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National Cinema Essay
National Cinema Essay
National Cinema Essay
Taking into account all of the above categories, Croft differentiates types
of nation-state cinema by presenting a model that distinguishes eight
varieties of cinema. These are United States cinema; Asian commercial
successes; Other entertainment cinemas; Totalitarian cinemas; Art cinemas;
International co-productions; Third cinemas; And sub-state cinemas.
“Since in those early days the conviction prevailed that foreign markets
could only be conquered by artistic achievements, the German film industry
was of course anxious to experiment in the field of aesthetically qualified
entertainment. Art ensured export, and export meant salvation.” (Kracher,
1974: 65)
One may ask what of the political mode of production and distribution?
Here lies a rather large grey area. It was the Tiananmen Square
demonstration and massacre of 1989 that politically defined the Sixth
Generation filmmakers – an event that still is so politically sensitive and so
brutal that those of the Sixth Generation can rarely visit it in their art as
those of the Fifth had done with the Cultural revolution. Now at the
beginning of a new century, more and more young directors are producing
films outside the state-owned studio system in various ways, engaging the
youth culture and urban life, and stylistically, turning their backs on
elaborate allegories. For example, Zhang Yuan’s Beijing Bastard (1992),
uses amateur actors and hand-held cameras, preferring less artificial mise-
en-scenes and avoids dramatic intensity.
With regards to the Sixth Generation director Zhang Yuan’s debut film,
Mother (1990) - about a woman’s frustration at looking after her retarded
son without social help or sympathy, an ignored aspect of Chinese urban life
- was banned, but later, having won the Special Jury Prize at the 1991
Nantes Film Festival and gaining further recognition abroad, brought interest
domestically. In 1997, it was aired on Beijing cable TV. This example
highlights that even in state controlled cinemas, there are nevertheless
those who will push the boundaries and navigate themselves around the
industry, rejecting state dictated nationalisms.
“In Yellow Earth, the omnipresence of the earth itself overshadows and
dwarfs the humans living on it. Clearly presented in a Taoist cosmology that
believes that humans can only prevail by harmonizing with nature, the
grand earth image in the film contrasts Chinese culture in two ways: first,
revolution that defies human will, and second, with the Chinese peasants’
livelihood that has been overpowered by the domination of nature” (Kuoshu,
2002: 215)
“…a world conceived as bound together by a universal history; but also the
universalization of an egalitarian concern with doing justice to particularities
and differences, with humanity…the rise of the modern national-state, in
which the particular characteristics of a national integration process have
been generalised into a model of social integration, in which society
becomes the key frame of reference for sociology, is gaining wider
acceptance” (Featherstone,1990: 3)
The effects of globalisation are continuous and irreversible. It may even
be perceived as a process that is innate; necessary if cultures are to
homogenise, adapt and survive within their immediate environment, which
inevitably includes ‘others’. There are those who are aware of this process,
needing to distinguish themselves from ‘others’, in an attempt to cling onto
what is discernible of their ‘identities’, that if they let go, they will become
lost in a sea of chaos.
21st century technologies such as the World Wide Web and freely
accessible telecommunications on various levels, has increased the pace of
globalisation, though has also increased tension between those
constitutions that are trying to retain their individually recognisable
nationalities. Here Crofts seems sceptical of these technological advances.
This statement seems to struggle with his earlier quote of Willemen, where
he states
Crofts here seems conflicted about where he stands with regards to the
function of nation-state cinemas. If nation-state cinemas are to continue to
be politically critical and remains ‘the only cinema that consciously and
directly works with and addresses the materials at work within the national
constellation’ (Willemen, 1994: 211-212), then the developing technology
that he describes will only assist this continued refinement of culture, if not
depend on its continued evolution, regardless of the chosen mode of
production.
But this relies heavily on the theory that audiences are passive and have
no say in what is digested; that audiences can only be considered by their
numbers in terms of box-office statistics. Does the viewer not project as well
as introject? Can the cinematic experience be considered an interactive
one? Perhaps this is open to debate, though through observation it seems
that audiences are becoming increasingly media literate and sophisticated
in reading between the literal, metaphorical and allegorical lines. Perhaps
even, audiences are smarter and actually more independently motivated
than was originally anticipated.
References
Crofts, Stephen (1998) and Willemen, Paul (1990) Oxford Guide to Film
Studies John Hall and Pamela Church Gibson (Eds.) Oxford: Oxford
University Press