The Most Pressing Ethical Issue in World Cinemas is in Every Aspect that of Representation - Essay Example

? The Most Pressing Ethical Issue in the World Cinemas is in Every Aspect that of Representation The Most Pressing Ethical Issue in the World Cinemas is in Every Aspect that of Representation We begin the analysis with Millers characterisation of Hollywood as an influential international organization that promotes cultural labour. It is with this idea that Galt and schoonover try to relate the Global art cinema to Global Hollywood. The global art cinema is an elastically hybrid category whereby there is a lack of strict procedures that surround the art cinema. This lack of strict measures is what makes this unique from global Hollywood. According to Galt and Schnoozer this specificity although unique in its nature does create room for destabilization in the global art cinema (2010, pg. 3). The term global as used by Galt and Schnoozer does represent all the aspects represented by the global art cinema. These include the geopolitical aspect that features as part of the global art cinema representation. In the 21st century, the art films have the task of presenting unique yet universally legible works of art. Galt and schnoozer argue that the art cinema does demand the consideration of all cultures and the ability seeing ourselves through foreign eyes (2010, pg.11). This ideology of global art cinema does present the lack of unification. The global art cinema does make a massive contribution to the cinema world in its effort to globalise the art of film. It achieves this by embracing the different cultural perspective and trying to create a relationship in every aspect of life. Glan and schnoozer look at the films from different directors who have come up with the ability to create beautiful films that are an inspiration to their viewers. What this films present is political liberation that is an aspect that the global art cinema focuses on in the aim of promoting contemporary films. An example of the promotion of culture through the field of art cinema is the Spanish cinema. This cinema looks at the popular culture that the Spaniards experienced during the era of Marxism. We focus on dictatorship. The Europe cinema for some time has a link to the art cinema in contrast to the Hollywood cinema, which is popular (Dyer and Ginette, 1992, pg.1). For some time, the Hollywood cinema took the principal focus for its international prominence this is in contrast to the European cinema that took the focus of art cinema. This paved room for the study of the other cinemas like the Mexican cinemas, the Spanish cinemas the U.K cinemas also the Australian cinemas the act scholars saw the need to study their unique, artistic quality. Let us consider the movie Motor Cycle Diaries directed by Walter Salles, the movie is an adaptation of the journal written by Guevara. The movie does use Mexican actors to play the leading roles. Gael Garcia Bernal plays the role of Che. Ernesto Guevara Salles made an ideal choice to use this actor to play Guevera's part. He is a delightful character as he manages to pull out an asthma attack scene on the screen, thus making this is one of the moments that one catches his breath in the film. On the other hand, Rodrigo De La Serna plays the part of Alberto Granado. He plays the loyal travelling companion he represents the casually amoral he manages to bring out his friends fierce integrity. The movie is also a representation of the country’s state dating between the periods 1951 to 1952. Guevera is a final year student in medical school, and his friend is a biochemist finalist. The movie is a representation of a Latin America journey it represents a trip undertaken by a 23 year old across South America. The two young friend who undertake the trip across South America happen to be exposed to the plight of the poor along the way. They experience the vulnerability and the suffering of the poor in this country. This exposure forms the basis of Che Guevara interest in being an activist in his country and thus he shows his determination in bidding farewell to the leper colony (Guevara, 2004, pg.3). The movie exposes the viewers to how experience can influence ones political and ideological thinking just like Che and Alberto who initially planned to explore the world, but ironically, the world ends up exposing them to realities of poverty. The suffering and plight associated to poverty. Salles movie is a representation of a political awakening; the movie is more of a historical document. It focuses on a youth who explores the world interviewing oppressed labourers and taking care of the sick. When Guevera and his friend wind up their trip, we see a future revolutionary, who is well aware of the world that he considers home. The use of amateur actors and a documentary style format makes the Salles movie to be realistic. The scenes that are presented in the movie expose the naivety of the two young friends to the world around them. One does take note of the number of times the two falls from their motorcycle this is a representation of their experience to new things. Salles use of poor workers, farmers, miners, peasants, and beggars is effective in making the experience so real. The use of black and white in the scenes represents memory that forever remains in the young travellers’ minds. This movie does achieve its objective it is a fantastic movie, and its representation of the transformation of a naive young man into a future revolutionary does capture the audiences’ approval. The Hollywood classical representation is not originally American. However, it does include a mix of the past and present. The Hollywood studio does adapt foreign cinematographic stylization, which creates the appreciation of Hollywood cinema as an international organization. The mixture of the past and the present does create an artistic eclecticism that receives appreciation for being a narrative on the screens. The Hollywood studios also employ the artistic skills of camera operators from Europe and elsewhere. This exposure to talent from around the world and mixing it with the Hollywood touch does combine to give a classical representation to the film work. In order to give a representational treatment to a given film it entails the skills of the cinematographer, and scenographer who are awarded the task of giving the film a smooth narration stream. The adaptation of a variety of skills from various parts of the world and representing it in one film has proven to give a new view to the cinema world (Koszarski, 1972, pp.28-29). In the movie directed by Salles, there is a mixture of talents from both Hollywood and the Mexican cinemas. This enriches the story by giving into a Hollywood representation and the same time maintaining its originality as a movie adapted from the southern territory of America. We can also relate the Salles movie to the Spanish cinemas who have constructed their objects of study as art cinema. The Spanish cinemas utilize artistically themes such as melodrama and comedy to present their subject of interest. Salles, however, utilizes colour in the cinematography to represent a change in the enlightenment process. The focus of representation of Spanish films of the 1950s is to present the whole idea of how these films are under contamination by the Francois ideology. On the other hand, the Salles movie does represent the aspect of having had a political influence from the Cuban President Fidel Castro. Fidel Castro is a revolutionist just like Guevera’s awakening in the political perspective into a future revolutionist. Guevera does give us an insight of his aspiration to join Fidel’s mission in the liberation of their country. According to the studies undertaken on the Spanish cinemas, it is evident that the Spanish film does face difficulty in competing with the Hollywood cinemas. In its effort to reproduce American films, the Spanish compete with Hollywood cinemas that are more popular. According to Kuhn, the cinema art focuses on the representation of the day-to-day life experiences. This life experiences are under the influence of political and economical experiences. This further inflects the cultural significance of cinema going (Kuhn, 2002, 237). The introduction of sounding in the 1920s to the motion pictures made a tremendous contribution to the industry. It is in 1929, an influential film that made a representation of the serious depression was released. In the 1930s, Hollywood had its distinct way of filmmaking. The introduction of sounding to the Hollywood films made the filming procedure to regress; however, the issue of unison between the image and the techno logic breakthrough was a problem for the Hollywood cinemas. When considering a film scenography the director faces the challenge of presenting the dreams of the society into forms lines, perspective and tonal values. Another film that is of interest in the art of film representation is the Ten Canoes, a movie directed by Rolf de Heer and Peter Djiggir. This is a cross-collaborative film, which aims at empowering the indigenous to resist cultural domination and exploitation. The film presents a new form of cultural memory and renewal that is a cultural future. The Australian film just like many Australian films focuses on the representation of aboriginal people. It focuses on the strengthening of the indigenous communities of Australia. The film does bring out the hegemonic structures of the cultural domination and marginalisation of the aboriginal communities. The media and films are one way that Australians have managed to be aware of the aboriginality (Langton, 1993, pg.22). The movie “ten canoes” is a representation of the collaboration between the Aboriginal people and a non-indigenous director. The story communicates a unique cultural story to its viewers the movie does give the non-aboriginal people access to the aboriginal culture. The representation of the aboriginal culture does allow other cultures and societies to appreciate the uniqueness of this culture. The cultural difference marked between the aboriginal cultures and the non-aboriginal cultures is solely due to the cultural differences that exist between the two cultures. Langton does state that the two cultures experience differences in issues like the legacies of inequality and exploitation, a history of colonial oppression and the existing structures of hegemonic dominance (1993, pg. 24). The hegemonic dominance in the film is positioning of white filmmakers as the subjects and the aboriginal communities as objects in the film (Langton, 1993, pg. 39). The inclusion of Yolgnu for the role of directing the film was to remove the idea of hegemonic dominance in the film. It also served to reject the interpretation of the objectification of the aboriginal community. The role that de Heer plays in the film involves him as a medium between aboriginal society and the western media. De Heer in his statement says that the aboriginal society is responsible for telling their story, and he as a co director only acts as a mechanism by which the aboriginal society can tell their story. He further explains that society should accept that the two societies have different ways of telling the story. His role was to study what the indigenous society wanted in their story and transform it into a western story telling tradition. His challenge most of the time was to on how to fuse the two things together to make it agreeable to them and to make it work for the western media (Davis, 2007, pg.7). This insight shows that the issue of cross-cultural collaboration is marked by the difference in the systems of knowledge and practice. The adaptation of a hybrid system of storytelling is paramount in the narration of cross collaboration cultural stories. The film by De Heer challenges western filmmaking practice to be able to translate the aboriginal culture into something accessible for the non-aboriginal audiences. The film does represent the aboriginal culture and history, which challenges the hegemonic representation of aboriginal communities, their cultures and histories in Australia. For instance, the way that narration is used in the film does represent the contemporaneity of the aboriginal society. The film does manage to merge the past and present. The film gives the non-aboriginal communities access to the positive and strong representation of the aboriginal culture. The film focuses on cultural dominance and hegemonic power and the audience appreciates this. Mayer and Beattie do emphasis on the American domination over the Australian film industry. They note that Hollywood has had a lot of influence on the Australian film industry when compared other film industries in the world (2007, pg.2). Grant, Fox, and Radner study the Australian cinema, and they conclude that, many films from the Australian industry does focus on the representation of identity politics. The film addresses issues to do with races Colonial injustices. The film also raises political awareness and self-empowerment projects. The Australian cinema just like many other cinemas has proven to be an effective media in the representation of indigeneity. The Australian industry emulates the Hollywood studios in their effort to represent this theme. The white directors have attempted to re-narrate and re-represent hegemonic colonial history; most of the time this effort faces with criticism from the society hat views this as a form of neo-colonialism. Cook in his works looks at contemporary cinema in a general view, and she states that linking authorship to cinema work is an art that is alive, and it does thrive in many locations. Cook acknowledges that the representation of culture, and different ideologies in film work is admirable, however, in his view all the ideas and works represented traces back to the individual authorship and his skill to captivate the readers and viewers (Cook, 2007, pg.479). Cook does acknowledge that each film does differ according to social, political and cultural environment; therefore, during the analysis of a film one needs to consider the work of each filmmaker by a singular vision or rather a unique vision (Cook, 2007, pg.1). In conclusion, in looking at films identity and globalization one needs to approach the subject with intellectual curiosity. When analysing the issue of film, and representation it is advisable to treat each film with a unique approach. The other fact is to treat different directors’ work in the same a unique way. The whole issue of representation focuses on making us the audiences appreciate the role of the film and the art of filmmaking. The globalisation of the cinema art does focus on embracing the various talents represented on the different nations that embrace the cinema art. This allows for the creation of an admirable work of art this is evident in the movies we took into consideration. The movie, as directed by Salles does give us an insight of the representation of political awakening of a young man into a future revolutionist. The film does employ the Hollywood talent and the Mexican talent to represent the beautiful work of art. We also have looked at the Australian movie the ten canoes, which focuses on cultural representation. We have seen how the movie portrays the potential of cross-cultural collaboration in defining hegemonic representation of indigenous people. The movie, we note, is a strategy of empowering the indigenous society of Australia. Bibliographies Guevara, A., 2004. The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin America Journey. London: Harper Perennial, Galt R.and Schnoover K., 2010. Global Art Cinema: New Theories and History. Oxford UP: Oxford. Kuhn, A., 2009. Screen and Screen Theorizing today. 1-12. Grant, C. & Kuhn A., 2006. Screening World Cinema. London: Routledge. Langton, M., n.d. “The politics and Aesthetics of Filmmaking by and about Aboriginal people and Things Sydney.” Beattie, K., & Meyer, G., 2007. The Cinema of Australia and New Zealand. London: Wallflower. Miller, T., 2001. Global Hollywood. London: BFI Publishing. Ten canoes.,2006. Dir. Peter Djiggir and Rolf De heer. The Motorcycle Diaries.,2004. Dir. walter salles. 2004. Wood, J.,2006. Talking Movies: Contemporary world filmakers in Interview. london: Wallflower. Read More