Third Cinema

Third Cinema

Term first used by Solonas and Getino 1969  Argentinean film makers

Term presupposes existence of first and second

Opposes imperialist or colonialist cinema

Hollywood style First cinema

Independent/Auteur Second cinema

Indicative factors of third cinema

an ideologically combative film, differing from commodity products of dominant film industries and cinematic values of auterism

Counter cinema is understandable as mirror opposite of Hollywood therefore conventionally dictated by Hollywood

Wider social political and economic context.

African cinema has not developed like European or American cinema. Much of Africa was under colonial rule until 1960s . . .

Although much of Africa has gained a form of political independence it is not yet economically or culturally independent.

Cultural imperialism . . . media effects paradigm

European way of life example for rest of world seen as highest form of civilisation

euro centric

Historical Context

Sauvy 1952 talked of third world - cold war split the world in two non aligned nations

Third connotes new perspective. new experiences being articulated

1955 conference of independent countries third world becoming a political force immergence of political theory - euro value could be rejected - it has produced Hitler.

Colonialism had taken away history culture identity. Third cinema attempts to reclaim it

Algerian culture projected as being inferior. Women seen as exotic - who constructs those images.  link this to Said

Third cinema challenged this objectification - colonial stereotypes

crowd extras remember events

conveys authenticity

not actors in my film

Includes news footage real location gritty realism.

Sembene I consider cinema as a means of political action.

Characteristics

lack of attendance  geographical problems

Resources limited

Financial support  french speaking films in W Africa

About struggle

Show Battle of Algiers

Viewpoint of colonised not coloniser

Battle of Algiers early example

made 64 released 65 independent 62

one of first examples of third cinema

Italian/Algerian production

Saadi Yacof producer actor leader of FLN

Non linear narrative often no hero

Local dialect

Mainstream distributors refuse to take on third world films, regarding them as a minority interest

Third tries to reinvent cinema so that indigenous cultures can produce their own cinema

each locale should have its own cinema

rewriting basic rules of grammar

Re-introduce film language, anyone can make meaning. Physical form of the sign etc.

Encoding – decoding.

What did we call the decoding of the black students watching Dominant code

Preferred/Dominant/Hegemonic

Which reads the preferred meaning that has been encoded - it is read ‘full and straight’

Negotiated Code

Acknowledges the legitimacy of the dominant definitions while at a more restricted, situational level

Operates with exceptions to the rule

General acceptance of dominant definitions and a rejection of their local implication co exist

Worker pay restraints yes to the logic no to him or her receiving less money

Oppositional Position

Where texts are decoded in a contrary way.

Abberant Reading

Meaning of third cinema can be inaccesable because of belief systems, ideologies and cultural references. Also film styles.

We can call this a cultural curtain.

Audience tend to read film by incorporating into their schemata.

We in other words domesticate that which is foreign.

This has the tendency to subvert other cultures and therefore alter the representation of Africa.

The original culture is lost.

Dichotomy of theory between Gabriel theories

Gabriel Ethiopian scholar

Developed framework - for study of oppositional film practices that articulate cultural struggles  -  in this case Third cinema cuts across boundaries of national cinemas.

Third worldism imposes a fictive unity homogeneityniety that ignores the diversity of conditions of production and reception of third world film texts.

We could make a link here to the constraints of genre.

Gabriel describes those essential qualities third world films possess rather than those they seem to lack

view attacked as essentialist

A varietey of emerging trends stops third cinema functioning as a rigid classification term  -  so avoids setting up another hegemonic norm for 'correct' film making

There is no correct way of making a third cinema movie

Third Cinema is common enemy of imperialism but third world countries are undergoing extremely diversified degrees of development.

What is the role of 'non-native' critic in terms of encouraging a wider interest in third world cinema texts in the first world

quasi-imperial division of labour - third world produces first world produces criticism

Dualism

The valorisation of landscape in the long shot verses the psychologism of the close up.

Folklore logic disrupts Western dichotomies subject/object good/evil

Third world (both in territory and map) so often functions as a symbol of chaos that will mirror 1st worlds image of itself as order.

Mass communications replace conventional weapons. For neocolonialism mass communication is as effective as napalm

Cultural curtain prevails which prevent understanding from outside cultural perspective.

Tendency of audiences to read a film incorporating it within methodologies and critical matrices already familiar to it. - we domesticate what is alien to us.

This process may enrich our aesthetics and cultural traditions but it subverts other cultural traditions.

Lack of cultural perspective and intercultural understanding

Context - Text

Cultural Curtain

Reading a film from a geographic and cultural differencemay be problematised by several factors

The most serious example is the tendency of an audience to read a film by auto matically incorporating it within the methodologies and critical matricies which are already familiar to the audience.

The most important thing to remember when watching or studying third cinema is to insure against assuming that the features of a third world film always correspond to something familiar in First cinema.

There is a deeper level of meaning which can not be known by the uninitiated

EG's

Lavishly filling glass with whiskey a common shot in West, depicts affluence or may be the power of the alcohol

A thousand and one Hands  -  Baraka 1972

depicts the same image yet in Morroco (Islam) this image represents sacrilegious and godless.

Ethiopian film Gouma 1973

Question of honour or repentance of wrong doer rather than vengeance upon wrong doer

Blind person in West considered unfortunate

In Africa (Sembene) blind is a seer with foresight and foreknowledge.

A radical difference to the regular representations of the disabled.

Pervasive icons have radically different meanings

blonde beauty -

Blonde beauty in Morocco may stand for the destructiveness of European culture.

White as a symbol of innocence - Ethiopian symbol of death

Ethnocentric readings can alter the meanings of the narrative. consider major implications of animal slaughter in west compared to every day image of Africa

Americans are judged in terms of individual achievement

African responsibility for community

Underlying ideology of capatilism engenders the notion of individualism. (what Frankfurt school would call pseudo individuality).

Also the notion of competition.

There are often charateristic shots of men or women walking across the landscape

Traditional cosmology of individual dwarfed by background

emphasis on space rather than time.

Consider the collective purpose of the long shot.

Production and Technological determinants of Culture

Imported US leads audiences to expect certain level of technical brilliance

Third cinema must swap urban market for rural audience to negate this trend - however they are difficult to reach.

Production Content reception