Does Third Cinema Still Exist or Has Already Died - Essay Example

Third Cinema Third Cinema is considered to be a form of an opposition cinema to the established film making schools of the capitalist countries. Though it originated in a so called ‘Third World’ nation, it did not remain confined with the developing countries. At the time of its inception “Third Cinema” was used to voice the dissent of the protestors in the third world countries which were ruled by the colonial powers. Gradually, this genre of films has come to represent a number of social issues facing the developing economies. The term ‘Third Cinema’ was coined by in the 1960s by two filmmakers from Argentina: Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino. In 1968, after jointly directing a film: La Hora de los Hornos (Hour of the Furnaces), Solanas and Getino wrote their manifesto known as hacia un tercer cine (towards a third cinema). There the authors had identified three categories of cinema: the First, the Second and the Third World Cinema. The Third Cinema is a form of opposition to the film making institutions of the dominating nations of the world. For this reason, it has also been described as ‘militant cinema’. The Third Cinema is defined by its director’s conception of the world. It is not determined by the genre of the film or any particular political viewpoint expressed by the cinema. This kind of cinema first flourished in the 1960s. This was precisely the time when many colonized countries were rising in protest in the form of their National Liberalization Struggle against their western colonial powers. During this period, a group of film makers from the third world countries started making a new king of cinema. These were dynamic and politically stimulating films that represented the way of life and the political resistance in these less developed nations. Though these films were made on a variety of different themes, they were very different from the contemporary western cinema. The directors of the Third Cinema wanted to provide expressions to the dissatisfied citizens of the third world countries who were already voicing their opinions on the economic and political exploitations of the western powers. Third Cinema provided the platform where people were allowed to argue, struggle and make experimental films which were a contrast to the usual entertaining cinema that was popular around the world. Solanos and Getino in their manifesto (1969) stated “In the dependent countries, third cinema is a cinema of decolonization, which expresses the will to national liberation, anti-mythic, anti-racist, anti-bourgeois and popular” (Solano & Getino, 1969, pp.23). The Third Cinema was created as a direct alternative to First and Second Cinema. It is a common notion to consider Third Cinema as the cinema of the third world. However, this is not true. In the words of Solanas and Getino Third Cinema is described as the evolution of a cinema depicting the liberation in the third world countries. Third Cinema can said to have been developed as a reaction to the First and Second cinema rather than as a reaction to the First and Second Worlds. First Cinema can very well be produced in a developing country, an example being the Bollywood films that are produced in India. On the other hand, Third Cinema can include films produced in the first world countries. Suitable examples are the films made by Newsreel, the new US Leftist film body, the films produced during the British and the Japanese student movements, the cinegiornali made during the Italian student movement, the films belonging to the Etats Generaux du cinema Francais and so on. (The British Film Resource, n.d) The First Cinema embodied the large Hollywood scale of production of films. However, contrary to the name, this not only applied to the cinema produced in the first world countries. The First world cinema conceives a type of cinema which embodies a particular relationship between the cinematic medium and its audience. Here the cinema is viewed as a part of the spectacle. First cinema can very well be produced in countries outside the first world. For example, Bollywood cinema produced in the Mumbai film industry of India is an ideal example of First World Cinema. On the other hand, Second Cinema included the cinema d’auteur as defined by Solanos and Getino. It also encompassed art house cinema, independent American cinema and cinema belonging to the new wave of the film making process. Second cinema started to generate its own structures with regards to the film making and the narrative stages of film production. It produced its own distribution and exhibition structures and also its own political ideologies as espoused by the films belonging to this school. According to Solanos and Getino it became a institution in its own right. . The Third Cinema can be defined as the militant cinema and an opposition cinema to film making institution of the dominating nations in the world. Actually, it embodied a particular thought process of the director and encompassed a particular vision of the world. It began to provide a platform for the dissident voices in the third world countries. Though this was the starting point of this type of cinema, it later expanded to include various types of themes. It did not remain confined to the so called “third world” nations of the world. Though it was first produced in Latin America, Third Cinema gradually came to be produced in the developed countries like USA, UK and so on. Third Cinema was first made in Argentina; however, it did not remained confined to the third world nations. As First World Cinema was being generated in developing and less developed countries, the Third Cinema was also being produced in the capitalist nations of the world. Third Cinema later expanded to include a large proportion of the cinema produced in Africa. This type of cinema emerged as a direct alternative to First and Third World Cinema. Apart from Latin America and Africa, gradually there were other European nations which joined into the movement of the Third Cinema. These included France, Italy etc which were once colonial powers and were used to exploiting their slave nations for their own pleasure. In between 1954 and 1962 a national liberation struggle was fought in Algeria which was one of the most earliest and influential to rid the country of French Colonialism. An Italian director named Gillo Pontecorvo directed a film’ The Battle of Algiers’ in 1965 which described many peoples of Algeria who had fought against the French. The film was so influence able that it was often seen as an example of Third Cinema. (The British Film Resource, n.d) The Third Cinema Movement began in the 1960s and 1970s. However, the traces of the movement can very well be discerned in the films produced in the recent times. The films made by Alan Clarke: Elephant and Michael Haneke: Funny Games can be considered to be examples of the Third Cinema produced during the contemporary times. Both the films were actually created as the representative of the Third Cinema’s reaction to the violence portrayed in the other genres of films. In the “Elephant”, director Clarke has protested against the Northern Ireland killings. He has made his film to serve as an eye-opener for the society and to make people aware of the wrongdoings prevalent in contemporary society. Some conscious citizens might even take up the film’s cause and initiate a social movement against the killings. On the other hand, director Haneke in his film “Funny Games” has questioned the audience’s acceptance of the acts of violence depicted on screen. First and Second Cinema are used to operating in certain fixed structures. The presence of excessive action and violence has come to be the accepted norm in these films. However, it is important for film directors to bear in mind that cinema has always been a powerful influence on the society. The audience if often affected by the events and incidents portrayed on screen and start replicating them in their own lives. This is exactly what Haneke has questioned in his film. He has urged the cinema viewers to introspect within themselves and evaluate whether the depiction of such excessive violence is actually beneficial for the society at large. Therefore, the films made by Clarke and Haneke encourage the cinema audience to challenge the accepted formal structures of First Cinema. In this way, the directors have attempted to initiate a change in the social consciousness. The decade of the 1990s and the 2000s heralded a decrease in the resistive activities of the thirds world nations, which had become common during the earlier decades. The period of downturn in the militant struggle came to be reflected in the Third Cinema produced during this time. There were a limited number of films which focused exclusively on the militant nationalism of the nations under the colonial rule. The typical films of this genre had become so few and far between that some of the capitalist nations even considered this genre to have become extinct. The British Film Institute had organized a conference in London on “Africa and the History of Cinematic Ideas”. Many of the delegates in this conference accepted that the genre of Third Cinema no longer existed in world cinema. This idea is not entirely true. There are still films being produced in the recent times that seem to propagate against the structure of the colonialism and the neo-colonialism movement of the world. The modern technologies of filmmaking permit this kind of cinema to be created and marketed outside the boundaries of the established cinematic institutions. Young filmmakers have emerged on the scene and they make use of the latest technologies in creating films which are different from the typical populist cinema. They have employed the video and the digital video methods ion filming their work. Many of the films made by these young film directors directly challenge the domination of the western capitalist countries over the majority of the world’s population. Judging by the characteristics, these films can definitely be considered as the new representation of the Third Cinema. Thus, Third Cinema is far from being extinct. The form of the cinema has perhaps changed from the time when it first started. It has progressed from being a depiction of the militant struggle of the third world nations to being a platform for representing a myriad of social issues confronting the developing countries (Third World, Third Cinema, n.d.). Third Cinema first originated in 1969 in the works of the two Argentine filmmakers. At that time, it represented the protest of the citizens of the third world countries against their ruling colonial powers. It was also considered to be a type of rebellious artistic expression against the western film making institutions. Gradually, Third Cinema has evolved through the years. As the militant struggle has died down in most of the developing countries, this genre of cinema has also come to depict different themes. It has shifted its focus in the portrayal of the social, political and economic issues confronting the developing nations. References 1. Leach, T (n.d), A Fresh Framework, the British Film Resource, available at http://www.britishfilm.org.uk/article.php?art=thirdcinema (accessed on January 9, 2012) 2. Third World, Third Cinema (n.d), available at http://www.dc5b.com/twtc/chronology/chronology.html (accessed on January 9, 2012) 3. Solanos, F & Getino, O (1969), Towards a Third Cinema, available at http://revolutionenausdemoff.de/man_solanas.html (accessed on January 9, 2012) Read More