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FINAL PAPER: Nation and Cinema
FINAL PAPER: WORLD FILM, 6-8 pages, due May 5 on turnitin.com
Consider one of the films we watched after Triumph of the Will (1935): Rules of the Game (1939), Bicycle Thief (1948) The Third Man (1949), and (okay okay!) Fireman’s Ball (1967). How does the film you’ve chosen engage in the concept of nation? Could it have been made anywhere? What, besides the language and scenery, make it “of” one nation or another? How does it represent the idea of nation to itself? Please draw upon chapter 8 “Thinking About Movies, Theory, and Meaning” from our textbook (Barsam) as well as the excerpts from Philip Schlensinger’s “The Sociological Scope of ‘National Cinema’” below.
A good paper will reflect your capacity to think logically and reflectively, to analyze critically and constructively. Please pay particular attention to the technical aspects of film as well as the story being told. Note particular scenes and consider at them in detail.
Your paper should also reflect your newfound ability to understand and appreciate film from technical and formal perspectives; to make a carefully considered, well-reasoned analysis; and to put forward a well-written critique of the film genre. Finally, a good paper is one which expresses your thoughts and feelings coherently and persuasively
All papers should be double-spaced, numbered, with your name on every page. Neatness and excellence in punctuation, spelling, and grammar should always be a goal.
REMINDER: All written work should be your own. This means that either: A) you are telling me what you think, or B) you are telling me what you think about what someone else thinks—which means you will tell me where you found this person’s opinion, when and where he/she expressed it, and how it is related to your own opinion. You may embrace someone else’s opinion, but you may not pass it off as your own. This is called plagiarism and it is wrong.
Philip Schlesinger, “The Sociological Scope of ‘National Cinema,” Cinema & Nation, Eds. Mette Hjort and Scott Mackenzie. London and New York: Routledge, 2000, pp. 19-31.
Questions about ‘national cinema’ may usefully be resituated as part of a line of sociological inquiry that centres on the prior matter of how the nation may be conceived as a communicative space….
Social communication theory embraces the ways in which socio-cultural groups cluster and how forms of cohesion affect institutions and socio-cultural interaction. Communicative integration has a key significance because it produces social closure. Central to the argument is the view that nations and nation-states are strongly bounded by their socially communicative structures of intraction….Nationality therefore becomes an objective function of communicative competence and belonging.
One key implication [of this theory] is that the communicative practices of nations lead to the exclusion of foreigners [or minority ethnic groups].
Film studies’ concern with the role of cinema in the nation is inherently internalist. Its central concern is how—if at all—the production, circulation, and consumption of the moving image is constitutive of the national collectivity. However, this internalism is necessarily tempered by an awareness of exteriority as a shaping force. Indeed, it is precisely the extra-territorial cultural pressure of Hollywood’s production, imported into the national space, that sets up the contemporary issue of national cinema.*
Andrew Higson (1995) has argued that both national identity and national cinema should be seen from a processual point of view. He suggests that we might define a national cinema by looking at a range of features: its industrial and business aspect, exhibition and consumption and their impact on national culture:
“Individual films will often serve to represent the national to itself, as a nation. Inserted into the general framework of the cinematic experience, such films will construct imaginary bonds which work to hold the peoples of a nation together as a community by dramatizing their current fears, anxieties, pleasures, and aspirations. A diverse and often antagonistic group of peoples are thus invited to recognize themselves as a singular body with a common culture, and to oppose themselves to other cultures and communities” (Higson, Waving the Flag: Constructing a National Cinema in Britain, Oxford: Blackwell, 1995, p. 7)
* WHAT A CLUNKY SENTENCE! What he means is: “the idea of national cinema is only important because American films are shown in every nation.” – Dr. Robbins
Consider one of the films we watched after Triumph of the Will (1935): Rules of the Game (1939), Bicycle Thief (1948) The Third Man (1949), and (okay okay!) Fireman’s Ball (1967). How does the film you’ve chosen engage in the concept of nation? Could it have been made anywhere? What, besides the language and scenery, make it “of” one nation or another? How does it represent the idea of nation to itself? Please draw upon chapter 8 “Thinking About Movies, Theory, and Meaning” from our textbook (Barsam) as well as the excerpts from Philip Schlensinger’s “The Sociological Scope of ‘National Cinema’” below.
A good paper will reflect your capacity to think logically and reflectively, to analyze critically and constructively. Please pay particular attention to the technical aspects of film as well as the story being told. Note particular scenes and consider at them in detail.
Your paper should also reflect your newfound ability to understand and appreciate film from technical and formal perspectives; to make a carefully considered, well-reasoned analysis; and to put forward a well-written critique of the film genre. Finally, a good paper is one which expresses your thoughts and feelings coherently and persuasively
All papers should be double-spaced, numbered, with your name on every page. Neatness and excellence in punctuation, spelling, and grammar should always be a goal.
REMINDER: All written work should be your own. This means that either: A) you are telling me what you think, or B) you are telling me what you think about what someone else thinks—which means you will tell me where you found this person’s opinion, when and where he/she expressed it, and how it is related to your own opinion. You may embrace someone else’s opinion, but you may not pass it off as your own. This is called plagiarism and it is wrong.
Philip Schlesinger, “The Sociological Scope of ‘National Cinema,” Cinema & Nation, Eds. Mette Hjort and Scott Mackenzie. London and New York: Routledge, 2000, pp. 19-31.
Questions about ‘national cinema’ may usefully be resituated as part of a line of sociological inquiry that centres on the prior matter of how the nation may be conceived as a communicative space….
Social communication theory embraces the ways in which socio-cultural groups cluster and how forms of cohesion affect institutions and socio-cultural interaction. Communicative integration has a key significance because it produces social closure. Central to the argument is the view that nations and nation-states are strongly bounded by their socially communicative structures of intraction….Nationality therefore becomes an objective function of communicative competence and belonging.
One key implication [of this theory] is that the communicative practices of nations lead to the exclusion of foreigners [or minority ethnic groups].
Film studies’ concern with the role of cinema in the nation is inherently internalist. Its central concern is how—if at all—the production, circulation, and consumption of the moving image is constitutive of the national collectivity. However, this internalism is necessarily tempered by an awareness of exteriority as a shaping force. Indeed, it is precisely the extra-territorial cultural pressure of Hollywood’s production, imported into the national space, that sets up the contemporary issue of national cinema.*
Andrew Higson (1995) has argued that both national identity and national cinema should be seen from a processual point of view. He suggests that we might define a national cinema by looking at a range of features: its industrial and business aspect, exhibition and consumption and their impact on national culture:
“Individual films will often serve to represent the national to itself, as a nation. Inserted into the general framework of the cinematic experience, such films will construct imaginary bonds which work to hold the peoples of a nation together as a community by dramatizing their current fears, anxieties, pleasures, and aspirations. A diverse and often antagonistic group of peoples are thus invited to recognize themselves as a singular body with a common culture, and to oppose themselves to other cultures and communities” (Higson, Waving the Flag: Constructing a National Cinema in Britain, Oxford: Blackwell, 1995, p. 7)
* WHAT A CLUNKY SENTENCE! What he means is: “the idea of national cinema is only important because American films are shown in every nation.” – Dr. Robbins
