European Cinema

Front matter

IN TRANSITION

Face to Face with Hollywood

Thomas Elsaesser

Table of Contents

Preface 9 Introduction European Cinema: Conditions of Impossibility? [2005] 13

National Cinema: Re-Definitions and New Directions

European Culture, National Cinema, the Auteur and Hollywood [1994] 35 ImpersoNations: National Cinema, Historical Imaginaries [2005] 57

Preface

The (West) European cinema has, since the end of World War IL, had its identity firmly stamped by three features: its leading directors were recognized as auteurs, its styles and themes shaped a nation's self-image, and its new waves signified political as well as aesthetic renewal. Ingmar Bergman, Jacques Rivette, Joseph Losey, Peter Greenaway, neo-realism, the nouvelle vague, New German Cinema, the British renaissance — these have been some of the signposts of a cinema that derived legitimacy from a dual cultural legacy: that of the 19th century novel and of the 20th century modernist avant-gardes. Both pedigrees have given Europe's national cinemas a unique claim to autonomy, but they also drew boundaries between the work of the auteur-artists, representing the nation, high culture and realism, and the makers of popular cinema, representing commerce, mass-entertainment and consumption.

These distinguishing features were also identity constructions. They helped to mask a continuing process of self-definition and self-differentiation across a half-acknowledged presence, namely of Hollywood, and an unacknowledged absence, namely of the cinemas of Socialist Europe. Since 1989, such identity formations through difference, exclusion and otherness, are no longer securely in place. Cinema today contributes to cultural identities that are more inclusive and processual, more multi-cultural and multi-ethnic, more dialogical and interactive, able to embrace the ‘new Europe’, the popular star- and genre cinema, as well as the diaspora cinemas within Europe itself. It has meant re-thinking as well as un-thinking European cinema. Has it made cinema in Europe an anxious art, seeking salvation in the preservation of the "national heritage"? Many times before, European cinema has shown itself capable of re-invention. This time, the challenge for films, filmmakers and critics is to be European enough to preserve Europe's cultural diversity and historical depth, as well as outward-looking enough to be trans-national and part of world cinema.

The essays brought together in European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood present a cross-section of my writings on these topics over a period of some thirty-five years. They re-examine the conflicting terminologies that have dominated the discussion, including the notion of "the nation" in "national cinema", and the idea of the artist as creator of a unique vision, at the heart of the "auteur-cinema". They take a fresh look at the ideological agendas, touching on politically and formally oppositional practices and they thoroughly examine European cinema's relation to Hollywood.

An important aspect of the essays is that they develop a way of thinking about European cinema which focuses on the many imaginary or mirroring relations a nation's cinema maintains with itself and its others. Here I try to extend the concept from specific national cinemas (notably German, British and French) to the political entity we call the European Union, in its national, transnational, regional and local manifestations. Considering how differently politicians, intellectuals, publicists and polemicists "imagine" the European Union, is it possible to find among filmmakers pictures of the kind of Europe that needs to be invented? Something new and vital is emerging, that makes me re(de)fine my idea of European cinema as an overlay of historical imaginaries and want to give priority of analysis to the economic-institutional factors (co-productions, television, national funding schemes, EU subsidies), to the art worlds and to specific cultural politics, as embodied in Europe's international film festivals. Together they illuminate the changing relations with Hollywood, indicative of the altered place European cinema now occupies among a whole archipelago of differently weighted and unevenly distributed film cultures, which in the global mind make up “world cinema."

In putting this collection together I have been helped by many friends, colleagues, and graduate students. Debts of acknowledgement and gratitude are owed to all of them. First and foremost I want to thank those who initially commissioned some of the pieces here reproduced, notably Richard Combs, editor of the Monthly Film Bulletin, Philip Dodd, editor of Sight & Sound, Don Ranvaud, editor of Framework, Ian Christie, Mart Dominicus, Christel van Bohemen, as well as the following organizers of conferences: Chris Bigsby, Susan Hayward, Knut Jensen, Barton Byg, Alexander Stephan, Dudley Andrew, Livia Paldi and Yosefa Loshitzky. Furthermore, I want to thank my colleague Jan Simons, whose comments have always been pertinent and constructive.

I am deeply indebted to Amy Kenyon's helpful suggestions, to reader's reports by Malte Hagener, Steven Choe, Ria Thanouli and Tarja Laine; to Marijke de Valck's stimulating and innovative research on festivals, to Senta Siewert's spontaneous help with editing and completing the bibliography and to Sutanya Singkhra's patient work on the illustrations and footnotes. Jaap Wagenaar at Amsterdam University Press has, as usual, been a model of efficiency and good cheer. Finally, the book is dedicated to all the members of the ‘Cinema Europe’ study group, who have inspired me to re-think what it means to study European cinema, and whose enthusiasm and total commitment have made the past four years a rare intellectual adventure.

Thomas Elsaesser Amsterdam, June 2005