countries became increasingly interested in Polish cinema during this period, the country's film infrastructure and market was disintegrating.[7]
Although it is difficult to determine and define a 'national cinema', much of what many consider Mexican national cinema, but not limited to, isGolden Age of Mexican Cinema and films that revolve around theMexican Revolution. Unique trajectories of Mexican cinema's development shaped historically specific understandings of the ontology of the moving image, leading to unique configurations of documentation and fictionalization. The Revolution spilled across pages of the press, and became the primary subject of Mexican films produced between 1911 and 1916.[8] There was a high interest in topicality in and capturing current events as they unfolded, re-staging, or combining both approaching, created a sensationalist appeal in these visual 'records' of death and injury. Compilation documentaries, such as Toscano'sMemorias de un Mexicano in the years following the Mexican Revolution can be seen as part of a broader cultural politics of nationalism that worked to naturalize and to consolidate the political and ideological story of the revolution.
Later narrativized dramas, such asMaría Candelaria,The Pearl,Enamorada,Rio Escondido,Saián Mexico, orPueblerina byEmilio Fernandez and/orGabriel Figueroa, are often considered part of the Mexican national cinematic body. These films, and most popular films of the 1920s in Mexico, adoptedDavid Bordwell's "cinematic norms": narrative linkage, cause and effect, goal oriented protagonists, temporal order or cinematic time, and filmic space as story space. But also, is noted to have incorporated visual folkloric style ofJosé Guadalupe Posada, the deconstructing landscapes ofGerardo Murillo, and the low angles, deep focus, diagonal lines, and 'native' imagery inSergei Eisenstein'sQue Viva Mexico. Although a mélange of Western and Mexican influences coexist in Fernandez's films, his Mexican biography and locality leave a legacy of romanticizing Mexico and Mexican history, often presenting idyllic ranches, singing, and a charming life of the poor.
Although of European heritage,Luis Buñuel's work in Mexico is another example that presents 'symptoms' of Mexican national identity. Although less well received by lower classes, and more admired by upper classes, Buñuel'sLos Olvidados (1950) stands as an example that a director's national heritage doesn't always have to contribute to the conceptualization of a nation's cinema. Rather than building the nation through celebration, the film presents problem, which contribute to a global identity and context of the nation state. Buñuel, however, is less interested in presenting some 'identity' of message, national or international, and remarked that "to ask whether the film is Mexican or not, is to resist, to seek, to disperse, the very mystery this film articulates for us".
Modern genres embraced and nurtured as 'Mexican national cinema' are often those of the social and family melodrama genre (theGolden Globe nominatedComo agua para chocolate (1991) by Alfonso Arau),[9] the working class melodrama (Danzon (1991) by Maria Novaro), the comedy (Sólo con tu pareja (1991) byAlfonso Cuarón) and the ruralcostumbrismo film (La mujer de Benjamin (1990) by Carlos Carrera). Changes in the politics of film industry institutions allowed these film texts and their directors to "transform the traditional filmic paradigm". Up to 60% of financial assistance for national, Latin American, and European productions were provided by theInstituto Mexicano de Cinematografia, new models of co-production were created, and distribution and sales channels were opened abroad.[10]
Countries likeSouth Korea andIran have over the years produced a large body of critically acclaimed and award-winning films by the likes of Oscar winnerBong Joon-ho and the lateAbbas Kiarostami.[11][12]
