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National cinema is a term sometimes used in
film theory and
film 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 in
globalization
Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
. Film provides a unique window to other cultures, particularly where the output of a nation or region is high.
Definition
Like other film theory or film criticism terms (e.g., "
art film
An art film (or arthouse film) is typically an independent film, aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience. It is "intended to be a serious, artistic work, often experimental and not designed for mass appeal", "made primarily f ...
"), 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. 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..."
More theoretically, national cinema can refer to a large group of films, or "a body of
textuality
In literary theory, textuality comprises all of the attributes that distinguish the communicative content under analysis as an object of study. It is associated with structuralism and post-structuralism.
Explanation
Textuality is not just abou ...
... given historical weight through common intertextual 'symptoms', or coherencies".
[Vitali, V., & Willemen, P. (2006). Theorising national cinema. London: Bfi (British Film Institute) Publishing.] In ''Theorising 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'.
These symptoms of intertextuality could refer to style, medium, content, narrative, narrative structure, costume,
Mise-en-scène
''Mise-en-scène'' (; en, "placing on stage" or "what is put into the scene") is the stage design and arrangement of actors in scenes for a theatre or film production, both in visual arts through storyboarding, visual theme, and cinematography, a ...
, 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.
Canada
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 as ''
Meatballs'' (1979), ''
Porky's
''Porky's'' is a 1981 sex comedy film written and directed by Bob Clark about the escapades of teenagers in 1954 at the fictional Angel Beach High School in Florida. The film influenced many writers in the teen film genre and spawned two sequels: ...
'' (1981) or ''
Death 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's
National Film Board
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary fi ...
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 as
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as Fran ...
and
Wim 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 as
David Cronenberg
David Paul Cronenberg (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror genre, with his films exploring visceral bodily transformation ...
's ''
Videodrome
''Videodrome'' is a 1983 Canadian science fiction body horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring James Woods, Sonja Smits, and Debbie Harry. Set in Toronto during the early 1980s, it follows the CEO of a small UHF televis ...
'' (1983),
Atom Egoyan
Atom Egoyan (; hy, Աթոմ Եղոյեան, translit=Atom Yeghoyan; born July 19, 1960) is a Canadian filmmaker. He was part of a loosely-affiliated group of filmmakers to emerge in the 1980s from Toronto known as the Toronto New Wave. Egoyan m ...
's''
Family Viewing
''Family Viewing'' is a 1987 Canadian drama film. The second feature directed by Atom Egoyan, it stars David Hemblen, Aidan Tierney, Gabrielle Rose, Arsinée Khanjian, and Selma Keklikian. The plot follows a young man from a dysfunctional family ...
'' (1987),
Robert Lepage
Robert Lepage (born December 12, 1957) is a Canadian playwright, actor, film director, and stage director.
Early life
Lepage was raised in Quebec City. At age five, he was diagnosed with a rare form of alopecia, which caused complete hair l ...
's ''
The Confessional
''The Confessional'' (french: Le Confessionnal) is a 1995 mystery-drama film directed by Robert Lepage.
The film is set in Quebec City, in two distinct time periods. In the present day, Pierre Lamontagne (Lothaire Bluteau) searches for his estran ...
(Le Confessionnal)'' (1995) and
Srinivas Krishna's ''Masala'' (1991).
France
*''See
French New Wave
French New Wave (french: La Nouvelle Vague) is a French art film movement that emerged in the late 1950s. The movement was characterized by its rejection of traditional filmmaking conventions in favor of experimentation and a spirit of iconocla ...
and
cinema du look
Cinema may refer to:
Film
* Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography
* Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image
** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking
* ...
''
France's national cinema includes both popular cinema and "avant-garde" films. French national cinema is associated with the
auteur
An auteur (; , 'author') is an artist with a distinctive approach, usually a film director whose filmmaking control is so unbounded but personal that the director is likened to the "author" of the film, which thus manifests the director's unique ...
filmmakers and with a variety of specific movements. Avant-garde filmmakers include
Germaine Dulac
Germaine Dulac (; born Charlotte Elisabeth Germaine Saisset-Schneider; 17 November 1882 – 20 July 1942)Flitterman-Lewis 1996 was a French filmmaker, film theorist, journalist and critic. She was born in Amiens and moved to Paris in early chil ...
, Marie and
Jean Epstein.
Poetic Realism
Poetic realism was a film movement in France of the 1930s. More a tendency than a movement, poetic realism is not strongly unified like Soviet montage or French Impressionism but were individuals who created this lyrical style. Its leading filmm ...
filmmakers include
Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir (; 15 September 1894 – 12 February 1979) was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent film, silent era to the end of the 1960s. ...
and
Marcel Carné. The
French New Wave
French New Wave (french: La Nouvelle Vague) is a French art film movement that emerged in the late 1950s. The movement was characterized by its rejection of traditional filmmaking conventions in favor of experimentation and a spirit of iconocla ...
filmmakers include
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as Fran ...
and
François Truffaut. The 1990s and 2000s "
postmodern cinema" of France includes filmmakers such as
Jean-Jacques Beinex
Jean-Jacques Beineix (; 8 October 1946 – 13 January 2022) was a French film director best known for the films ''Diva'' and '' Betty Blue''. His work is regarded as a prime example of the '' cinéma du look'' film movement in France.
Early lif ...
,
Luc Besson
Luc Paul Maurice Besson (; born 18 March 1959) is a French film director, screenwriter and producer. He directed or produced the films ''Subway'' (1985), '' The Big Blue'' (1988), and '' La Femme Nikita'' (1990). Besson is associated with the ' ...
and
Coline Serreau
Coline Serreau (born 29 October 1947) is a French actress, film director and writer.
Early life and education
She was born in Paris, the daughter of theatre director Jean-Marie Serreau and actress Geneviève Serreau. In Paris, Serreau studi ...
.
Germany
* ''See
German New Wave
New German Cinema (german: Neuer Deutscher Film) is a period in German cinema which lasted from 1962 to 1982, in which a new generation of directors emerged who, working with low budgets, and influenced by the French New Wave and Italian Neore ...
''
During the German
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...
, 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.
[''German National Cinema''](_blank)
by Sabine Hake. London and New York: Routledge, 2002. Trade paper, . Reviewed by Robert von Dassanowsky. During the
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
era, the major film studio UFA was controlled by Propaganda Minister
Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...
. 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.
During the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
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
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
films were often
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
-funded "socially critical" films. Some East German films examined Germany's
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
past, such as Wolfgang Staudte's ''Die Mörder sind unter uns'' (''The Murderers Are Among Us'').
The New German Cinema of the 1970s and 1980s included films by directors such as
Fassbinder,
Herzog
''Herzog'' (female ''Herzogin'') is a German hereditary title held by one who rules a territorial duchy, exercises feudal authority over an estate called a duchy, or possesses a right by law or tradition to be referred to by the ducal title. ...
, and
Wim Wenders. While these directors made films with "many ideological and cinematic messages", they all shared the common element of providing an "aesthetic alternativ(e) to
Hollywood" films (even though Fassbinder was influenced by the works of
Douglas Sirk
Douglas Sirk (born Hans Detlef Sierck; 26 April 1897 – 14 January 1987) was a German film director best known for his work in Hollywood melodramas of the 1950s. Sirk started his career in Germany as a stage and screen director, but he left for ...
) and "a break with the cultural and political traditions associated with the
Third Reich
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
"(159).
Poland
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 as
Wojciech Has
Wojciech Jerzy Has (1 April 1925, Kraków – 3 October 2000, Łódź) was a Polish film director, screenwriter and film producer.
Early life and studies
Wojciech Jerzy Has was born in Kraków. Has himself was agnostic. However, his family ...
,
Kazimierz Kutz
Kazimierz Julian Kutz (16 February 1929 – 18 December 2018) was a Polish film director, author, journalist and politician, one of the representatives of the Polish Film School and a deputy speaker of the Senate of Poland.
Biography
Kazimierz ...
,
Andrzej Munk and
Andrzej Wajda
Andrzej Witold Wajda (; 6 March 1926 – 9 October 2016) was a Polish film and theatre director. Recipient of an Honorary Oscar, the Palme d'Or, as well as Honorary Golden Lion and Honorary Golden Bear Awards, he was a prominent member of the ...
. According to film scholar
Marek Haltof Marek Haltof (Józef Marek Haltof, born 1957 in Cieszyn, Poland,) is a professor ( dr.hab.) of film studies. specializing in the cultural histories of Polish and Australian film.
He studied at the University of Silesia ( Uniwersytet Śląski) in P ...
, 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.
Mexico
*''See
Nuevo Cine Mexicano
Nuevo Cine Mexicano, also referred to as New Mexican Cinema is a Mexican film movement started in the early 1990s. Filmmakers, critics, and scholars consider Nuevo Cine Mexicano a "rebirth" of Mexican cinema because of the production of higher-q ...
''
Although it is difficult to determine and define a 'national cinema', much of what many consider Mexican national cinema, but not limited to, is
Golden Age of Mexican Cinema
The Golden Age of Mexican cinema ( es, Época de Oro del Cine Mexicano) is a period in the history of the Cinema of Mexico between 1930 and 1969 when the Mexican film industry reached high levels of production, quality and economic success of its ...
and films that revolve around the
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...
. 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. 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's
Memorias 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 as ''
María Candelaria
''María Candelaria'' is a 1943 Mexican romantic film directed by Emilio Fernández and starring Dolores del Río and Pedro Armendáriz. It was the first Mexican film to be screened at the Cannes International Film Festival where it won the Grand ...
'', ''
The Pearl'', ''
Enamorada'', ''
Rio Escondido'', ''Saián Mexico'', or ''
Pueblerina
''Pueblerina'' is a 1949 Mexican drama film directed by Emilio Fernández. It was entered into the 1949 Cannes Film Festival.
Cast
* Columba Domínguez - Paloma
* Roberto Cañedo - Aurelio Rodríguez
* Arturo Soto Rangel - Priest
* Manuel Don ...
'' by
Emilio Fernandez and/or
Gabriel Figueroa
Gabriel Figueroa Mateos (April 24, 1907 – April 27, 1997) was a Mexican cinematographer who is regarded as one of the greatest cinematographers of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema. He has worked in over 200 films, which cover a broad range of ...
, are often considered part of the Mexican national cinematic body. These films, and most popular films of the 1920s in Mexico, adopted
David 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 of
José Guadalupe Posada, the deconstructing landscapes of
Gerardo Murillo
Gerardo Murillo Cornado, also known by his signature "Dr. Atl", (October 3, 1875 – August 15, 1964) was a Mexican painter and writer. He was actively involved in the Mexican Revolution in the Constitutionalist faction led by Venustiano Carra ...
, and the low angles, deep focus, diagonal lines, and 'native' imagery in
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ ɪjzʲɪnˈʂtʲejn, 2=Sergey Mikhaylovich Eyzenshteyn; 11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, scree ...
's ''
Que 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
Luis Buñuel Portolés (; 22 February 1900 – 29 July 1983) was a Spanish-Mexican filmmaker who worked in France, Mexico, and Spain. He has been widely considered by many film critics, historians, and directors to be one of the greatest and ...
'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's ''
Los Olvidados
''Los olvidados'' (, Spanish: ''The Forgotten Ones''; known in the United States as ''The Young and the Damned'') is a 1950 Mexican teen crime film directed by Luis Buñuel. It was filmed at Tepeyac Studios and on location in Mexico City.
Prod ...
'' (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 (the
Golden Globe nominated ''
Como agua para chocolate'' (1991) by Alfonso Arau), the working class melodrama (''Danzon'' (1991) by Maria Novaro), the comedy (''Sólo con tu pareja'' (1991) by
Alfonso Cuarón) and the rural ''costumbrismo'' 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 the
Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografia, new models of co-production were created, and distribution and sales channels were opened abroad.
In other countries
Countries like
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
and
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
have over the years produced a large body of critically acclaimed and award-winning films by the likes of Oscar winner
Bong Joon-ho and the late
Abbas Kiarostami
Abbas Kiarostami ( fa, عباس کیارستمی ; 22 June 1940 – 4 July 2016) was an Iranian film director, screenwriter, poet, photographer, and film producer. An active filmmaker from 1970, Kiarostami had been involved in the production of ...
.
Observations on film art: National cinemas: Iran
/ref>
References
Further reading
*''Theorising National Cinema''. Edited by Valentina Vitali and Paul Willemen. June 2006.
* Barton, Ruth. ''Irish National Cinema''. London and New York: Routledge, 2005.
* Hake, Sabine. ''German National Cinema''. London and New York: Routledge, 2002.
* Haltof, Marek Marek Haltof (Józef Marek Haltof, born 1957 in Cieszyn, Poland,) is a professor ( dr.hab.) of film studies. specializing in the cultural histories of Polish and Australian film.
He studied at the University of Silesia ( Uniwersytet Śląski) in P ...
. ''Polish National Cinema''. New York: Berghahn Books, 2002.
* Hayward, Susan. ''French National Cinema''. London and New York: Routledge, 2005.
* Higson, Andrew. ''The Concept of National Cinema''. Volume 30, Screen, Volume 30, Issue 4, 1 October 1989, Pages 36–47.
* Maingard, Jacqueline. ''South African National Cinema''. London and New York: Routledge, 2008.
* Noble, Andrea. ''Mexican National Cinema''. London and New York: Routledge, 2010.
* O'Regan, Tom. ''Australian National Cinema''. London and New York: Routledge, 2005.
* Renfre, Alistair. ''Russian and Soviet National Cinema''. London and New York: Routledge, 2009.
* Sorlin, Pierre. ''Italian National Cinema''. London and New York: Routledge, 2009.
* Street, Sarah. ''British National Cinema''. London and New York: Routledge, 2009.
* Summers, Howard. ''The Guide To Movie Lists: Filmographies of the World''. Borehamwood
Howcom Services
2018 401p.
* Triana-Toribio, Núria. ''Spanish National Cinema''. London and New York: Routledge, 2003.
* Zhang, Yingjin. ''Chinese National Cinema''. London and New York: Routledge, 2010.
See also
*Musical nationalism
Musical nationalism refers to the use of musical ideas or motifs that are identified with a specific country, region, or ethnicity, such as folk tunes and melodies, rhythms, and harmonies inspired by them.
History
As a musical movement, nation ...
* Third World Cinema
*Cinephilia
Cinephilia (; also cinemaphilia or filmophilia) is the term used to refer to a passionate interest in films, film theory, and film criticism. The term is a portmanteau of the words cinema and philia, one of the four ancient Greek words for love. ...
*Transnational cinema Transnational cinema is a developing concept within film studies that encompasses a range of theories relating to the effects of globalization upon the cultural and economic aspects of film. It incorporates the debates and influences of postnational ...
{{New Wave in cinema , state=collapsed
Film theory
Film criticism
National institutions
1910s in film
1920s in film
1930s in film
1940s in film
1950s in film
1960s in film
1970s in film
1980s in film
1990s in film
2000s in film
2010s in film
2020s in film