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Two topics were covered this week and because they are two I will be making an audio for each of them. I feel this is the best way to cover them.

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How Revenge is Used in Korean Thrillers | Video Essay

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The Film That Changed South Korea | Video Essay

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Bong Joon-ho 봉준호 : Everything is Extreme in Korean Cinema | TIFF 2018

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VIDEOESSAYS!!!!!!!! because I really like them....

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VIDEOESSAYS!!!!!!!! because I really like them....

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South Korea is a interesting wave because it was develop at the end and had a lot of genres and topics. Romance, horror, critics on society and gore films were made all over the place. The interesting part is how South Korea cinema shares several characteristics to Hollywood like the star system. The great discovery was finding out that this whole hybridizations of the genres was develop way before the new wave started and has continued to develop in the next years. I once made an analysis on Parasites d I research this whole thing about mixing genres. It is something that has always been there but gained traction, in my opinion, in the new wave.

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A Beginner's Guide to South Korean Cinema

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Moving with another director and movie....The terrorizers (1986) by Edward Yang and The new wave

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Moving with another director and movie....The terrorizers (1986) by Edward Yang and The new wave

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A rant about The terrorizers and Taiwanese new wave cinema

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ORIENTAL CINEMATOGRAPHIES OF THE NEW MILLENIUM - Presentation by Beatriz Delgadillo Ávila

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And  clips of Chungking Express because it was the first film I watch of him

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And  clips of Chungking Express because it was the first film I watch of him

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The Beauty Of Chungking Express (Chóngqìng sēnlín)

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How Wong Kar-Wai Shoots A Film At 3 Budget Levels

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In The Mood For Love Extras Cinema Lesson interview with Wong Kar wai

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Martin Scorsese and Kar Wai Wong Interview

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Please noticed how I am a fan of his films.....

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In The Mood For Love Extras Interview with Wong Kar wai

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Note!!! I watched for this week three movies by Wong Kar Wai: In the mood for love, Fallen Angels and Happy together

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Week 12-Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea

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Week 12-Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea

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If you haven't notice this is one of my favorite topics along with Japanese and Chinese cinema. I will start by talking about Wong Car Was because I chose the topic thanks to him.

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Top 100 Hong Kong movies - the best Hong Kong films of all time

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Home to icons like Bruce Lee, John Woo and Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong cinema is among the best in the world, and these are the best Hong Kong movies ever.

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I am actually making an essay about his main topics, I really like his films.Specially I recommend the course that is been given by the Cineteca Nacional. He is specially interesting since he was a global filmmaker, influenced by cinemas of different countries. Once I finished my essay I will be adding it here, it will be after the delivery but in case you wish to read it.

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Seven Samurai : Akira Kurosawa : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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One of the most thrilling movie epics of all time, Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai) tells the story of a sixteenth-century village whose desperate...

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I didn't mentioned it on the audio but I definitely saw the comic strip imagery

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Didn´t fully satisfied my curiosity of food and sex relation in the film.... I will search more about it

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It is really interesting, I was able to understand why the whole sex films is relevant. I haven't finished it but I will.

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The Erotic Empire - Documentary on Japanese "Roman Porno" films

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A rant about what I like of Hayao Miyazaki´s films and studio ghibli.

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A small part of a documentary about Hayao Miyazaki

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A small part of a documentary about Hayao Miyazaki

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I couldn´t find the interview so I am adding this clip of Miyazaki cooking ramen.... is a famous one and part of a documentary. Enjoy!!

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Hayao Miyazaki Makes Ramen at Studio Ghibli

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Another video essay on whisper of the heart....

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Another video essay on whisper of the heart....

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Depression ≠ Creativity  - Whisper of the Heart | Renegade Cut

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This is the one I was talking in the audio, it shows how relatable the whole storyline is.

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Whisper of the Heart: How Does It Feel to Be an Artist | Video Essay

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Even though the whole presentation was really interesting what called my attention the most was the or of Shinya Tsukamoto, I couldn't watch his films but the whole mix of robots, fantasy and daily life was really interesting. I was also shocked to learn that a lot of the films where produced with the help of foreign countries. I also find the whole comic strip thing interesting as one of the film I watch was recorded in that style, tho I learned that later because I wasn't able to be at the beginning of the presentation.

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Tetsuo: The Iron Man Original Trailer (Shinya Tsukamoto, 1989)

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Japanese cinema is a cinema that I known. Just like with last week's topic this cinema is one that I watch constantly. I watch the series, anime, hour films specially and other movies that I encounter. Because of that I was really interested in todays presentation, as I wished to learn more. The video essay I added is about Japanese horror and what makes it great.

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I find interesting how censorship has helped and affected Chinese filmmakers. There are some times where the censorship helps create new ways to tell a story or to create a movement that opposes the censorship. In either way great films come out. However it has also impact in a negative way some genres like horror. I do have to say though that I notice almost all Chinese films really take care of the photography and color, it is just really well done.

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Patriotism in Chinese Cinema | Video Essay

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Why are Modern Chinese Movies so Bad | Video Essay

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Mainland Chinese Horror & Censorship | Video Essay

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More video essays about Chinese cinema. This creator is one I really enjoy.

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More video essays about Chinese cinema. This creator is one I really enjoy.

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Right from the very start I knew I was going to like because the similar vibe with Wong Car Was. And I wasn't wrong. I really enjoy the way he start telling a story with a rumor. The rough camera work was a great way to capture my attention and add to the mood of the film. The use of color was also great, the greens creating an urban aesthetic. Overall I really like it, it is just the type of cinema I enjoy.

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Previous knowledge...The house of the flying daggers

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Previous knowledge...The house of the flying daggers

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Years ago while watching television I found in a channel the film The house of the flying daggers. I was completely fascinated by it, at the time I had seen only Hollywood and western films, specially from the United States, so I was quite shocked at how different the film was. The first thing that called my attention was the use of colors, every single shot was beautiful, everything mixed perfectly to create a unique mood. The narrative was fascinating as well, it wasn't the usual style but it was a captivating story. This assets are just some of the things that make Chinese cinema unique.

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I will have to admit that I am a fan of Chinese fantasy and several Chinese series, therefore I was quite exited about this weeks topic. The most important thing that I learn is the difference and separation of China 5th and 6th cinematographers generation and Hong Kong new wave. I actually believed that both were studied together however during class I came to understand why they need to be split.

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Why are Chinese Swords not as Famous | Video Essay

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I have to admit that after I watched it all I understood was that everything was a dream. I had to research for the meaning of the film, it was fun but I needed to research. Ince I read the article pinned above I realize how deep the movie is. It is a film that I need to rewatch to be able to comprehend the full intentions of the director. I also feel like this movie is one that needs context before watching and need a very specific mood. It was confusing, I still don't fully know how to feel about it.

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How David Lynch explores the horrors and wonders of nostalgia

BY Travis

Think of the most controversial films of the last few years. Drive certainly fit the bill for 2011, in both its lack of action sequences and its viewers' anti-Semitic readings of the film. In 2010, people were equally turned off and enamored with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, choosing different readings of its adolescent heroes and their blatant immaturity. And in 2009, despite its critical acclaim, there were understandable reservations surrounding Quentin Tarantino and his alteration of history and (big surprise) portrayal of violence in Inglourious Basterds.

Frankly, these "controversies" all seem like chump change compared to Blue Velvet, which was so divisive in 1986 that people were practically drawing lines in the sand, claiming the film to either be an instant classic or a stylized piece of trash.

Ebert gave it one of his infamous one-star reviews, claiming Lynch's portrayal of woman (especially of Dorothy) was far too sexually blunt and detracting to allow Blue Velvet to be anything more than a misogynistic outing. It was labeled as "cult", which (much like Drive) meant it wouldn't attain a "legendary" status outside of its minimal followers for years, while also suggesting that its subject matter was far too dark and deep to be understood outside a select audience.

What connects all these divisive films isn't their gruesome depictions of violence or any level of irresponsibility, but instead their capture of the fantastical. Steeped in reality through their settings, each film is often misinterpreted as everything but a romantic piece of extravagance. Perhaps it's these fantastical tales' attention to raw human emotion that throws viewers off-a merging of fantasy and reality elements, causing people to throw out the "stylized piece of trash" phrase.

As most of David Lynch's films are gigantic metaphors for the darker side of American ideals, it's no surprise that almost all of his films are met with a collective reservation from audiences. Lynch himself called Blue Velvet "a dream of strange desires wrapped inside a mystery story," signaling that much of what occurs in Blue Velvet isn't reality, but a desire-a pure nostalgia for the past. It's this key motif of focusing on nostalgia that gives emotional weight to all of the elements viewers believe are drawbacks about the film: the portrayal of women, the bluntness of violence, and the radical portraits of American life from both ends of the spectrum.

In dissecting our collective nostalgia for the past, Lynch very much utilizes these "detractors" as enhancers, focusing on their extremes and offsetting contradictions to capture the romantic danger lying beneath nostalgia. In each of these seeming drawbacks, Lynch pairs the past with the present, revealing the dark days of youth, society's not-so-glamorous consumption of women through culture, and the gripping reality of the American Dream.

The first important thing to realize is how each character is offset by another. Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan), who speaks of virtues and cries about the cruel dark underbelly of society, essentially becomes a sexually abusive fiend like Frank (Dennis Hopper). And while Sandy (Laura Dern) is a stylized, sexualized evocation of the "dream girl", Dorothy (Isabella Rossellini) is a raw, unglamorized portrait of reality's worst outputs. Such contrasts carry into the overall juxtaposition within the film, pairing the real and the fantastical side by side, integrating into one another and forming an alternate reality that feels debilitatingly honest. At two points in this film, each Jeffrey and Sandy make astute, yet naïve-sounding observations of their surroundings that offset their dreamlike nostalgia for the past. Jeffrey cries as he begs, "Why are there people like Frank?" Sandy makes a much more romantic statement in response to Jeffrey's cry, saying:

"I had a dream. In fact, it was on the night I met you. In the dream, there was our world, and the world was dark because there weren't any robins and the robins represented love. And for the longest time, there was this darkness. And all of a sudden, thousands of robins were set free and they flew down and brought this blinding light of love. And it seemed that love would make any difference, and it did. So, I guess it means that there is trouble until the robins come."

Summing up the meaning and connection of these two statements in an interview with David Chute, Lynch said of Blue Velvet: "It's like saying that you've once discovered there are heroin addicts in the world and they're murdering people to get money-can you be happy? It's a tricky question. Real ignorance is bliss."

While Sandy represents the blissful ignorance, Jeffrey's journey into Frank's world represents the depressing actuality of American society he so desperately attempts to assign meaning. We see Jeffrey finally succumbing to Sandy's way of thinking in the film's closing moments, as he and she look upon a robin eating a worm-a small depiction of violence and nature that bookends Lynch's film. Sandy and Jeffrey chuckle simultaneously about the bird, noting, "It's a strange world, isn't it?" Blocking out the apparent violence at hand and offhandedly chalking it up to nothing more than nature at work, we see, once again, these two escaping into blissful ignorance and recapturing their endearing nostalgic views of the past, before the police investigation obliterated them. It's a rounding out of dreams evoking nostalgia, as Jeffrey ventures into the police investigation with a quizzical mindset that recalls "The Hardy Boys" or "Encyclopedia Brown", only to discover its horrors, and then subsequently bury those fears and relish in life's simplest wonders.

With fantasies of the past merging with the present, the contrast between Jeffrey and Frank is one that calls out the rebellious generation of youth that, in turn, came to influence future generations. Like in many of Lynch's films, music is employed to stylize, but never has it been more integral to the motif at hand than in Blue Velvet. Building atmosphere is certainly key, as seen in the stark contrast between car rooftop dancing along to Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" and Jeffrey's beating, but the overall (and in this scene, direct) message rock music carries in Blue Velvet is one that recalls the finer, less endearing aspects of youthful rebellion.

Frank, enamored by Ben's (Dean Stockwell) rendition of "In Dreams", attaches a sick sense to the past. The drugs, the sexual desire, and the domination of women all recall the more unruly aspects of rock music, and when reenacted verbatim in one's life become a gripping portrayal of alienation from society's norms, attaching a double meaning to our (and Jeffrey's) attachment to classic ideals. Frank represents the bane of a contradicting system, which reminisces of a fonder lifestyle, while never accounting for the reality of such a lifestyle. As Frank beats Jeffrey in an open field, he begins to sing Orbison's song:

"I close my eyes, then I drift away/Into the magic night, I softly say/A silent prayer like dreamers do/Then I fall asleep to dream my dreams of you."

This very song embodies what Lynch's central message comes to be, in the end contradicting itself:

"But just before the dawn/I awake and find you gone/I can't help it, I can't help it, if I cry/I remember that you said goodbye"

Frank begins to cry upon singing these lines, displaying his fading grip on the past and the desperateness in retaining the beautiful dream it once presented to him before lurching him into such a dark world. Being a fantastical film, nothing about Frank's literal descent into such a system is to be seen as reality, but the reality of the metaphor reveals the danger in aspiring to such a lifestyle. The danger in attaching oneself to the past. The danger in becoming a product of someone else's vision or message-which Jeffrey very much becomes.

Frank's small arc very much represents what Jeffrey experiences in Blue Velvet's entirety, but his short stint in the film displays all the horrors in full force to offset Jeffrey's wondrous mindset. So while his touchy relationship with Sandy charmingly recalls a Sixteen Candles-like innocence to young love, Jeffrey's beating of Dorothy is starkly honest, representing his integration into Frank's system. For Jeffrey it's more of a brief glimpse, living out the darkness he proclaims to not understand in an unrelenting moment of self-discovery. In so desperately aspiring to understand a dark system that he once viewed romantically, Jeffrey's transformation into a misogynistic beast shapes a striking parallel between the reality of this fantasy world and the reality outside Blue Velvet.

Amidst such a transformation the most controversial aspect of Lynch's film comes to light: the objectification of women. Keeping in line with Jeffrey's descent into Frank's world, the balance between Sandy and Dorothy creates a contrast in how women are viewed in society, which in turn stems from the male-domineered system roused from Jeffrey's journey. Sandy represents the traditional allure of a young woman, attractive through her light sexuality and blissfully oblivious view of natural order, while Dorothy represents the opposite end of the spectrum:a palpable and unmitigated display of unglamorized nudity. Such a gripping display offsets the moment we first witness Sandy, emerging from the darkness cloaked in a ray of light, accompanied by an arousing chorus. The sense of nostalgia in this case falls back upon the traditional view of the "girl next door", offset by Dorothy, who, like Frank, is the upchuck of a crippling American system. Dorothy beautifully sings "Blue Velvet" on stage:

"She wore blue velvet/Bluer than velvet was the night/Softer than satin was the light"

A portrait of innocent adoration on Jeffrey's part, the image of Frank looking pitifully upon Dorothy reveals the danger in attaching oneself to such nostalgia. Frank bites down on a blue piece of velvet as he rapes Dorothy, shaping her surrender to Jeffrey's manhood into a display of lost cause in such a system. Begging to be beaten, a seeming display of reality is actually a fantastical way of relating the progressively demeaning subjugation of women, while never abandoning the incredibly real sense of trauma that shapes Dorothy and Jeffrey as human beings, and also plagues our deepest fears regarding our selves and what we're capable of.

Dorothy becomes a piece of symbolism utilized by Lynch with the same level of objectification as a Playboy centerfold, putting women on display to satisfy the egos of men. For Jeffrey's glamorous view of Sandy and the American dream-which he blissfully accepts after abandoning Dorothy-puts such a nostalgia on display in the film's final moments, evoking the classic tale of men coming home to their expecting wives. Except, as seen in many films, Jeffrey toes the line of morality and alters between romantic and beast, only to become a traditional hero in the end.

The opening scene of Blue Velvet features several shots of the American Dream at work, cycling through the 1950s up to the 1980s. Each shot represents a different extremity of its respective decade, featuring various car models and television shows, and each shot is bathed in red roses and white picket fences. It gives the melancholic color of blue a striking presence in Jeffrey's journey, offsetting the nostalgia of the American Dream in the subtlest way amongst Lynch's giant metaphor.

The desire for such a dream is rewarded to Jeffrey and Sandy in the end, but it comes at the cost of their innocence. For its clear that no person can exist in this world without living through its faults and horrors, and such an abandonment of reality leads to the blissful ignorance on display in the final shot. As Jeffrey smiles we believe he is truly happy, but accompanied with the gruesome images from Frank's world and what Jeffrey succumbed to, we surely recognize the taste of bittersweetness lying beneath such blind acceptance.

Blue Velvet isn't a tale of morality or a preachy proclamation, but instead a very real depiction of the danger in attaching oneself to nostalgic dreams. Utilizing Jeffrey's shift through experiencing such nostalgia firsthand evokes what David Lynch does best: taking our deepest fears and weaknesses and putting them on display through a system that doesn't feel sprawling, but instead constricting, suffocating, and altogether encompassing in the most honest and humane ways possible.

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Explaining the confusing story of Blue Velvet

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How David Lynch explores the horrors and wonders of nostalgia BY Travis Think of the most controversial films of the last few years. Drive certainly fit the bill for 2011, in both its lack of action sequences and its viewers' anti-Semitic readings of the film.

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I feel like I really don't have a lot to say about this movement so I will be heading right to the movie impressions. Well, first of all Why did I chose Blue Velvet? Well I haven't watch any complete movie by David Lynch, and I know that's some sort of sacrilege in cinema studies but I have never seen a full movie by him. I have seen several clip tho. So that's why I chose the film.

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Indie movies, a wave that was created in a conflictive time. Please don't confuse the words I just write by conflicting I mean a stagnant moment in Hollywood cinema where the repetitive formula was starting to tire the audience. In this context is when indie movies come out, a wave that challenge the ideas and revived the industry.

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Video Essay: How New Hollywood Created the American Indie

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Tackling the often-troublesome act of linking 'the artist' with unstable mental health is not a unique notion in art or life, but Jane Campion's An Angel at My Table tries to discern the 'madness' from the artist when the artist may not be 'mad' at all; merely awkward and anxious and at times very, very misunderstood. Adopting the autobiographical writings of New Zealand novelist and poet Janet Frame, Campion brings a feminine spirit to the screen, exploring the anguish and the myriad of subtleties of a young girl's transition to maturity and honest creativity, a path that often borders on insanity and paralysis for many of us at one point or another . It is this duality that produces a heartbreaking, honest, while also at times bleakly comical, depiction of one of New Zealand's most celebrated artists.

Initially broadcast on New Zealand television as a three-part miniseries in 1990, we are shown Janet at three different stages of her development - as gifted but wayward child, as shy and painfully uncomfortable-in-her-own-skin young adult, and as grown woman who survives the horrors of eight years of incarceration in a psychiatric institution where she underwent a seemingly endless series of shock therapy treatments - to emerge as a successful writer, a world traveller and a woman who has reclaimed her sexuality and her independence. At successive ages Janet is played by three actresses (Karen Fergusson, Alexia Keogh, and Kerry Fox) and it is their united achievement to show the genius growing within the child, and the child flourishing inside the grown woman.

Campion can make even the most serene landscape appear as a haunted, dark space that seems at once both alien and familiar. "This is the story of my childhood," an adult Janet narrates over the film's opening sequence as we see a baby lying in the grass with her mother towering over her like a gentle giant. While no harm is done, there is a palpable threat in the air, an anticipation of evil. Campion crafts landscapes that are eerily beautiful - making Janet's torturous experience a sobering experience. Perhaps, because despite the insurmountable cruelty that Janet experiences throughout her life, the true horrors are hidden in the mundanity of the world around her, and the treatment she receives from 'well-meaning' others.

Born in 1924 in Dunedin, a small seaside town in southern New Zealand, Janet Frame was one of five children in a poor, happy, rough-around-the-edges family. Campion shows their poverty without romanticizing it. Each hardship the family faces (for example, the death of two daughters or the epileptic fits suffered by a son) adds tension but also reveals abiding love in each of the relationships within it. With her red hair and round freckled face, the young Janet presents an almost comical appearance. The child is odd, loving and vulnerable, and as Janet grows, so too does her awkwardness. Yet this first part of the film is less a recounting of childhood terrors than an essay in the progress of the imagination.

Her desire to be a sensitive, likable individual is first exhibited when Janet attempts to win peer approval by stealing money from her father for gum which she distributes to her classmates. But her eagerness to please leads inevitably to her exposure and shaming by an unsympathetic teacher - the first in a series of ruthless authority figures in Janet's life who presume to possess the power of knowing better than she how to live it. Several scenes later Janet writes her first poem - ignoring another authority, her sister Myrtle (Melina Berneker), on the conventions of poetry - to win approval and acceptance with the children in her class as they joyfully complete the rhyming couplets she is experimenting with. At this early stage her knack with words is established as a gift and a means of social reconciliation.

Progressing from Part One to Part Two, we watch as Janet struggles with her physical wellbeing and integrity. Much like any other growing girl, she tries out faces in the mirror, noticing the first blood between her legs and fearing that it will show or smell, and fighting the frizziness of her hair and the colour of her teeth. While Janet's talent is acknowledged amongst her family and peers, a schizophrenia misdiagnosis leaves her surrounded by well-meaning people who fixate on the notion that this "gradual deterioration of mind with no cure" demands they pacify the writer. At her darkest point (and the darkest part of Campion's film), we see Janet in a hospital; an institution named 'Sunnyside' in a cruel act of irony. The heaviness of this time in Janet's life is artfully crafted through a series of scenes so bleakly shot that the camera captures no colour from Janet's naturally vibrant red hair. The only sounds are the discomforting cries from the institutionalised others who surround her. Nurses grapple with people suffering a variety of illnesses as patients rock back and forth on beds, or swing their arms wildly in fear of being constrained. A woman clutching her pillow to her chest stands at the head of her bed trying to get out of the nurses' reach. There is not an ounce of joy that can be found in this place, where 'medicine' refers to electroconvulsive therapy treatments, "each one equivalent in fear to an execution". Janet's only solace is her imagination: "I comforted myself with writing."

Part Three depicts Janet's redemption from family feuds and hospitalisation through a trip to Europe on a writing grant. With the tension of her early years resolved, the film loosens its focus on growth, turning largely picturesque at times: Janet in Montmartre; Janet typing by candlelight; or Janet staring out a window looking like a painting come to life. Images like this bring to mind Campion's art school background: her visuals often closer to paintings or photographs than to other films. It becomes a mode of narration that is untraditional; it is not structured around main events or the actions of a hero, but rather a perpetual flow of colours, words, and feelings. While softening the film it does not detract from the harsh, confronting realm that Campion has created for Janet as by this time the film has established her as a personality too complex ever to be easily resigned with herself or the world.

The making of Janet the artist is intimately connected with the development of Janet the maturing human being. When the film does suggest a painful existence for the inwardly-focused, isolated artist within society, it is not a far stretch from the brutal norms expected of all of us in some way; fears of humiliation, cruelty and death are common to all. An Angel at My Table is remarkable for its attention to detail, for its pure, striking and resonant images, and for its appreciation of human idiosyncrasies.

An Angel at My Table (1990 Australia/New Zealand/UK 158 minutes)

Prod Co: ABC/Television New Zealand/Channel 4 Prod: Bridget Ikin Dir: Jane Campion Scr: Laura Jones, based on the memoirs, To the Is-Land, An Angel at My Table, and The Envoy from Mirror City by Janet Frame Phot: Stuart Dryburgh Ed: Veronika Jenet Mus: Don McGlashan

Cast: Kerry Fox, Alexia Keogh, Karen Fergusson

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Raphaël Bassan, Théo Deliyannis and Viviane Vagh

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An Angel at My Table (Jane Campion, 1990)

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Tackling the often-troublesome act of linking 'the artist' with unstable mental health is not a unique notion in art or life, but Jane Campion's An Angel at My Table tries to discern the 'madness' from the artist when the artist may not be 'mad' at all; merely awkward and anxious and at times very, very misunderstood.

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Jane Campion is a rarity, not simply because she is a world-class female director but because she has devoted her career to exploring female subjectivity: all of her feature films and most of her early short films are constructed around female experience, female heroes, and female points of view. The New Zealand director arrived on the international stage in 1986, when she presented several short films and a TV movie, Two Friends, at the Cannes Film Festival; one of the shorts won the grand prize. To date, she has made seven features, and although her heroines have enormous variety-the symbiotically attached lower-middle-class sisters of Sweetie (1989), one of them playing the id to the other's superego; the beautiful, impetuous Isabel (Nicole Kidman), depicted, from beginning to end in The Portrait of a Lady (1996),Campion's adaptation of Henry James's novel, as a hunted animal; Frannie (Meg Ryan), the New York City professor in the controversial (2003), who nearly comes to grief because she distrusts and second-guesses her sexual desires-they share an awareness that their personal experience of the world is out of sync with social codes and norms and with the expectations of others. "I think of my heroines as going into the underworld in a struggle to make sense of their lives," Campion told me when I interviewed her in 2003, just before In the Cut 's release. "I think the real danger is in playing safe and avoiding the truth of your imagination in your art and in your life."

Campion was speaking mostly about Frannie, the New York sophisticate, but her words suggest why she was drawn to Janet Frame, a fellow New Zealander, whose three-part autobiography is the basis of An Angel at My Table (1990). In interviews, Campion has described the lasting impression made on her by Frame's novels, which she read when she was about thirteen. She was moved by their sadness and by particularly traumatic incidents, such as the death of the sister who falls onto a pile of burning trash in Owls Do Cry. Campion's close and complicated relationship with her own sister has found its way into several of her films, and it is likely that the shocking, somewhat grotesque death of the schizophrenic sister in Sweetie can be traced back to that early encounter with Frame's fiction. Fifteen years later, when Campion was attending film school, she read the first volume of Frame's autobiography (the following one is titled An Angel at My Table). Having heard rumors that Frame was mad and locked away in an asylum, she was surprised at how much the childhood Frame wrote about resembled her own and how perfectly normal the writer seemed to be. At that point, Campion had only made one or two shorts, but she knew immediately that she wanted to make a film based on Frame's autobiography, and that the proper venue for the material was television. The kind of television experience Campion must have had in mind is the intimate one of watching a movie alone, which can produce a sense of solitude akin to getting lost in a book. It was only in the solitude of reading and writing, or of being alone in nature, that Frame, who was intensely shy, found pleasure in life.

An Angel at My Table was indeed produced as a television miniseries but then jumped to theatrical distribution, despite the director's worry that its straightforward visual style, conceived mostly in close-ups and medium shots appropriate to the square television screen, would be too simple to register when projected for larger audiences. Only the opening sequences of the film-the haunting shots of Janet, as an infant, lying in the grass while her mother swoops above her like a giant bat, followed by Janet, as a young child, all alone on a country road, toddling determinedly toward the camera and then abruptly turning and running away-bind image to interiority in the way we've come to expect of a Campion film. An Angel at My Table is an anomaly within heroeuvre in this respect, and it is also the only film she has made based entirely on the life of an actual person. Perhaps she found it inappropriate to impose on Frame's life story the kind of visual style she uses to express the turbulent inner life of characters that spring from her own imagination (the skewed camera angles of Sweetie or the slightly distorted, variable-speed moving-camera images of In the Cut). One could also view the pared-down film language of An Angel at My Table as an expressive choice. By keeping Janet in the center of almost every shot, Campion suggests that, despite the difficulties her heroine experiences in her social relationships and her sense of not fitting any of the institutional roles prescribed for her, she has a remarkably strong sense of self that will eventually become manifest in her writing. It is as if she were looking at the world through an open window deep within herself. What's striking about Frame's writing is how direct and personal it is and also how utterly lacking in narcissism. The modesty of Frame's style demanded an act of self-effacement on the part of the filmmaker, who brilliantly channeled her onto the screen.

An Angel at My Table is also unique among Campion's films in that it is the only one in which her heroine is an artist, finding her vocation, and thus has obvious connections to the director's own story. The screenplay, by Laura Jones, who also collaborated with Campion on The Portrait of a Lady, is completely linear in its structure, moving straight ahead from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. But it is also extremely elliptical, and the abruptness with which individual scenes begin and end serves to emphasize the memory aspect of all autobiography, and paradoxically to give the film its dynamics and energy. The three actresses who play Frame are exceptional, and their performances are so perfectly melded that they give the impression of being one person. Alexia Keogh plays Janet as a child; Karen Fergusson plays her as a teenager; and Kerry Fox, in her film debut, plays her in late adolescence and early adulthood. Fox is on-screen in almost every shot of the second half of the film, and the emotional range and subtlety she brings to her work is astonishing-especially given that Frame, with her discordant combination of intelligence, courage, and extreme shyness, is a difficult character for any actor to play.

For Frame, writing was literally her salvation. She was one of the middle children of a large, relatively poor rural family, and her somewhat odd physical appearance-she had flaming red, unruly hair and a head that seemed too big for her stubby, awkward body-and literary aspirations marked her early as an outsider. When she was away from home for the first time, to attend teacher's college, her shyness and anxiety grew to the point where, fearing she was suicidal, the school advised her parents to commit her. She was misdiagnosed as schizophrenic and received two hundred electroshock treatments in her eight years of institutionalization. It was her writing that gave doctors second thoughts about whether she belonged in a hospital, and she was released just in the nick of time, having been short-listed for a lobotomy.

If this sounds like a grim tale, in certain ways it is, particularly the years in the madhouse, which Campion depicts in brutal but mercifully brief scenes. But Frame's struggle to see the world with her own eyes, her longing for beauty in nature and in art, her refusal of sentimentality and self-pity, her clear-eyed appraisal of herself and of others, and, above all, her marvelous intelligence are not only inspiring, they add up to someone who's immensely lovable and lovely to watch on the screen. When, toward the end of the film, Frame, who's living alone on a writer's grant in Spain, has her first affair-with an aspiring, laughably untalented American poet-we want to warn her, "Don't do it. He's not worthy of you, and he's going to hurt you." Which, of course, he does. But we're also glad, as we expect she is, that she experienced, at least once, how the body is transformed by desire and its satisfaction. And when he comes to say goodbye, she refuses to open the door. Instead, she sits down at her typewriter, and the look on her face is that of someone who knows that words are a refuge and a triumph, and that the artist's imagination can transcend the anxiety and grief of finding oneself, again and again, alone in the world.

It is in fact a surprisingly optimistic and decisive conclusion for Campion. Her other heroines emerge from their difficult, dangerous journeys stronger, but they are left ambivalent about where to go next in their lives, how to find their place-leaving the viewer, in turn, with a sense of unease. Janet, on the other hand, has discovered her vocation, and, in her little camper, parked near the house where her remaining family lives, she is as fully at home as anyone could hope to be.

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Jane Campion is a rarity, not simply because she is a world-class female director but because she has devoted her career to exploring female subjectivity: all of her feature films and most of her early short films are constructed around female experience, female heroes, and female points of view.

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More articles that I found interesting about the film

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More articles that I found interesting about the film

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An angel at my table: A human take on life

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An angel at my table: A human take on life

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"It is captivating to see the female gaze of a male body or the moment when the girl realizes her sexual desires or comes to terms with her own body’s limitations. Yet, the overall mood is achingly humanistic. The female subjectivity or female experience works in tandem to impart universally recognizable human emotions" This phase found in the article I linked above resumes my thoughts and feelings towards the movie. Even before I watched it I knew that there will be a female gaze however I was quite socked at the humanity shown in it. It is really hard to describe the feeling this film creates because it is a feeling based on senses. We feel in a very intimate yet non invasive way the feelings and thoughts of Janet. We follow her thoughts through the people she is watching, the scenes unfolding in front of her, the touch and excitement whenever she encounters something she likes and the walls when she is in complete despair. It's a film that makes sure it's main priority is to show how human Janet is and that makes this film absolutely fantastic.

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The biggest strength of An Angel at My Table is the way director Jane Campion adheres to a unique visual style which feels so organic and natural that you don't feel like observing the life of some relatively unknown author from remote corner of New Zealand. The yearning, the delight, and the misery faced by Janet Frame directly speak to our hearts, unlike many traditional biopics.

Author Janet Frame was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, on 28 August 1924. With a pudgy body and mushy cloud of orange-red curls, Janet Frame right from her childhood found it hard to fit in. She lived with poor working-class parents, three sisters and a brother. The green hills and blue waters gracing the atmosphere of the Frame's family farm have enough beauty to soothe one's mind and heart. Yet, the poverty of 1930s and early 1940s had plunged Janet into a tortured childhood. Janet, however, decorated her isolated world by focusing on poetry and short stories. In her adulthood, Janet was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia. For eight long years, she was locked in the soul-sucking spaces of a mental asylum. Thankfully, her creative skills weren't affected. She took the preordained path to become a full-time writer and went on to gain great literary reputation over the years. Janet was far removed from conventional family life and lived in a unique state of freedom, until her gentle soul departed the earth on January 29, 2004.

In the early 1980s, Janet Frame commenced her writing on three volume autobiography, collectively titled as 'An Angel at My Table'. The first volume 'To the Is-land' was released in 1982 and 28 year old New Zealander Jane Campion after reading the book immediately went to Frame's flat seeking the rights for a movie adaptation (on December 24, 1982 as quoted in 'Guardian' article). Campion read her first Janet Frame novel (Owls do Cry - considered it as one of the best novels to hail from New Zealand) at the age of 14. With a BA in anthropology and BA in painting major, Jane Campion has just entered the film-making universe in the early 1980s. She is yet to make a short film. And, fascinated by Campion's boldness, Janet asked Campion to wait until the release of the two more volumes. Janet also promised that she would not sell the rights to others. Jane Campion, after directing her first spectacular feature-film Sweetie (1989) decided to get back to the dream project. The movie also titled An Angle at My Table (1990) was initially planned as a mini TV series. But armed with an interesting script from Laura Jones (High Tide, Angela's Ashes), Campion opted to make a lengthy feature-film (157 minutes). The film stole the heart of movie-lovers when it was first screened at Venice Film Festival and signaled the arrival of a great film-making talent.

The film was divided into three parts, in tune with the auto-biography's three volumes. The first one chronicles Janet's childhood years, followed by distressing teenage years and then the independent years, when she chased after her dream. Few years back, before watching the film for the first time, I was skeptical about it. A biopic with a 150 plus running time didn't interest me much. But, when little, plump Janet with a brightly colored tousled hair walks into the frame, set against striking post-card beauty landscape, I was instantly engrossed. The next two-and-half hours quickly passed away, instilling a powerful, emotionally overwhelming movie experience. The biggest strength of An Angel at My Table is the way director Campion adheres to a unique visual style which feels so organic and natural that you don't feel like observing the life of some relatively unknown author (I didn't come across any of Janet's books before watching the biopic) from remote corner of New Zealand. The yearning, the delight, and the misery faced by Janet Frame directly speak to our hearts, unlike many traditional biopics. The film also happens to have one of my most favorite female performances. Kerry Fox's portrayal of Janet Frame is one of the primary reasons for me to often revisiting this magnificent work.

Most of the biopics are carried away by the idea of reiterating the important facts of a famous personality's life that the entire film becomes a visual metonym of a Wikipedia page. It doesn't happen with Jane Campion's film. Screenwriter Laura Jones' script has a traditional structure and is full of intriguing vignettes. Yet, it stays away from biopic conventions. Director Campion primarily realizes the rich inner life of Janet Frame with perfect casting of actors. The minimal self-esteem, isolation, love, and yearning are subtly affixed to the character. The little Janet's domestic life varies between bitter and bittersweet. We witness her large family (dad is a railway worker) scraping through the depression era. Janet looks up to her outspoken and very beautiful elder sister Mrytle. Nicknamed 'Fuzzy' by her schoolmates, Janet was never adored like her elder sister. Her small attempts to make the schoolmates look up to her only adds up to the misery. But, Janet also understands that she is different and special because of the ability to write spectacular poems. The child was duly encouraged by the dad who gifts her first notebook.

Nevertheless, tragedy always has an overwhelming presence in the Frame family farm. Despite the exuberant beauty of the landscape, the economical troubles of the era push the family to live in a rusted old-house at the center of nowhere. Janet's young brother Bruddie suffers from epileptic seizures. Delightful teenager Myrtle dies in a drowning accident. This tragic incident creates a big emotional scar on the family, setting in the alienation (some years later, Janet's another sister also died in a drowning accident). The shy, teenage Janet (Karen Fergusson) is also burdened with sexual loneliness as she is wary about talking with boys. She boards a room in strict aunt's house. Although she dreams of becoming a full-time writer, the solitary life only puts her on the path of becoming a teacher. A little anxious moment makes Janet to throw away her teaching career to only work in the kitchens of the college. All this time, Janet becomes a more introverted person, finding solace only in writing from the cramped resident space.

The feelings of uncertainty and the failure of others to understand Janet's personality eventually bundles her up to a mental asylum. In the old, apathetic mental healthcare treatment system (the 1940s &50s), Janet's emotional condition worsens. Wrongly diagnosed with schizophrenia, she is subjected to hundreds of electroshock treatments ('each one equal in fear to an execution' recalls Janet). She very nearly escaped from being lobotomized. It was so painful to look at Janet's expression of fear when the doctor says she is not going to be lobotomized and that her book has won a prize. After being in the hellish environment for eight years (at Sea-cliff Lunatic Asylum), Janet faced the prospects of a better future as her books gained some reputation. A generous admirer of Janet's works arranges for a literary grant to travel around Europe. The intention was to experience a bit of cultural shock and to broaden her perspective. The trip proves to be fruitful and Janet even has a romantic fling with an American teacher (in Spain). Eventually, after her father's death, Janet was drawn to homeland. She now returns to New Zeland as an energetic, confident and free woman. From then on, Janet's splendid literary voice resonated within and outside the island nation.

Director Jane Campion has the unparalleled knack for capturing human emotions. She simultaneously creates this fragile world of little Janet and keeps our emotions attuned to it. Take the scene, when the little girl's plan to make the classmates adore her totally flops or the tragicomic scene when child Janet says the word 'fucked' at dinner table, we are absorbed by the character's emotions. Campion tightens the frames with close-ups when little Janet experiences the bitter things. Finally, when the child realizes that she is not only different from others, but also has a unique gift of writing, Campion's tight frame now provides a sort of emotional catharsis. This ability to closely observe Janet's emotional conflicts, loneliness and the ultimate relief provides a window to the real Janet's soul. The unbelievable finesse in each sequence delivers a very pure cinematic experience. There's none of the additional visual flavors; something to distract our attention or to strongly make a point. As expected, Stuart Dyburgh's framing of New Zealand is a wonder to behold. The true talent of Dyburgh-Campion, however, is more visible in the mental asylum sequence as they go for bluish tint and tighter frames to evoke the unsettling mood. The brief phase of cruelty experienced by Janet passes off the agony and strangely subverts from the visual cliches of depicting mental asylum.

Writer Laura Jones and Campion were clever enough to understand what matters in the biopic. They inject the facts from Janet's life, but the primary task was to impeccably present a strong female figure, who wasn't brought down by numerous tragedies in life. In the interview to Guardian, Campion recalls how she felt when reading Janet's Owls do cry at the age of 14: "she affirmed it in me, and in countless other sensitive teenage girls that we had been given a voice: powerful and poetic". The same could be said about Campion's visualization of Janet Frame's life. She addresses the desires of female figures, which isn't often addressed in the movie framework. While there have been countless dramas about introverted, talented male artists, we don't find a lot of cinematic works about similarly great female artists. But, of course Campion's works differs from what you could refer as 'rigidly feministic' (what they label as 'cinema only for women'). It is captivating to see the female gaze of a male body or the moment when the girl realizes her sexual desires or comes to terms with her own body's limitations. Yet, the overall mood is achingly humanistic. The female subjectivity or female experience works in tandem to impart universally recognizable human emotions. Every introvert (male & female) could feel Janet's yearning to be at the center of a larger group and the accompanying doubts and shyness that stops us from making that yearning come true. For highly talented introverts, the inability to mix in a group in fact kindles their artistic persona.

Kerry Fox as Janet Frame is absolutely phenomenal. There's couple of splendid scenes of her that would always stand out in my memory: When Janet is sensually touched by a man; When Janet cleans her old farmhouse. In the former scene, Janet's body experiences something new and special, yet at the same time her mind says the opposite: to withdraw which she eventually does. Kerry Fox astoundingly captures Janet's emotional conflict in this scene. In the later scene, Janet finds her dad's old boot. She slips her feet inside, trying to imitate her father's mannerisms. This is another beautifully enacted intimate moment that our emotions are perfectly in tune with the on-screen character's.

An Angel at My Table (157 minutes) must be watched to witness Jane Campion and Kerry Fox's remarkable collaboration in order to weave humanistic portrait of a woman with an unbreakable spirit. As far as the biopic goes, this is one of the best ever made.

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An Angel at My Table [1990] - A Fitting Tribute to a Great Artistic Soul

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The biggest strength of An Angel at My Table is the way director Jane Campion adheres to a unique visual style which feels so organic and natural that you don't feel like observing the life of some relatively unknown author from remote corner of New Zealand.

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This time I will be talking directly about the film I watched.... the reason? Well, there really isn't a lot that I have to say about this cinema. Once again it's hilarious considering the amount of festivals in canda as well as film schools. Now, onto the film I chose: An angel at my table (1990)

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If you search Oceanida cinema you will find clips and videos about Genshin Impact. I think is funny because it shows just how unknown this cinema is.

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Week 9- Canada & Oceanida...Other Occidentalities

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Week 9- Canada & Oceanida...Other Occidentalities

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When I first heard of this weeks topic I was quite curious. This countries are ones that I know exist however I have never seen a movie from there. It's interesting because I have seen film from different countries in Asia and Europe but not from this two countries. I really didn´t knew what to expect so I started this week with a completely open mind.

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Shot on location near Lesser Slave Lake, Alberta, Back to God's Country was Canada's most successful silent feature film. It featured a strong, assertive female character who behaved both heroically and independently, even rescuing a man in distress.

See also: Quebec Film History: 1896 to 1969; Quebec Film History: 1970 to 1989; Quebec Film History: 1990 to Present; 30 Key Events in Canadian Film History; Exhibit Eh: Canadian Film History in 10 Easy Steps; Documentary Film; Canadian Film Animation; Experimental Film; Film Distribution; Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time; English Canadian Films: Why No One Sees Them; National Film Board of Canada; Telefilm Canada; Canadian Feature Films; Film Education; Film Festivals; Film Censorship; Film Cooperatives; Cinémathèque Québécoise; The Craft of Motion Picture Making.

Pioneering Years, 1896-1914

The American film industry can be dated back to 1903. This was when narrative filmmaking ( The Great Train Robbery, Uncle Tom's Cabin) and the world's first movie studio to rely entirely on artificial light (in New York City) were introduced. But it is almost impossible to speak of a Canadian film industry at the birth of cinema.

The first public screening of a film in Canada took place in Montreal on 28 June 1896. Two years earlier, Andrew and George Holland of Ottawa had opened the world's first Kinetoscope parlour in New York City featuring Thomas Edison's latest invention. In July 1896, the Holland brothers introduced Edison's Vitascope to the Canadian public in Ottawa's West End Park. Among the scenes shown was The Kiss, starring May Irwin, a Broadway actress from Whitby, Ontario. On 31 August, the first screening in Toronto took place at Robinson's Musée on Yonge Street. The first screening in Vancouver was in December 1898.

The first Canadian films were produced in the fall of 1897, a year after the Montreal debut. They were made by James Freer, a Manitoba farmer, and depicted life on the Prairies. Some of his films were Arrival of CPR Express at Winnipeg, Pacific and Atlantic Mail Trains and Six Binders at Work in a Hundred Acre Wheatfield. In 1898, sponsored by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), Freer toured England with his "home movies." They were collectively entitled Ten Years in Manitoba. They were so successful that the federal government sponsored a second tour by Freer in 1902.

A flyer advertising James Freer's Ten Years in Manitoba: "25,000 instantaneous photos on a half-a-mile of Edison film, reproducing the domestic and agricultural life of the great North-West!"

That same year, the CPR hired a British company to bring together a group of filmmakers, known as the Bioscope Company of Canada, to produce Living Canada. This series of 35 scenes depicting Canadian life was designed to encourage British immigration to Canada. The series included the first fictional drama made in Canada, the 15-minute-long Hiawatha, The Messiah of the Ojibway (1903). Also in 1903, Léo-Ernest Ouimet established Canada's first film exchange in Montreal. He opened the first theatre in Montreal in 1906, followed in 1907 by the largest (1,200 seats) luxury theatre in North America. It was also in Montreal.

The CPR continued to produce films promoting immigration into the 1930s. In 1910, it hired the Edison Company to produce 13 story films to dramatize the special virtues of settling in the Canadian West. ( See also: History of Settlement in the Canadian Prairies.) These promotional films were characteristic of most Canadian productions through 1912. They were financed by Canadians but made by non-Canadians. Their objective was to sell Canada or Canadian products abroad. The few Canadians who produced their own films (such as Ouimet in Montreal, Henry Winter in Newfoundland and James Scott in Toronto) made only newsreels or travelogues. Meanwhile, American film companies were beginning to use Canada as the setting for narrative films. Many of them featured villainous French Canadian lumberjacks, Métis, gold prospectors and noble Mounties.

After 1912, film companies in several Canadian cities began producing fiction as well as factual films. In Halifax, the Canadian Bioscope Company made the first Canadian feature, Evangeline (1913). It was based on the Longfellow poem about the expulsion of the Acadians. It was a critical and financial success. The company made several other less successful films before folding in 1915. The British American Film Company of Montreal, one of several short-lived companies in that city, produced The Battle of the Long Sault (1913). In Toronto, the Conness Till Film Company made several comedy and adventure films in 1914 and 1915. In Windsor, Ontario, the All Red Feature Company produced The War Pigeon (1914), a drama about the War of 1812.

Hiawatha, The Messiah of the Ojibway, Canada's first dramatic narrative film, was shot in Desbarats, Ontario, near Sault Ste. Marie in the summer of 1903.

Early Government Censors and Film Boards

From the beginning, the regulation of film content, distribution and exhibition was a provincial matter. Each province set its own standards and practices. In 1911, Ontario established the first Board of Censors in North America and Manitoba passed an act that delegated film censorship to the City of Winnipeg. Ontario's board was considered the gold standard across North American jurisdictions. British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec established active censor boards in 1913. Manitoba created a proper provincial board in 1916.

The Ontario Motion Picture Bureau (OMPB) was the first state-sponsored film organization in the world. It was founded in May 1917 to provide "educational work for farmers, school children, factory workers and other classes." Its mandate was to produce films that would advertise Ontario and promote infrastructure projects. The OMPB initially contracted all production to private companies in Toronto. In 1923, it purchased the Trenton Studios and began making its own films. (The first movie studio in Canada, the Trenton Studios opened as Adanac Films in Trenton, Ontario, in 1917.)

At its peak in 1925, the OMPB distributed 1,500 reels of film per month. It used 28mm, non-theatrical safety stock in order to avoid the fire hazard posed by 35mm nitrate stock. Its distribution system became outdated in the late 1920s when 16mm film stock replaced 28mm. After becoming inefficient and irrelevant, the OMPB was shut down in October 1934. However, it established a legacy of government involvement in Canadian filmmaking that would become a defining feature of the Canadian film industry.

A group of cameramen outside the Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau, Ottawa, Ontario, 1923.

The Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau was founded as the Exhibits and Publicity Bureau in 1918. It was the first national film production unit in the world. Its purpose was to produce films that promoted Canadian trade and industry. As the minister of Trade and Commerce put it in 1924, the Bureau "was established for the purpose of advertising abroad Canada's scenic attractions, agricultural resources and industrial development."

The Bureau produced a series of theatrical short films called Seeing Canada. It distributed the series theatrically in Canada and abroad. By 1920, the Bureau maintained the largest studio and post-production facility in Canada. It also distributed its films to numerous countries around the world. But for all its successes in production and distribution, the Bureau never attempted to develop a domestic film production industry in Canada. In fact, it actively discouraged it. Instead, it favoured a business model that saw Canada as a branch plant of the American industry. (See also: Staple Thesis.) Bernard E. Norrish, the Bureau's first director, stated that Canada "had no more use for a large moving picture studio than Hollywood had for a pulp mill."

The Bureau focused on travelogues and industrial films through the 1920s and 1930s. It made sporadic attempts at more meaningful projects, such as Lest We Forget (1935) and The Royal Visit (1939). However, the Bureau didn't convert to sound films until 1934. It was effectively replaced in 1939 by the creation of the National Film Board (NFB). The NFB officially absorbed the Bureau in 1941.

The beautiful Allen Theatre, "Canada's finest and most modern photoplay theatre," on Vancouver's West Georgia Street in 1921.

Expansion and Production, 1917-1923

The growth of Canadian nationalism around the First World War resulted in a brief flurry in Canadian production and other aspects of the film industry. The first widely released Canadian newsreels appeared. Feature film production also expanded, as did the Canadian-owned Allen Theatres chain and associated distribution companies. The motion picture bureaus established by the Ontario government in 1917, and the federal government in 1918, also contributed to the boom in activity.

This optimistic period of expansion was led by a number of enterprising producers. George Brownridge was principal promoter of Canada's first film studio, Adanac Films (opened in Trenton, Ontario, in 1917). He produced three feature films, including the anti- Communist The Great Shadow (1919). Léo-Ernest Ouimet was a producer, exhibitor and distributor who established the country's first film exchange in 1903. He also opened Canada's first luxury theatre in Montreal in 1907. Blaine Irish was head of Filmcraft Industries. He produced the feature Satan's Paradise (1922) and two successful theatrical short film series. Bernard Norrish was the first head of the Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau. He was later head of Associated Screen News (ASN). Charles and Len Roos were producers, directors and cameramen of many films, including the feature Self Defence (1916). And finally, A.D. "Cowboy" Kean was an early cameraman and producer.

However, the most successful Canadian producer of this period was Ernest Shipman. He had already established his reputation as a promoter in the US. He returned to Canada in 1919 with his author/actress wife, Nell Shipman, to produce Back to God's Country (1919) in Calgary. This romantic adventure about an embattled heroine triumphing over villainy was released worldwide. It returned a 300 per cent profit to its Calgary backers, due in no small part to Nell's groundbreaking nude appearance in the movie.

A vocal proponent of a domestic Canadian film industry, Ernest Shipman believed in shooting a film where the story took place ("telling the truth in motion pictures," he called it) and spoke often of repatriating the many Canadian actors working in Hollywood.

During the next three years, Ernest Shipman established companies in several Canadian cities. He made a number of features based on Canadian novels. All of them were filmed not in studios, as was the common practice at the time, but on location. These films - including God's Crucible (1920), Cameron of the Royal Mounted (1921), The Man from Gelngarry (1922) and The Rapids (1922) - were not as profitable as his first, but they were not failures either. Only his last film, Blue Water (1923) - made in New Brunswick with future Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) star Norma Shearer - was a disaster. Shipman left Canada in 1923 and died in 1931 in relative obscurity.

Ernest Shipman's departure also marked the end of the minor boom in Canadian production. In 1923, only two feature films were produced in Canada, compared to nine in 1922. Even the production of short films showed a sharp decline. However, the number of Hollywood films with Canadian plots increased markedly.

Through the rest of the 1920s, production in Canada mainly consisted of inserts for American newsreels, sponsored short films, and documentaries produced by the government motion picture bureaus and a handful of private companies. There was one brief resurgence in 1927. Private investors contributed $500,000 to produce Carry on Sergeant!, a silent drama about Canadians in the First World War. It was written and directed by British author and cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather. Though well received by critics, it came at the dawn of the sound era and died within weeks of its release.

The CMPDA and Famous Players, 1922 Takeover

Theatre ownership has traditionally been the most lucrative sector of the film industry. The theatre owner would typically take 50 per cent of every ticket sold. Because of the high cost of film production, widespread distribution is vital to a film's commercial success. In the 1920s, the major Hollywood studios (Paramount, RKO, 20th Century Fox, MGM and Warner Bros.) adopted a vertically integrated model of ownership. This allowed them to combine production and distribution under one umbrella. The majors then aligned themselves with the large national theatre chains to guarantee an outlet for their product. In some cases, they purchased theatre chains outright.

In 1924, the Motion Picture Exhibitors and Distributors of Canada (MPEDC) was formed. (It became the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association, or CMPDA, in 1940. Since 2011, it has been called the Motion Picture Association - Canada.) Although Canadian in name, the association consisted of the Canadian offices of the major American distribution companies. It was essentially a branch of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association of America. For the purposes of calculating domestic gross revenue, American distributors began including Canada in their bottom line.

In 1923, American-born N.L. Nathanson, owner of the Toronto-based Famous Players Canadian Corporation (FPCC), bought all 53 of the Canadian-owned Allen Theatres. This made Famous Players the largest theatre owner in Canada and gave it control of the Canadian exhibition market. However, FPCC was owned by Adolf Zukor's Paramount Pictures. Zukor, through his holding company, thus seized direct control of the exhibition market in Canada.

In 1930, under the Federal Combines Investigation Act, Prime Minister R.B. Bennett appointed Peter White to investigate more than 100 complaints against American film interests operating in Canada. White's report concluded that Famous Players was a combine "detrimental to the Public Interest." The provinces of Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and BC took FPCC and the American distribution cartel represented by the CMPDA to court in Ontario. After a lengthy trial, FPCC and other defendants were found not guilty on three counts of "conspiracy and combination."

A decision against the US cartel would have been a historic turning point for the future of filmmaking in Canada. Films were still produced by Associated Screen News and government agencies. However, these suffered funding cutbacks during the Great Depression. By the 1930s, the Canadian film industry became virtually a branch plant of Hollywood.

"Quota Quickies"

European film industries also faced the threat of Hollywood domination in the 1920s. But most governments there moved quickly to protect their domestic industries. They typically controlled the ownership of exhibition and distribution companies, or stimulated national production. Canada took no comparable action.

One such action was taken by the United Kingdom. It passed the Cinematographic Films Act of 1927, which came into effect in 1928. The law stipulated that 15 per cent of films shown in Britain had to be of British or Commonwealth origin. From 1928 to 1937, a total of 22 low-budget feature films were produced in Canada by Canadian-based, American-financed companies in order to take advantage of the quota. These films were commonly referred to as "quota quickies."

When the legislation was introduced, production companies sprang up in Calgary, Montreal and Toronto. The most active producer of quota quickies was Kenneth Bishop of Victoria, BC. He produced two films (1932-34) through his Commonwealth Productions and another 12 films in three years (1935-37) through his second company, Central Films. Only some of the films were set in Canada. All of them were essentially generic Hollywood B-movies. Bishop had all the post-production and editing done in Hollywood. This allowed his financiers, Columbia Pictures, to approve the final product.

The quota law was renewed by the British government in 1938. It was amended to remove the inclusion of Commonwealth films. This was mainly due to the way Canada had allowed the law to be subverted. There were attempts in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta to introduce provincial quotas for British films. None of these bills became law.

In his book One Hundred Years of Canadian Cinema, George Melnyk argued that the quota quickies "played their own historical role in marking Canada's transition from its British colonial past to its new imperial master, the United States." As Lewis Selznick, one of Hollywood's pioneering producers, once remarked, "If Canadian stories are worth making into films, American companies will be sent into Canada to make them."

Years of Inaction

The only memorable Canadian feature of this period was The Viking (1931). It depicted the hazardous life of Newfoundland's seal hunters. It was produced in Newfoundland between 1930 and 1931 by American adventurer Varick Frissell. It is technically not a Canadian production. But it is a key example of what was to become a characteristic Canadian genre - documentary dramas. These films blend fiction and nonfiction, are rich in a sense of place, and explore the relationship between people and their environment. This approach emerged early in Canadian film and distinguished many later Canadian features.

In the 1930s, however, this docudrama approach was scarcely evident. The commercial industry had died, the Ontario Motion Picture Bureau had been closed down by the provincial Liberals, and the studio in Trenton was closed. Even the Government Motion Picture Bureau had lapsed into sterility. Only in the work of a few individuals (especially Bill Oliver in Alberta, and Albert Tessier and Maurice Proulx in Quebec) and at Associated Screen News (founded in Montreal in 1920 and active until 1958) was there any continuing sense of creative vitality. ASN mainly produced newsreels and sponsored films. But it did produce two widely released short-film series: Kinograms in the 1920s; and the Canadian Cameo series from 1932 to 1953. Supervised and usually directed by Gordon Sparling, these films showed flair and imagination. They were almost the only film representation of Canada at home or abroad during this period.

Only one English Canadian feature film was made in the 1940s - Bush Pilot (1946), an imitation of Hollywood's Captains of the Clouds (1942). A print of the film was restored by the National Archives (now Library and Archives Canada) and TMN television network.

This article is one of four that surveys the history of the film industry in Canada. The entire series includes: Canadian Film History: 1896 to 1938; Canadian Film History: 1939 to 1973; Canadian Film History: 1974 to Present; Canadian Film History: Notable Films and Filmmakers 1980 to Present.

See also: Quebec Film History: 1896 to 1969; Quebec Film History: 1970 to 1989; Quebec Film History: 1990 to Present; 30 Key Events in Canadian Film History; Exhibit Eh: Canadian Film History in 10 Easy Steps; Documentary Film; Canadian Film Animation; Experimental Film; Film Distribution; Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time; English Canadian Films: Why No One Sees Them; National Film Board of Canada; Telefilm Canada; Canadian Feature Films; Film Education; Film Festivals; Film Censorship; Film Cooperatives; Cinémathèque Québécoise; The Craft of Motion Picture Making.

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Shot on location near Lesser Slave Lake, Alberta, Back to God's Country was Canada's most successful silent feature film. It featured a strong, assertive female character who behaved both heroically and independently, even rescuing a man in distress.

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One of the most acclaimed films out of all the ones we had in this weeks folder. I though that I will like it just like it happened with Festen however I wasn't completely moved by it. While the film is interesting to analyze I find that I wasn't really involved in the film. It was enojoyable however it isn't something that I will be watching again. Overall I find that Dogma 95 isn't something for me, maybe cause I enjoy other type of cinema.

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During class we had a discussion of dogma 95 about whether or not we will like to make a dogma film. Most agree that it will be a great exercise and everyone admired how hard it is to actually follow all the rules of Dogma. At the end I came to the conclusion that making a dogma film isn't for everyone, it requieres a certain profile however it does gives very interesting results.

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To be able to do a Dogma 95 film you had to follow 10 rules and then be certified by the association. This movement searched to break the norms of commercial and author cinema of the time. This movement characterizes itself for its realism. Dogma 95 is a movement that has and continues to influence new filmmakers all around the world.

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Moscouw doesnt believe in tears- final part

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Some recordings I dd while watching the film... please excuse my English

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Some recordings I dd while watching the film... please excuse my English

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MOVIE CHOICE: MOSCOW DOESN´T BELIEVE IN TEARS

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MOVIE CHOICE: MOSCOW DOESN´T BELIEVE IN TEARS

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One of the things I realized about Soviet cinema is that they can be quite relatable even years later. The reason for this I believe is that the topics and changes they had are quite similar to some of the ones we have today..

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Киноконцерн "Мосфильм"

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Москва слезам не верит, 2 серия (FullHD, драма, реж. Владимир Меньшов, 1979 г.)

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Soviet cinema, one that included several countries including Czechoslovakia,  Yugoslavia, Hungary, Poland and of Cours USSR.  The cinema develop in a communist state therefore the topics of this films are relatable up to a certain point but are shown in a different way, at least to western standards.

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Soviet Montage: Crash Course Film History #8

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The shortest movement in history, I think. This movement was made by three directors: John Jaques Beineix,  Leos Carx and Luc Besson. There is only ten movies that are considered part of this movement. Despite the short length, it's impact change the view of what they considered "films obsessed with visuals" and allow the narration of more critical films.

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EIFF 2016 | Look Again: A Celebration of Cinema Du Look

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On Europe, there was a moment where national films weren't being watch, therefore a new wave of cinematographers rise. Some of the main directors were Marguerites Duras, Margarette von Trotta, Agnes Varda, Pedro Almodovar and more. One of the most important movements was the Cinema du Look in France.

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The Films of Theo Angelopoulos (100 Years of Cinema, 100 Directors)

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Deeply poetic and sad, Landscape in the mist (1988) portrays the loss of innocence of two brothers as we follow them through a journey to find their father. What is our purpose of life? Where are we going? That is what the kids question. I knew it was a tragedy from the very first minutes of the film however I was left shocked at the metaphors and hidden meanings in some shots. While watching the film I couldn't help but wonder what was wrong with the adults of the film. It may seem as if they were static, rooted in a moment in time incapable of moving on. The kids on the other side where constantly moving, as if they were trying to escape from that imaginary jail. As their journey goes on I started to fee anxious, I knew something bad was going to happen. Indeed it happen, the rape of the sister pointing the start of their demise. At the end I was left confused, they ides, but it seems as if they have found the meaning of they life.

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How Landscape in the Mist Portrays a Struggle

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Born in Grece, he studied literature and cinema in Paris. He is one of the main representatives of the New European Cinema. His films have won several festivals including Cannes and Berlin.

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Due to the circumstances European cinema was reaching a low level of spectators. American cinema was the popular thing, European cinema soon had to think of a new way to revive their cinema. That's when the new directors started to create a new cinema, the first one being with Theo Angelopoulus

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According to this interview, streaming platforms have helped African directors find a public. Because streaming platforms allows small publics to turn into big publics, new spectators are able to explore films from other continents. I wonder if we will have a big influx of African films because of streaming services.

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How is Netflix and other digital platforms affecting the African film industry?

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A brilliant films that depicts the contradictions between preserving traditions and adapting to modernity. A film that questions the way we see traditions and shows that modernity is not something that should be feared at all. Touching some sensitive topics without losing it's happiness and joy is a film that I recommend anyone to watch.

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The main characteristics of African Cinema are the use of lightweight cameras, informal lighting, indirect sound, kinetic and not glossy. African films often based themselves on folktales. Some of the characters or ideas that are used often are the bully, the princess, the pauper and the trickster. Their main topics dela with the clash between contradictions: tradition and modernity, city vs country, individual values vs community values and so on.

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While the title of this paper suggests a homogenising approach towards African film, I do not intend here to subscribe to that position. That approach needlessly suggests a cultural homogeneity that is often false or at least so porous as to leave the fabric of its reflection unwieldy.

I believe it is time for us to delineate certain patterns in African cinema characteristic not of nation states or colonial linguistic groupings but of more culturally definitive tendencies. For example, the South African academic/critic Keyan Tomaselli argues for orality as one of those specific influences characterising narrative patterns in Southern African cinema.

Western critics have for a long time now, approached African cinema from thematic perspectives at the expense of more formal approaches. There are many reasons for this, not least, the effect of the initial encounter of cinema and the African based on the proverbial didactic function of film encouraged by colonial authorities. Immediate post-independence African cinema is often seen to mimic the style of didactic filmmaking set up under colonialism. This type of filmmaking often emphasises content over artistic and cultural influences and styles.

This is in contrast to parallel developments in European cinema where auterism was linked more to the "how" than the "what". A conscious application of the didactic functions of cinema was what was directly linked to African narrative. Sembene's use of the term "griot" attests to that functionalism attached to African cinema.

I wish to approach African cinema from a cultural studies perspective, emphasising rather, the deconstructive criticism viewpoint. I see this as an interesting and worthwhile purpose because:

It makes one aware of the ways in which cultural experience is determined by hegemonious ideologies such as the Graeco-romano dramatic structures built into cinema language. Western cinema continues to have a clear hegemony in production and reception due to the structures that determine the way other "national" cinemas are created and received by audiences. The dominating position of the Hollywood film in world cinema is a good example of this Western hegemony. This perspective also gives us a historical context to the growth of cinema in Africa.

It affords one a self-reflexive approach to his or her own 'self-deconstruction' of African cinema viewpoints. Self-reflexivity here refers to an individual's identification of aspects of and within a film that point directly to one's own conception of Africa.

It offers useful tools for understanding other conventional approaches to African cinema like Marxism, semiotics, feminism and other cultural theories. These include concepts that continue to parade Africa as a homogeneous group, which it is not. Repeat: not.

In general, contemporary studies of African cinema have afforded a platform for debate on the "adequacy of current methodologies for dealing with what cinema has become in Africa". (1) This is the 'Herculean task' that Nwachukwu Ukadike, the author of the seminal book Black African Cinema had warned of in 1995 when he wrote there is need "to dispel these outmoded and untenable myths which permeate the interpretation of African history, culture and now cinema, of how Africa is seen as a cinematographic desert, a filmic cul-de-sac". (2)

In contrast to those views, I see African cinema developing 'simultaneously' as it reflects the conditions of production and distribution available to it. For instance, over the last two decades we have seen the regression of the 'educational' documentary, with the corresponding growth of the docu-drama, while also seeing the increasing role of donor funding towards the 'purposeful' production of films in the continent. The approach I present here is an attempt at explaining the simultaneity and functionalism found in African cinema texts.

What is African cinema?

For the past four decades or so African cinema has been construed by critics as a mode of film discourse that is understood historically but defined artistically: that is, a cinema concerned with information brought to light less by formal techniques than by an implicit world view.

African films are presented as being 'African' because they reflect African conditions, and critics have discussed the content of films as being the defining purpose of film production in the continent. For example, Xala by Sembene Ousmane is described as "a moral tale" of political consequence. (3) The rhetorical nature of the film is seen to be the defining quality. Rarely did we see the films' formal techniques being considered important in delivering the rhetoric. (4)

There is always an implied ideological premise to African films. Often this particular perception is substantiated by an 'idealism' about Africa that is then reflected in the polemics of African filmmakers. This ideological view is based on an assumed attitude or overall view towards Africa by Westerners. Essentially the idealist rhetoric of African films is a reaction towards the patronising attitude about things African that have come out of its colonial history. To that extent even the combination of idealism and pedagogy found in the African film necessitates a re-questioning of aesthetics and praxis of African cinema narration.

Analysis of this cinema is important even if only to problematise some of the above assumptions of African cinema. Needless to say, in order to understand the African film, it is imperative to relate dynamics of culture to the period of its production. This means relating film to environmental social relations, historical pressures, and technological innovations as well as to beliefs, attitudes and conceptualisations of the African people.

Hence I shall first pursue this study through applying conventional theories of criticism to African Cinema, discussing the problematic of interpreting the relationship between text and the reader intending to show how these 'conventional theories' are insufficient, and inadequate to explain materialist aesthetics of reality. Culture, it must be said, is a discursive continuum. In order to express a given cultural concept, the specificity of technique, style and thematic nature must be taken into account.

This essentially takes us towards a general understanding of cultural perceptions, with reference to the African film. Later, I shall deal with issues of idealism and realism in African film productions. Finally I will attempt to delineate the history and politics of African cinema, and also discuss some of its generic tendencies within a global perspective.

Cultural difference in approaches to cinema

The cultural differences in approaches to cinema are important to my work here as I explain the wide cultural base and scope that African cinematic texts have available to them. This difference is both within the breadth of nation states and larger cultural communities across the continent. This function of culture in explaining perspective, I argue, has hitherto been inadequately explained because of the parsimonious frameworks of both a continentally based cinema and a nationally based cinema. Seen from a continentally homogenising perspective, the nation is reduced to a mere political consciousness, which then fails to explain attempts at national containment of film texts. For example, if a film is a conscious reflection of the national experience why are we forever relating 'national' films to continental specificities such as the colonial language groupings of Anglophone and Francophone?

This containment is part and parcel of discourses of authority predicated on colonialism. Hence, I contend that in films, the African nation, being principally focused on the modernist discourse, has hitherto functioned only to maintain the authority and legitimacy of Eurocentric approaches to cinema.

Even African film critics continue to look at cinema in Africa from a continental perspective or from a national one. The last major writings on film to have come out of the continent attest to that.

Manthia Diawarra's major work, African Cinema - Politics and Culture, is essentially narrated from the perspective of the four linguo- cultural groupings. (5) I refer here to the four political/cultural groupings of Anglophone, Francophone, Lusophone and Arabophone existing in African cinema studies today.

Also, thematic analyses in African Experiences of Cinema (edited by Imruh Bakari and Mbye Cham) encompass important issues of freedom, apartheid, Anglophobia, and colonialism within a continental perspective. (6)

In the meantime, Nwachukwu Ukadike discusses African cinema that is contrasted to Western images of Africa. His book Black African Cinema has excellent information on many African films, and on decolonisation, aesthetics, and liberation. (7)

Sharon Russell's book Guide to African Cinema has a generalised political, ethnographic and sociological perspective not really tackling the issues of iconography, sociology and politics in the construction and representation of cultural identity in the African film. (8)

In general, the above literature, though critical of certain pervading views of Africa, still remains within the conventional mode of filmic interpretation of post-colonial cinema, which is often a magnified view of a western ethos of a global village. This global village was brought about first by military and political conquest and now by communication and technological influence. The impact of this global thinking pervades the way in which even local cultures, reflecting global issues, are understood. (9)

The struggle to cope with this intrusion in their daily life has often created responses in local cultures that are often neglected in cultural studies. An example of that can be found in the discussion of the film Shaka Zulu (William Faure, 1987) by the South African, Themba Msimang.

Msimang uses terms like "casual discussions" to reference his analysis of Zulu audience reception of the film. Msimang supports his discussion with comments from audiences and "unverified" sources that however make absolute sense as an experiential reflection of Zulu reception of cinema. (10) The casual flippancy that Keyan Tomaselli then applies to dismiss the use of the term "casual discussion" reveals the arrogance of Western academia to methodologies of cultural introspection. (11)

There is an emerging school of thought that criticises this 'reactive' conditioning emphasised by cinema studies that are based on forever comparing African tendencies with what is happening in the West and pigeon-holing the views. This school includes academics such as Teshome Gabriel and Julianne Burton. It also includes Manthia Diawara who has shifted his position from a Pan-Africanist to a regionalist one, as well as like Tafataona Mahoso and others, whose views have not yet been encapsulated into popular theoretical positions. (12)

June Nash, for example, argues against Eurocentrics whose analyses, she argues, often fail to recognise local capacities in creatively responding to "developmental" intrusions. (13) She sees a need for changing that approach, arguing, "When we conceive of culture in this historical structural framework, it becomes a tool for analysing processes of change rather than an ideology for confirming the status quo". (14) Kathleen Gough, likewise, argues for seeing the capacity within the "dominated" people to create generative bases for changing their local conditions. (15)

Tafataona Mahoso joins this school of thought in his analysis of the capacity for transforming meaning of traditional orality in African languages. (16) Taking as a point of departure the explication of some traditional Bantu sayings, Mahoso shows the dynamic, visionary and stimulating capacity of these sayings that encompass changing social relations. He says,

The third proverb [ One can see the inside of the assembly by standing on someone else's shoulders] presents the essence of ground, time-space, and discourse [all] at once.

What is going on inside the assembly is so important that one who arrives after the others have completely encircled the area should ask to stand on a taller person in order to witness the process of discourse going on inside the assembly, inside the community. It is this inside of the assembly that we want our cinema to reveal...the filmmaker must first locate and recognise the assembly, the locus of transformative energy. Once the filmmaker has found his or her centre of the assembly, it becomes easy to recognise the obstacles that obscure his or her view and to confront them. (17)

Like Diawara, he shows how this cultural capacity mediates social change. (18)

These analyses question the colonial-nationalist project which has always given the elite and the state uncontested authority and legitimacy at the expense of other 'effective identities'. By 'effective identity' I mean the locating and nominating of non-territorial, non state-centric, non-elitist values as the focus of the highest 'loyalty' and expression in film. These critics see in Africa the capacity to create other psychological bases beyond those of nationhood that mediate African experiences and worldview. Contemporary African filmmakers continue to show the need for representing the local, the specific and the community within a 'localised global' view. A good example of this localised-global view is the film Quartier Mozart (1992) by Jean-Pierre Bekolo of Cameroon.

The film narrates the story of how a geographical and cultural space defined by economic poverty produces a cultural violence in the form of male chauvinism. Two women introduce us into its narrative by insisting that the only means of achieving subjectivity is to magically transform themselves into men. (19)

In many ways the film articulates issues of identity within local, national and global contexts. It argues for a fundamental understanding of the processes and contradictions of being and belonging to a country and the world at the same time. Even its style offers a mozaic of identities that can only be understood as approximations of otherness.

These 'approximations' are often found in 'living' African environments. For example, the term 'Mswahili' in Swahili identifies all Africans who are Black and those adhering to 'cultural' tastes of the 'Swahili'. But it can also readily be applied to a foreigner who has also been able to live, act and believe in the social and ideological processes and beliefs of the group. That way the term affords 'effective identity'. Films like Halfaouine (1990, Ferid Boughedir, Tunisia) and Maangamizi: The Ancient One (2000, Martin Mhando and Ron Mulvihill, Tanzania) best describe that ethic.

By locating the changing values as the focus of the highest 'loyalty' and expression in a given film, one is better placed to understand the nature of representation in African films. In many cases, when African cinema is seen from a Eurocentric perspective it forfeits on the dynamics of 'effective identities' premised by the evolving Afro-centric perspectives.

Notions of realism and generic tendencies in African cinema

It is often said that in African cinema, pedagogic narratives are foregrounded. This is an important issue in our analysis of African films since it shows how relations between cinema politics and cinematic narration are maintained. The didactic 'technique' employed in the African film that positions the viewer in a receptive mode actually corresponds to the type of films produced during the colonial era. These colonial films, Brian Goldfarb argues, were films that were "designed as lessons to be learned easily by an indigenous viewer assumed to be developmentally [and cinematically] immature, illiterate, and in dire need of instruction". (20) This ideological position that many African filmmakers have taken over from the colonialist (as teachers) often undermines their very conceptual positions: the iconography, grammar and metaphors of colonial 'education' already unwittingly taint their perspective.

Instead of seeing themselves as 'conduits' of change, filmmakers under the 'instructional (or didactic) cinema mode' represent a transfer of pedagogical authority that invariably finds resistance from age based educational processes (traditional to many African cultures) and current liberationist thinking. This authoritative position made Brian Goldfarb argue that,

If in Africa a pedagogical tradition of cinema is in part artifactual of overt colonial disciplinary practices (practices by which the cinema "taught" language and values), then this same tradition has become an important means of intervention in the current dismantling and re-configuration of colonialist cultural forms. (21)

The first attribute of this relationship is the 'documentary film' position. This position makes us responsive to the narrative as 'reality' and 'history', offers the filmmaker a position of power as teacher and informed storyteller. This authoritative locus has been used to good effect by African filmmakers tackling African subjects including Jamie Uys' The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980) and Ingrid Sinclair's Flame (1996).

Often I have wondered how we all have been 'globalised' by cinema. One film that confirms the power of cinema language, the wandering embraces with which classical cinema holds its spectators is The Gods Must be Crazy. This film uses the documentary format to position the audience in such a way as to offer an unmitigated racial perspective. There are two discourses at play here. First there is the discourse of the civilised in which only they, the civilised (who is "they"?) speak: they are able to communicate amongst themselves as well as being able to translate between the various contending groups. As one commentator writes in the movies internet website, "The film is about "us" (Westerners) how we think we live in paradise!"(22)

The discourse of the 'bushman', on the other hand, is that of those who do not speak but are spoken about. In this there is a perverted sense of authority. The director of the film avails not only the "civilised's" discursive power and authority of the genre but the authority of knowledge as well. The fictionality of the story may seem artificial to the critical audience but to the common audience, the socialised and contrived audience, this film simply cements both racist and colonial knowledge. Therefore there is a methodological purpose to the use of the 'documentary' style. The director uses the form and techniques of documentary to induce responses from audiences.

Likewise, to understand Ingrid Sinclair's Flame (1996, Zimbabwe) one needs also to deconstruct the discursive authority of the documentary genre as it is received by audiences in the Southern African region. The complacency of the audiences in their comprehension of the documented information reflects the familiarity it has with the documentary genre. This familiarity is used to its full advantage by the filmmaker.

In a flashback, Flame tells the story of two girls Florence (Flame) and Nyasha (Liberty) who through a combination of factors decide to leave their village to join the liberation struggle for Zimbabwe. The film shows their time in the guerrilla training camps where life was hard, what with the meagre food provisions that the camps received. The film portrays the harsh conditions specifically those endured by women, including not being given any military training as well as being used as 'comfort women' by the guerrilla commanders.

This makes Flame resolve harder to fight for liberation and she quickly advances in the ranks to become a respected company commander. The war is won but on returning to her village Flame rejoins the subservient position of women in the village. Finally she resolves to go to the city, Harare, to find her friend Liberty and to try a new life. As the country celebrates "Heroes Day" the two women and other ex-combatants realise that the elite and Urban Zimbabweans do not hold them in any respect and it looks like their sacrifice was in vain.

As the film opens we hear the voice of the narrator, Nyasha, from whose perspective we are supposed to see the film. It tells us:

This story, the story of two friends, is only one of many. It all started a long time ago. In 1880 white settlers came to our country which lies between the two great rivers, Limpopo and Zambezi. As they took more land our people launched a war of resistance, the first Chimurenga. The settlers won, and they called the country Rhodesia. The African people struggled against the colonisers, and by the 1960s, the second Chimurenga, the war of liberation, had begun. And in 1980, the war was won. The new country was called Zimbabwe.

The voice of Nyasha with its high-school-history-class feel suspends our expectations of a fictionalised narrative and we immediately accept the way in which we are invited to watch the film. This perspective becomes a cause for discomfort as we realise later how this viewpoint is subverted by the inflected intentions of the filmmaker. For example, one may ask whom this didactically positioned voice-over is intended to teach? Katrina Thompson argues that,

Nyasha's didactic voice over, in which she summarises Zimbabwe's 100- year history in less than a minute, suggests that Zimbabweans are not the primary intended audience of the film. Zimbabweans already know that their country is located between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers and are painfully aware of their colonial history. If Nyasha were speaking her own summary of Zimbabwean history for fellow Zimbabweans, it seems more likely that she would say, "we struggled" than "the African people struggled". Nor would she say, "The new country was called Zimbabwe" a signalling device whose purpose is to make outsiders aware of the film's locale. (23)

Both Sinclair and Uys use the documentary style to position the spectator within the receiving mode in order to ascertain conventional interpretations and expectations about the subject. This factor is very instructive of the way audiences have continued to receive films from and about Africa. The realism that is invested in African narratives is characteristic of the positional relations that exist between Africa and Europe/America. Often the stories and themes in many African films work towards discussing issues of colonialism and its aftermath. This is an example of the post-colonial cinema that has evolved in the continent.

The effect of globalisation on African cinema: Distribution and Reception

When Tommy Lott advanced his "no theory theory" on the concept and definition of Black cinema he argued that the theory remains a theory only up to the time when the meanings it advances "are no longer applicable". He was aware of the complexity of theorising on an ongoing activity based on an essentialised notion. (24)

The 'theory' that one immediately identifies when studying the continued state of affairs in film distribution in Africa is that of dependence: the continuing dependence of local cinema on its global construction and maintenance. This position and condition of its development needs no elucidation as Western societies are sold to new technologies with a rapidity even those cultures find nauseating (technologies that never reach even the length of the American continent before they are obsolete). Within this perspective, conditions that lead to divergent applications of these technologies (a real transfer of technology) are considered laughable and are often denigrated. The denigration is based on concerns that have to do with the centrality of 'quality' and sophistication that denote power relations.

This is despite recognising that a message is essentially reflective of the medium used. As the old McLuhanesque dictum goes the medium is the message. It would be better if critics would take to understanding the nature of the process of the valorisation of product rather than denigrating them.

There are a number of activities throughout Africa that aim at solving the problem of the distribution of the cinema and video product. The experience of African film and video distribution patterns therefore forms the basis of our discussion of the sociology of nations internationalisation of product, indigenization as well as of globalisation. With that come issues of piracy, copyright, policy promulgation and marketing.

Film and video are key media in the promotion and appreciation of cultures. But African films and videos are hard to come by not only overseas but also in their place of production. Who sees the cinema/video product in Africa? How do they get to be seen? What kinds of distribution circuits exist in the many countries of the continent? This debate continues Ferid Boughedir's discussion of prospects of the African cinema product as he says, "in the light of the demands that independence and economic development have made on them". (25)

The continued reliance of African film producers on the festival circuit, for example, essentially forces the filmmakers to accept and depend on the terms of their films' canonisation to create other works thus holding them hostage to that label. As Idrissa Ouegraogo once said, sometimes one finds African films that have won awards in Europe being totally incomprehensible to African audiences for which they were initially supposedly intended!

What I see as a possible arena of contention and re-theorising lies in the versatility of cultures to appropriate processes of knowledge distribution. In my view the constant technological changes happening within 'post-modern' cultures must be seen as of limited function within other cultures. Arguably, there is still no dialogue on the epistemologies of knowledges between cultures and even acknowledgements that there are parallel epistemologies of knowledge as there are cultural systems. It is this theory of divergent functions of technological development that I find more attractive and conducive to the study of what is happening in African film distribution today. The reason for this lies in the theory's reliance on social imagination for its elucidation: a conceptualisation of emerging patterns for the future.

Hence one notes with glee the profusion of cheap short and feature-length video production activities in many African countries (Nigeria and Ghana being best representative). Streets are littered with fourth generation VHS tapes with total disregard to notions of image quality. Not much is known of this activity since it requires serious research for primary data collection and studies which is hard to be funded by international research institutions since they don't fall within definable areas of expertise of those institutions.

What I am advocating here is seeing in the film and video distribution practices that continue to grow as loci of sociological and ontological questionings. Is the experience of media within cultures dependent on the exposure to western media concepts? Isn't exposure itself merely a limited rather than limiting experience? How far are 'appropriations' related to the inventing of media sociality? How does community media express itself outside the boundaries of expectations and definitions of authoritative media? We thus return to McLuhan's dictum - the medium is the message. As many critics and radical filmmakers have constantly questioned, can classical cinema reflect interests or centrism of anti-establishment and anti-Eurocentric discourse?

The message that comes out of 'appropriated distribution' is subtle and is concerned with the position of control and power. The discourse of the practice of distribution, as it has been projected in many other cultural situations, is resistance and survival. Distribution of visual material in the Africa will grow in all its complexity as it continues to express the discourse of survival.
The auteur and other conditions of film production in Africa
Ella Shohat and Robert Stam say the following with regard to "Third Worldist" film makers whom they see as offering a "mediated solidarity" between the global film goer and the culture of the people they aspire to represent. (26)

.These filmmakers are haunted by the spectre of cultural colonialism, of being too servile toward the dominant model. They express their creative personalities, but as part of a larger collective project . Working consciously with issues long elaborated in filmic and extra filmic texts, the filmmaker almost necessarily becomes reflexive, dialoging with the received body of belief and method, directly or indirectly discussing cinema itself within the films. Each work becomes a methodological sample of possible strategies, at once "about" a subject and "about" itself. (27)

Shohat and Stam define self-reflexivity as "films that in some way foreground the filmmaker, the film's production, its textual procedures, its intertext or reception". (28) This is the situation I often find myself in as a filmmaker first, an African filmmaker second, a diasporic speaker thirdly and finally as an academic. In my films including Yombayomba (1985), Mama Tumaini (1986) and Maangamizi (2000) I foreground the cinematic influences that I represent within an ideological context. In Yombayomba, for example, I represent the experience of socialism in Tanzania. I approach the subject from a socialist realist angle where the proverbial aspirational probable is made possible.

In Mama Tumaini the symbolic layering afforded by the subject and the production of the film is fore-grounded. The meeting of two cultures, two women, in a film made by two men of differing cultures was ample ground to reflect on the process and product of the African film. With Maangamizi I interrogate conventional spatio-temporal techniques of cinema. The film has no time or space since the present and past reside together. The standpoint of 'personal desire' which is central to the sociality of conventional film is also called into question. At the same time 'codes' of ethnic, social and racial self-recognition along with historical traces and cultural metonyms are emphasised. These are the culturally definitive tendencies I referred to at the beginning of my talk. The production methods employed also suggest the indeterminacy of time and space. The specific production 'combinatoire ethics' are themselves transformed into a filmic parole.

For me, Maangamizi is an intriguing film that dips into a part of the human psyche that conventional movies rarely attack - the underpinnings of the human soul and its breadth that stretches out to reach the Homo Sapien collective. Samehe, a patient at a Tanzanian psychiatric hospital, is a middle-aged woman who has not spoken for more than 20 years. Her silence, which is brought on by the sickening horrors that her father committed against her and her mother years ago, aches to be broken. So, Samehe looks to Maangamizi, 'the Grandmother of all grandmothers' who often inhabits her dreams, for help in recovering her voice, and in finding peace with her father and mother. This is done through the medium of Asira. Asira is an African-American doctor who travels to Tanzania to work in the same hospital where Samehe resides. There, Asira becomes involved in Samehe's case. Their ensuing relationship leads Asira to delve into her haunting Mississippi past and, furthermore, elevates both of them to a higher understanding of themselves and the world.

In Maangamizi I confront time and space both conceptually and practically. I draw upon tradition and para-modern phenomena of religion to conflate both time and space. The Aristotelian narrative poetics of body, space and time are equally adhered to and subverted. For example, while the narrative seems to have the classical beginning, middle and end, although not in that chronology, the whole film and subject are a ritualist play. The film, just like the idea of 'roots', is a necessary ritual to be performed by Africans in the continent and those outside the continent.

Like Gerima's Sankofa, Maangamizi's trans-generational conflict derives 'recuperational' aptitude through meta-cinematic devices of ritual. The film's ending sequence (the trip to the Kilimanjaro) is necessary in order to enable the completion of the 'roots' journey as ritual. At the end, the 'living dead' perform the 'forgiveness' ritual in a manner to suggest the continuity of space, time and body. The sea, the three 'dead- and-alive' women and cinema, form a mythological link that expresses the aspirational nature of the relations between Africans and African Americans.

The ritual, (including the modern 'roots' ritual) which has traditionally been used as a transformational tool, is here used to express the transformational role of cinema. In narrating the story of the two sisters, we use the ritual, which subsides under oral culture, to compare cinema with the aspirational concepts of traditional narrative. This could be also compared to the device of the griot often used by Sembene to denote the cinema's capacity to record, embody and explain history. Some African films have attempted to do this sometimes with laughable results. I refer here to films like Toubab Bi (Moussa Toure, Mali, 1986) or Colormasks (Sao Gamba, Kenya, 1986) which parade cultural artefacts like market wares to be sampled and discarded with disdain.

As with Mama Tumaini the film Maangamizi is directed and produced by two people. Working with Ron Mulvihill was a conscious move on my part to enable the cross cultural experience to come through. To Queennae Mulvihill, the African American writer of the film, and myself, the direct confrontation between Africans and African Americans in the film, and on the set, became an empowering experience, a ritual of no mean substance.

Conclusion

I do sincerely hope that the discussion of African cinema I have undertaken here has not evoked fear and loathing of deconstructive criticism. I hope the angle I have taken will improve the ability to think critically since, as Lois Tyson argues, we recognise how our critical experience is determined by ideologies "built into our language". (29) She says, for example,

According to Derrida, Language is not the reliable tool of communication we believe it to be, but rather a fluid, ambiguous domain of complex experience in which ideologies program us without our being aware of them. (30)

What I propose as an approach to African cinema is that we need to make an attempt at looking at the ambiguities that are inscribed in the language of cinema as it relates to Africa. This is even where it seems evident and clear. Even when someone calls a film 'an African film' that itself should raise our critical antennas.

Is this a film about Africa, is this Africa specific or general, we should ask? Is there a comparative, ironic or even sarcastic streak intended? Is there a context around the identity? Even then the context itself can be questioned from a range of other signifiers and signified. In this age of deconstruction, language offers us a myriad of visions of concepts related to difference, temporality, improvisation, etc. As Lois Tyson again contends, "How we see and understand ourselves and the world is thus governed by the language with which we are taught to see them". (31)

To paraphrase Walter Lippman, it is true that we are told about the world before we see it. We imagine things before we experience them, and those imaginations govern the whole process of perception. Deconstruction therefore refers to this multiple position that is influenced by ideologies, history, needs, fears, desires, etc. Since African cinema is a language we need therefore to be aware of the implicit associations, contradictions and ideologies within it as well as the implications and contradictions of the ideologies that form its language.

Endnotes

1. Ukadike, N.F., Black African Cinema, Los Angeles/Berkeley/London, University of California Press, 1994.

2. Tomaselli, K. "The Reception of Reception Theory in South Africa", Critical Arts 7 (1-2), 1993 available at http://www.und.ac.za/und/ccms/articles/recept.htm, accessed 1 May, 2000, last updated 2 September, 1999

3. Availlable at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~aamkpa/quartier.html Accessed on 14/7/2000

4. Available at http://us.imdb.com/Title?0080801 Accessed on 14/7/2000

5. See "A No-Theory Theory Of Contemporary Black Cinema", by Tommy Lott inCinemas of the Black Diaspora, edited by Michael T, Martin, Wayne State University Press, 1995. pp. 40-56

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Raphaël Bassan, Théo Deliyannis and Viviane Vagh

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While the title of this paper suggests a homogenising approach towards African film, I do not intend here to subscribe to that position. That approach needlessly suggests a cultural homogeneity that is often false or at least so porous as to leave the fabric of its reflection unwieldy.

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In the following article it is discussed how African cinema has become a way to express freedom. One of the most important aspect of African Cinema is that it is meant to be completely free from the colonizers influence, in this case any power nation. Therefore the way films are distributed is almost in a clandestine way. We have to understand that just like in third cinema, African cinema is also rejecting the system that oppresses them.

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Third Cinema is a cinematic movement that originated in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Taking the polemic essay ' Towards a Third Cinema ' as its manifesto, it was a protest against colonialism, capitalism and Hollywood through the medium of film. Although the movement began in South America, its ideals were swiftly adopted by a generation of African filmmakers, who found strong affinities with the struggle against cultural and political oppression.

Published in 1969, 'Towards a Third Cinema' - written by Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, members of the Grupo Cine Liberación - was a leftist manifesto that aimed to question inherent power structures within both filmmaking and society. They expounded the virtues of anonymous directing and collective filmmaking in striking contrast to the Hollywood Movie model, whereby a film's title is intrinsically linked to the director's name. Third Cinema further questioned the structures of power within colonialism and tried to liberate the oppressed by giving a voice to their struggles.

However, most important in Solanas and Getino's essay is the idea that for a film to be part of the Third Cinema, the film could not be assimilated by the government. For there to be a Third Cinema, there must also be a First and Second Cinema. First Cinema refers to Hollywood films and Second Cinema is European art house films; aesthetically pleasing, but not politically motivated. Third Cinema should be distributed clandestinely, avoiding commercialism and thereby refusing to feed the capitalist model.

This movement against ingrained power structures was quickly adopted by the African auteur Med Hondo, who was born and raised in Mauritania. Moving to Morocco aged 18, then later to France, the institutional racism and discrimination he encountered every day was a direct influence on his cinematic oeuvre. In the 1970s, colonialism in Africa was drawing to a close, leading to political strife and massive upheavals in a number of countries. Hondo was a vocal supporter of African cinema as a tool for displaying the devastation colonialism had caused for many, and the instability it left in its wake.

Solanas and Getino's original thesis was criticised with valid claims that even though it claims to represent the masses, it stays in the hands of the educated elite. Yet while myriad problems have been found with the initial essay 'Towards a Third Cinema', there is no doubting the cinematic legacy left by their thesis. Third Cinema has since been redefined in the twenty-first century, taking as its core the desire to give voice to the oppressed, yet expanding its subject beyond anticolonialism.

Here, we give a quick roundup of some of the leading titles, both past and present, from across Africa that fall under the term 'Third Cinema':

Set in Chad the years following the forty-year civil war, directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, chronicles the journey of a boy who tries to kill his father's murderer.

This international film was composed of 11 short films from directors working across the globe. Although only two in this collection of shorts are directed by Africans, they provide a broader sense of global realities following the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York. The two African directors are Youssef Chanine for the Egyptian segment, and Idrissa Ouedraogo for the Burkina Faso segment.

One of the pillars of Third Cinema, The Battle of Algiers was shot as a pseudo-documentary showing the Algerians fight against French colonialism. Its director, the Italian Gillo Pontecorvo, received an Oscar Nomination for Best Director for the film.

Directed by Marwan Hamed, Yacoubin Building is based on the eponymous novel by Alaa Al Aswany. This ambitious film is alleged to be the most expensive film produced in Egypt, and charts a number of stories - at times parallel, at times interweaving - that collectively address such topics as homosexuality, Islamic fundamentalism and corruption.

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Third Cinema in Africa: A Cinematic Liberation of the Oppressed

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Third Cinema is a cinematic movement that originated in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Taking the polemic essay ' Towards a Third Cinema ' as its manifesto, it was a protest against colonialism, capitalism and Hollywood through the medium of film.

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The following Ted talk made by novelist Chimamanda Ngoni Adichie explains the importance of representation in the media industry. By not having any sort of exposure the public then is led to believe that all the lies and stereotypes are true. The moment you are exposed to the cultures then you stop believing in the wrong preconceptions told by other people. While watching some of the movies I realize how much my perception changed, even if I already knew not to believe in media made by people outside of Africa. What novelist Chimamanda says is true, representation matters, and we should be pushing for more.

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Chimamanda Adichie: El peligro de la historia única

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Nuestras vidas, nuestras culturas, están hechas de muchas historias interrelacionadas. La novelista Chimamanda Adichie cuenta cómo encontró su voz cultural auténtica y advierte que si solo escuchamos una historia sobre una persona o un país, corremos el riesgo de caer en una incomprensión grave.

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Africa, a continent that feels quite far from us often. The lack of representation and exposure only helps in the unconscious discrimination that has been prevalent for centuries. Third cinema opens our eyes towards the discrimination and other elements of the different cultures. African cinema is a cinema to enjoy as well as a call to action and self deconstruction.

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The film shows a lot of monologues as if it was a literary documentary. The film aimed to critique the previous ways of though of the cuban society the protagonist still has a lot of those thoughts. This type of films weren't allowed for a while due to the government.

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The night of the living dead, tropes and comedy

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The night of the living dead, tropes and comedy

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A horror film that could be a comedy. The night of the living dead is a film of the New Hollywood that tells the story of several characters trying to survive a zombie pandemic. Inside of this story I was able to see the development of several horror tropes and storylines. The most interesting thing was being a story that has been used so many times being used for the very first time (might be wrong). The development is funny at times due to the lack of technical developments but the story somehow manages to be entertaining. I still think it could be a comedy with critic in it.

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Night Of The Living Dead (George A. Romero) HD Full Movie Remastered [1968 En; Subs: En-Fr-Es]

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It is quite unbelievable to think that there was once a Hollywood different from the ones we know now. While watching the video essay I realized that Hollywood, contrary to popular belief, has to evolve in order to survive. On previous entries I said that the cinema industry is changing, however I believe that Hollywood still refuses to change. There has been some parties inside Hollywood who has started to switch perspectives but the industry of Hollywood as a whole still wishes to remain where they are now. I wonder if we will have a new Hollywood wave or if another "Hollywood" will emerge.

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Video Essay: How New Hollywood Created the American Indie

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There was a time where big studios had control over everything and thanks to that they were able to make a whole new set of film or better yet, mega hits. However the same thing that cause them to have so much fame was the one that caused a crisis. They started to have several losses on their films, a lot of new acquisitions started happening, low budget films became a very viable opportunity and the multiplex was created. After that a whole new wave came to life: The New Hollywood, with new ideas and perspectives they brought Hollywood to its peak point once again.

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A video essay exploring how Star Wars' editors recut and rearranged Star Wars: A New Hope to create the cinematic classic it became.

Check out more essays at

Written by David Welch (@watsonwelch)
Narrated and Edited by Joey Scoma (@joey2meals)

References:
Deleted Magic

Deleted Scenes

Harmy's Star Wars: Despecialized Edition

Empire of Dreams

More awesome videos at RocketJump.com!

RJ Store ➤
Follow RocketJump on Twitter ➤
Follow RJFS on Twitter ➤
Join the discussion ➤

For licensing and usage inquiries please email licensing@rocketjump.com

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A video essay exploring how Star Wars' editors recut and rearranged Star Wars: A New Hope to create the cinematic classic it became.Check out more essays at Written by David Welch (@watsonwelch)Narrated and Edited by Joey Scoma (@joey2meals)References:Deleted MagicDeleted ScenesHarmy's Star Wars: Despecialized EditionEmpire of DreamsMore awesome videos at RocketJump.com!RJ Store ➤ Follow RocketJump on Twitter ➤ Follow RJFS on Twitter ➤ Join the discussion ➤ For licensing and usage inquiries please email licensing@rocketjump.com

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Leading Ladies?: Feminism and the Hollywood New Wave

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Leading Ladies?: Feminism and the Hollywood New Wave

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Usually when we think about feminism in movies we think about more recent movies. However while reading the document I realized that there has been movies made in not so favorable times that have tried to tell the stories from a woman's perspective. The most shocking one was Bonny and Clyde, a film that I didn't relate with feminisms. At the end I saw the film with a totally new perspective and made me question if the impact of Bonnie and Clyde is still so strong due to the character of Bonnie. ¿Does more woman relate to Bonnie´s need for adventure even in our times?

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It's no wonder their cinema came from Latin America, one only needs to see how the social movements have develop in recent years. Feminism, Decolonization , LGTBQ+ rights and all the rest of the social movements have become more critical as time passes by. Third cinema is a necessity as much as it is a reflection. As an audience and society we can no longer ignore what is happening around us: we want to help and we want to protest. Whether it is by sharing information on an specific topic on social media, boosting the likes to make it know to other audiences to using film to protest we are all finding new ways to to become a more socially, ethically and aware society.

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This film is certainly interesting, it shows the depressing state of an underdeveloped country as well as the rejection of identity. The main character tries so hard to separate himself from the rest of the people he lives with, for him they are not woke enough. It tell a lot about how deeply ingrained are the European and United States ideal, how those who live in underdeveloped  country may see those on a first world country as better in everything. And yet the film also imposes a question: the idea of underdeveloped ¿isn't it a trap? ¿Who decides what an underdeveloped country is? ¿Should we behave according to foreign ideals? And yet ¿can we be blamed for wanting to move to other places when violence is so high on ours?

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Third Cinema and the influential of film

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Third Cinema and the influential of film

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A small reflection of the way I believe third cinema exploits the idea of propaganda and influence in film.

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THIRD WORLD CINEMA AND MOVIE INFLUENCE-2

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First cinema... the Hollywood cinema. Superheroes, avengers, sci fi and fantasy movies. Second cinema, the author cinema. Stylish, European, a rejection of Hollywood cinema. ¿Are both really different? ¿Isn't there another option for film? ¿Is this really as critical as we can be? This are all questions that I asked myself this week when I learned about the third cinema. A cinema so different that calls out for action and is obvious in the influence films can have.

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To be able to understand contemporary cinema one must first comprehend the context in which it was born, the axis of change including the way distribution, production values and technology has change the cinema industry as well as the new overall characteristics of contemporary cinema.

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As I was researching about contemporary cinema there where some things that called my attention, specially on how the cinema industry works. The contemporary cinema gave birth to the great corporations like Sony, Disney and Warner Brothers. And for a while I feel like that was the main reference to understand the way cinema worked, everything was controlled by the big companies and so they were the ones making the rules.

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Film History: Contemporary Cinema - Timeline of Cinema Ep. 6

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As the streaming services start to increase and with a pandemic changing the way we act around the world I believe that cinema will have another change. Just a few years ago there was already an speculation on whether Netflix was going to kill cinema. but as time goes by we have realize that on the contrary we now are able to improve cinema thanks to the streaming services. Hybrid genres, sociopolitical films, films from different regions (Asia, Latin America and Africa) and a new wave of young filmmakers have found a new door to expand to the work through streaming services. It seem like contemporary cinema will have a new wave to study.

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Is Netflix killing the cinema?  - BBC News

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Technology and The Camara that Changed the world

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Technology and The Camara that Changed the world

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In my Seminar Class about film theory we were discussing about the aesthetics of film and a reading given by Bazin on it. According to Bazin cinema has not been invented, as it is born by the need to represent and imitate life. While watching the documentary I realized that the moving camera was created with the exact same intention "Recreate life". The need for a camera that could allow to get closer to people and record them seems to be a prediction on how now, in 2021, people use their phones and social media to record everything they find interesting. It seems to me that there is a need to record the mundane life.