Questions for Higson article:
1. According to
Higson, what are the four ways the concept of national cinema has been
used/defined?
2. How can we
establish the coherence or specificity of a national cinema?
3. Why is it
important to consider the influence of Hollywood when discussing "national
cinemas"?
4. What are the
issues that must be addressed if we are to consider the film culture of a
nation state as a whole?
1. In the Higson article, he describes the ways national cinema has been defined over the years in an attempt to offer clarity on the question of a national cinema. The first is a scope of analysis that sets puts forth economic concepts, which I interpreted as the administrative workings that fund the productions. Secondly, he explains that a "text-based approach" which would offer ideas of what the works are about, what are they offering up to that nation's visual narrative. Third, he exlpains the consumption based concepts which is concerned with what films or shows the viewer is consumng, whether they be foreign or domestic. Lastly, he describes "criticism-led approach" that uses ideas that are nationally popular, that have progressive/modern approaches to analyzing the content, speaking to the mass as opposed to simply catering to the masse, boiling down the national cinema objectives to an art of quality.
ReplyDeleteIn order to consider film culture as a whole, it is important that a few issues are addressed. The first one is the range of films in circulation within a nation-state, including American and foreign films. It is important to look at how these films are circulated and exhibited. Second, he states that it is important to address the range of sociologically specific audiences for different types of film and how these audiences use these films in different circumstances. This includes reasons why certain audiences go to the cinema, how it makes them feel, the nature of a shared experience from going, and the different experiences offered by the various types of theatrical spaces. Third, we must also address the range of and relation between discourses about film circulating within that cultural and social formation. One thing that is crucial among these discourses is the tension between those intellectual discourses that insist that a "proper" national cinema is one that aspires to the status of art and the more populist discourses where the idea of "good entertainment" overrides questions of art or nationality. All in all, exploring national cinema in these terms requires putting a greater focus on the points of consumption and the use of film, rather than on the point of production.
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