Trans-national Cinema

Latin American Cinema has moved outside of the local to become transnational.

It is common for theorists, when analysing Latin American Cinema, to place emphasis on the obvious move towards a transnational mode of filmmaking within a cinema that was originally concerned with the local. As New Latin American Cinema is rooted in the theme of unity, this theory has become increasingly important. Therefore it is appropriate to consider how and/or why the cinema has become transnational. For example, examining the economic and cultural context in which the suggested transnational preoccupations have developed and extracting various examples from New Latin American films.

To begin with, how did a cinema that, since the advent of sound, embraced their individual national culture (for instance, referenced particular traditions of music and dance), come to favour a transculturation, as termed by Fernando Ortiz, approach to film? For Ortiz and indeed Angel Rama, who later adapted the theory, transculturation was not about directly shunning national culture, for example the specifically Argentinian Tango or the Brazilian Samba, or rejecting outside influences but rather accepting the cultural diversities as they exist within Latin America as one unity. It can not be coincidence that Ortiz developed his study, Contrapunteo Cubano del Tabaco y Azucar, at a time when migration of talent was prevalent. The 1940s and 1950s had seen a sharp rise of European and American film practitioners coming to work in Latin America. As discussed by Susan Hayward, Latin American film-makers also went to Europe, Cubans and Mexicans collaborated to contribute to Argentinian cinema and so on, leaving a heritage which influenced ‘the present trend of transnationalism.’1 Thus, for Hayward, migration and the role it has played in increasing collaborations between diverse national talents, is a major factor in the move away from local themes.

However, perhaps a more defining factor was the need for Latin American film to reach an international audience. In simple terms, this need was due to a lack of funding for independent national productions and devalued currency, along with the rise of consumer television. Collaborations, therefore, were as much about sharing financial burden as they were to do with migration. As Renaro Rosaldo observes, cinema does not escape the interdependence of borrowing and lending ‘across porous national and cultural boundaries’2 that is a dominate influence throughout the world in a time of globalisation.
‘Many of the recent feature films considered to be Latin American films, by reason of the nationality of the film-makers, are co-productions with European companies or institutions and first address an international audience.’3
Furthermore, Hayward agrees that with the rise of television, cinema once again became an ‘elitist cultural artefact,’4 with the result of film being aimed at an international audience. With the venues for New Latin American Cinema consisting mainly of festivals held outside of Latin American regions, for example Chicago or New York, it is not difficult to understand how or why the cinema has moved towards the transnational.

It is important to note how this move is reflected in the New Latin American film texts. For example, there is a clear shift away from geographical concerns in general but also some films deal directly with transcultural or migrancy themes at a narrative level. Lucrecia Martel’s La Nina Santa, for example, denies the viewer a clear perspective of geographical location, in contrast to the original Latin American preoccupation with landscape, instead the frame is always tightly shot; focussing on characters and never indicating exactly ‘where’ outside is. Although this is essentially a New Argentine film, the themes, for example relationships or obsession, are universal. The absence of specific location suggests that space and time are irrelevant and that the film is not concerned with nationality. In the case of Argentina, it becomes increasingly apparent that the move towards the transnational was inevitable, if not necessary. To clarify, having taken into account Argentina’s highly developed and strong sense of culture, for example, as Beatriz Sarlo claims, the popular melodrama, farces and Music Hall to name only a few-it seems unlikely that Argentine practitioners would negate their specifically national culture without due cause. Perhaps it was the need for Latin America to be unified in the struggle against underdevelopment?

For now, returning to how the move away from the local is articulated within film texts, it can be seen in Fresas y Chocolate, that, in addition to being a co-production between Tomas Gutierrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabio, there is also an expression of national tensions in the narrative. This is shown when the protagonist David asks ‘Where is he from?’ in reference to the author of some form of high art and Diego replies ‘Obsessed with nationalities…he is Cuban.’ The conversation is arguably directed at those critics/theorists who still insist on defining Latin American films based on individual nationality. Ann Marie Stock, for example, discusses what she terms as an ‘Authenticity Paradox,’ she proposes that ‘a critical insistence on authenticity prevails,’5 despite globalization and the migrancy of talent. Examples of comments based on Guillermo Del Toro’s Cronos are used to demonstrate the paradox. Despite the obvious international influences on the film’s production and aesthetics, Cronos is considered the ‘very Mexicanness of connecting decay and salvation,’ by Anthony De Palma and described as ‘a very stylish and sophisticated Mexican variation,’ by Janet Maslin. The comments are particularly interesting when u consider the use of linguistics in the film, for example, Toro has the protagonists develop a dual-language to communicate. As Stock discusses, the blending of English and Spanish makes the film more accessible for audiences across the continent and almost eliminates the need for subtitles. Furthermore, Stock suggests that the Spanish/English conversations within the film is in parallel to and acknowledges the diversity of cultures in Mexico and throughout America as a whole.
‘In reproducing polyphonic dialogues rather than constructing singular linguistic traditions, the film acknowledges the porosity of borders, the migrancy of populations, and the hybridity of expressive culture.’6
Stock is suggesting then that the move towards the transnational within New Latin American Cinema, particularly at an aesthetic level is due to an awareness possessed by filmmakers in relation to cultural and political changes throughout Latin America.

Once again returning to Fresas y Chocolate, the film, as well as providing direct narrative discussion of location, also contains various references to outside and cross-cultural influences in the form of foreign books and whisky. Moreover, David brings Diego a picture of the revolutionary image of Che Guevara, an image that arguably embodies the ideal of a unified America; Guevara having believed that national borders were an illusion. This view is fully explored in Diarios de Motocicleta, a pan-American film, in which Ernesto, ‘Che,’ makes a speech regarding the issue. The film’s incorporation of foreign elements highlights Fresas y Chocolate’s acknowledgement of Latin American cultural diversity. If the foreign references are not adequate, the film further reveals that it is transnational by offering direct intertextuality between itself and the mainstream film Some Like It Hot. At the same time the audience is not left in any doubt that the story is set in Cuba, as well as providing shots of the City, there are other references to the story location, for example, in an early scene Diego produces a plastic shopping bag, while sitting with David in a café/restaurant, which has Cuba clearly printed on it. Moreover, the films portrayal of the character’s devotion to Orishas, as a form of alternative religion, is specifically Cuban. For example, Nancy’s worshiping of Santa Barbara and Diego’s bargaining with an image of the Virgin Mary. The practice of Santeria and the worship of Orishas were able to flourish in Cuban homes due to the outlaw of public exercising of conventional religion. The specifically Cuban elements suggest that Alea is acknowledging Cuban culture as it exists within the unity of Latin America.
Zuzana M. Pick also discusses New Latin American Cinema as it may exist in terms of a ‘unified entity’ and considers that the movement has essentially mirrored the way in which Latin America has unified in the struggle of underdevelopment.
‘as a movement, it accommodates diverse practices into a whole in the same way as the term Latin America organizes the heterogeneous formations that stretch from Rio Grande to Tierra del Fuego.’7
In this sense, the cinema becomes a mediator between state and nation. As explained by Julianne Burton Carvajal, dependent countries tend to be caught in the struggle to ‘conquer an elusive authenticity,’8 and in the case of Latin American nations, she suggests that artists, therefore, act as representatives mediating between the national citizens and the state. Carvajal goes on to state that the preoccupation with pan-nationalism, that the New Latin American Cinema reflected, gave a voice to the struggling masses through the safe-guard of the mediator. Pick also suggests that the exile of filmmakers under dictatorship has contributed substantially to the move away from specifically national themes. For example, she claims that exile alters creativity. For instance, if a filmmaker is exiled he is therefore forced to engage with new cultures and audiences, meaning he must change the way he articulates his work in order to become accessible to the new audience. Pick also recognised that even if the exiled was able to return, the nation would not be found exactly as he had left it. She terms this notion as a ‘decentering of views on identity,’9 and argues that the result of exile, permanent or otherwise, is a transference of narrative ideas across borders.

These factors, that is, exile, migrancy and the common struggle of underdevelopment, along with certain economic reasons, have all contributed to the New Latin American Cinema’s move towards the transnational. As discussed before, some of these factors also influence the film aesthetics. For example, Cronos’s migrancy theme, in the form of border-crossing Tom Mix, in addition to the dual-language it presents. What is undeniable is the notion of diversity as it exists within unity throughout New Latin American Cinema. However, this has caused problems for certain critics. For instance, Michael Wood suggests that Bunuel’s use of popular language in Los Olvidados is detrimental to the universal theme, in that, the message may be international but the faces and the voices are Mexican. If you examine New Latin American Film in this way then of course you will come across similar contradictions. Nonetheless, with the inclusion of certain cultural elements, the cinema has found a way of addressing an international audience without completely negating their national history.
[i]




1Hayward, Susan, ‘Cinema Studies, The Key Concepts,’ Second Edition (Routledge: London) 2000, P. 429

2 Rosaldo, Renaro, ‘Authentically Mexican? Mi Querido Tom Mix and Cronos Reframe Critical Questions,’ in ‘Mexico’s Cinema, A Century of Film and Filmmakers’ (Scholarly Resources: Delaware) 1999, P.272

3 Newman, Kathleen, ‘National Cinema After Globalization, Fernando Solana’s Sur and the Exiled Nation,’ in ‘Mediating Two Worlds, Cinematic Encounters in the Americas’ (BFI: London) 1993, P. 244

4 Hayward, Susan, ‘Cinema Studies, The Key Concepts,’ Second Edition (Routledge: London) 2000, P.431

5 Stock, Ann Marie, ‘Mexican? Mi Querido Tom Mix and Cronos Reframe Critical Questions,’ in ‘Mexico’s Cinema, A Century of Film and Filmmakers’ (Scholarly Resources: Delaware) 1999, P.268

6 Stock, Ann Marie, ‘Mexican? Mi Querido Tom Mix and Cronos Reframe Critical Questions,’ in ‘Mexico’s Cinema, A Century of Film and Filmmakers’ (Scholarly Resources: Delaware) 1999, P. 279

7Pick, Zuzana M, ‘The New Latin American Cinema, A Continental Project’ (University of Texas Press: Austin) 1993, P. 2

8 Carvajal, Julianne B ‘South American Cinema, Nation and anti-nation: the new Latin American cinema movement, artist-intellectuals, and the notion of the popular’ in ‘The Oxford Guide to Film Studies (Oxford University Press: New York) 1998, P. 580

9 Pick, Zuzana M ‘South American Cinema, Nation and anti-nation: the new Latin American cinema movement, artist-intellectuals, and the notion of the popular’ in ‘The Oxford Guide to Film Studies (Oxford University Press: New York) 1998, P. 583




Bibliography

Hill, John, Gibson Church, Pamela ‘The Oxford Guide to Film Studies’ (Oxford University Press: New York) 1998

Hershfield, Joanne, Maciel, David R ‘Mexico’s Cinema, A Century of Film and Filmmakers’ (Scholarly Resources: Delaware) 1999

Hayward, Susan ‘Cinema Studies, The Key Concepts’ (Routledge: London) 2000

Pick, Zuzana M ‘The New Latin American Cinema, A Continental Project’ (University of Texas Press: Austin) 1993

King, John, Lopez, Ana M, Alvarado, Manuel ‘Mediating Two Worlds, Cinematic Encounters in the Americas’ (BFI: London) 19993

Filmography

Cidade de Deus, Brazil, 2002, d: Mereilles, Fernando, Lund, Katia

La Nina Santa, Argentina, 2004, d: Martel, Lucrecia

Fresas y Chocolate, Cuba, 1994, d: Alea, Tomas Gutierrez, Tabio, Juan Carlos

Auteur Theory and Jean-Luc Godard's Bande a Part

To conduct an appropriate theoretical analysis of Jean-Luc Godard’s Bande A Part, it is essential to establish the social context in which the film was made and to what extent this context has influenced the cinematic aesthetics. Bande A Part was a product which emerged out of the Nouvelle Vague, of which the director is or can be argued to be, due to his modernist approach, a defining figure. Thus, it is appropriate to examine the film with close reference to the new wave movement and the various auteurist debates that the movement fuelled.

Bande A Part was not the first of Godard’s new wave films. However, it seems to be, as suggested by Rolando Caputo, the film in which all of the genres features came together in a more fluid or ‘poetic’ unity. Intertextuality, for example, is a key feature that developed alongside all of the new wave’s apparently ‘counter’-cinematic codes and narrative structures. It was a feature that brought two or more texts into alignment, creating a parallel between the work of the new wave film-makers and classic Hollywood cinema. This element of referencing other cinema is something that Bande A Part embraces, to a point were it becomes a preoccupation throughout the entire production. The first scene, for instance, provides us with a direct reference to the American western, in particular Billy the Kid and Man of the West, which becomes the character Arthur’s inspiration during his theatrical dying gesture. Man of the West is subsequently the muse behind Arthur’s final death scene, where the background setting of forest/trees is very obviously borrowed from the western. With this scene Godard was essentially paying homage to the western films he reviewed as a member of the Cahiers group. The film’s fixation with ‘pulp’ culture resulted in it becoming the model for Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction whose ‘twist’ dance sequence is a direct reference to the interpretation of the Madison dance in Bande A Part, which in turn is paying homage to the classic Hollywood musical.

The silent era is referred to, not just by the intertextuality between Bande A Part and The Immigrant, which is a silent classic but also by the whole cinematic aesthetics of the final scene when Odile and Franz are setting out on a boat to Brazil. For example, Godard chose film stock that was appropriate for the era and even the character Odile’s acting style is relevant to the silent period when exaggerated gestures were the norm. Moreover the repetition that occurs of shots of the canals and water can be argued to refer to the ‘poetic realism’ as described by Caputo, of many films of the 1930s. The continued referencing of other cinema verifies Bande A Part as belonging to a movement that sought to embrace and capitalise on Hollywood conventions. An essay by Francois Truffaut called ‘Une Certain ten-dance du Cinema’ is thought to be the original manifesto for the movement.

The new modernist approach to film making was seen to be a reaction against the established French film industry and its romantic conventions. However some critics have found a problem in accepting the legitimacy of this reaction, suggesting that its very foundation created a paradox. For example, figures of the Nouvelle Vague, including Truffaut, Rivette, Rohmer and Godard, wanted to draw their attention to the auteur and his individual signature in the mise en scene. This ideology, contrary to being reactionary, instead echoed the romantic and conservative aesthetics they were trying to move away from.
‘Paradoxically, given their so-called modernity and innovativeness, this was rather a romantic ideal and conservative aesthetic.’1
Furthermore, the notion of favouring the auteur, as it is discussed by Susan Hayward, causes difficulties because it ‘erases’ context, that is, according to Hayward, history. Despite the criticisms, Godard can be seen as the director to emerge from the Cahiers group who has constantly questioned the ideologies of auteurism, his films, including Bande A Part are equally self-aware.

They worked on the principles of the theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht, who in theatre encouraged the audience to think, not feel and to spectate without identifying. As suggested by Robert P. Kolker in an essay ‘Contesting the Hollywood Style,’ they made films that took their own ‘textuality’ as one of their subjects. This can be seen in Bande A Part when the characters’ pass a Nouvelle Vague nightspot in the city and again during a scene on the metro/ train when Odile and Arthur observe an unhappy looking boy and decide, based on two alternative contexts whether the package he is carrying is a teddy bear or a bomb. These self-conscious elements contribute to the structural denaturalising Godard achieves by exposing cinematic conventions.
The auteur debate, up until the 1950s, had focussed mainly on sociological analysis. However, the Cahiers group, by paying more attention to American mainstream cinema, caused a re-examination of the notion of auteur. Hollywood had been previously rejected in any debates on the grounds that American directors had a limited influence over production. Despite this, the Cahiers group maintained that true auteurs, such as Alfred Hitchcock, were aware of all aspects of film production and as such could retain an adequate amount of influence over them.
‘The reason these critics appreciated the glimmerings of personal expression in Hollywood movies was because they concentrated on this aspect of the cinema and knew exactly how films were made […] and could by dint of knowledge and force of will control all the significant aspects.’2
It is important to examine Bande A Part in relation to where it fits within the evolution of the auteurist debate, for example, the film was released in 1964 when structuralism was already being established, in that, the underlying structures of the text produced meaning along with the central auteur. For Hayward, structuralism formed the second phase of the debate and brought about a positive change to auteur theory.

It is not difficult to see how this ‘phase’ has influenced Godard. Primarily, given its scientific approach, it allowed the director to create a film form that rejected romanticism. There are differing opinions regarding the value of structuralism. For example, while Caputo comments optimistically of Godard’s focus on ‘plot skeletons’ and the moulding of American conventions by European aesthetics, Hayward suggests that the aesthetic experience is crushed by the weight of the theoretical framework. Bande A Part, however criticised for its ideological limitations and essentially a-political objectives, undeniably offered the audience pleasure, as described by Pam Cook in The Cinema Book, due to the recognition of its Hollywood codes.
Throughout the film, there is a repeated blurring of the lines between fiction and reality. The film is essentially ‘bookended’ by this theme, to clarify, in the first scene we observe Franz and Arthur play with make believe guns, after which Arthur makes a show of an overly animated death. This animation is mimicked in Arthur’s real death scene so that we, as an audience, are not sure if what we are witnessing is truth or fiction. This theme is more obviously present in the metro sequence where, as described by Caputo, a dislocation of time and space occurs. For example, the sequence begins naturalistically but as Odile starts to recall a song/poem and begins singing, her words start to correspond with a montage of shots that progress from day to night and from the metro to the outside streets. As Caputo suggests, the whole scene has a mythic quality and we get the feeling we have descended into an underworld where time and space are irrelevant. The dislocation of time further places the film, with its experimental style, away from the French film industry and into the Nouvelle Vague. It could also be argued that this sequence, due to its gothic elements, is in reference to the genre of expressionism.

Another element, influenced by the new wave that Bande A Part reveals is the characteristic of the fixation with certain geographic locations. For example, the film depicts scenes in the café, airport and the streets of Paris. These are locations that appear in various other new wave film’s including A Bout de Souffle and La Peau Douce. It has been considered that the locations featured in these films, as put forward by Cook, represent ‘a tourist’s view of France. Furthermore, the film also centres on the relationship between Odile, Arthur and Franz and the dynamics within their triangle. Again this theme is typical of the Nouvelle Vague whose story lines were most often based on the relationships between young men and women.

As a product of its social context, that is, emerging at the time of the Nouvelle Vague, Bande A Part is enveloped by the auteur debate that was developing at the time. It was made by a director who is still considered an auteur, despite varying debates surrounding the validity of the term. For example, Peter Wollen places Godard’s work, as not so much originating from the auteur, but from ‘a set of contradictory relationships between structural elements which interact to produce the author’s world-view.’ Therefore, Bande A Part can be seen as a defining film of the period and as such most appropriately analysed in the context of its features that are driven by the objectives of the new wave. As outlined, the defining features arguably include intertextuality, structuralism, capitalisation of Hollywood conventions and the overall self-conscious tone of the film. The film, although debatably flawed due to its lack of politics, does what it sets out to. That is, pays homage to and celebrates the commercial effectiveness of the American mainstream.


[i]

1 Hayward, Susan pg147 Cinema Studies, The Key Concepts, Second Edition (Routledge: London) 2000

2 Hess John, pg 30 ‘Film Quarterly’ volume 27, no.2, JSTOR Archive (University of California Press)


Bibliography

Cook, Pam. Bernink, Mieke ‘The Cinema Book’ 2nd Edition (BFI: London) 1999

Hayward, Susan ‘The Cinema Book, The Key Concepts’ 2nd Edition (Routledge: London) 2000

Forbes, Jill. Kolker, Robert, P. Kramer, Peter. Edited by Hill, John and Church Gibson, Pamela ‘The Oxford Guide to Film Studies’ (Oxford University Press: New York) 1998

Journals

Hess, John (1973-1974) ‘Auteurism and after: A Reply to Graham Petrie’ in ‘Film Quarterly’ volume 27, no.2, pp. 28-37

Wollen, Peter (1972) ‘Godard and Counter Cinema: Vent d’est’ in ‘Afterimage’ volume 4 ‘Movies and Methods II, edition Nichols, Bill, Berkeley: University of California Press pp500-509.

Filmography

Bande A Part, France, 1964, d: Godard, Jean-Luc

Extra Features in Bande A Part, France, 1964, d: Godard, Jean-Luc- Exclusive Audio Commentary on fragments of Bande A Part by Caputo, Rolando





Ends.