World Cinema vs Hollywood Cinema - Essay Example

World Cinema and Hollywood Cinema Cinema is both an art and an industry. Cinema started in a humble beginning, a novelty of spectacle but eventually turned out to be a lucrative industry during its advent. Today there are two major divisions of cinema, Hollywood cinema and world cinema. Rampant in current news that world cinema is gaining more popularity than its Hollywood counterpart (Fabe 2004). World Cinema like Hollywood cinema is gaining more recognition from the last two decades. University of Leeds (2005) defines world cinema as a terminology for English language films that is not from any English language countries, or simply "non-Hollywood" cinema. Along with its international recognition also comes the depth of the understanding of one country's status. Economic status of the country is one of the major factors that influence the film text of a country's cinema. An example is the cinema of Vietnam. French trained Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung, most of his cinematic context was inclined about the ongoing war in Vietnam (Johnson 2003). His movie titled Cyclo (1995) was set in the 90's Vietnam, even it was a gangster movie, hints of war were still traced in the background (Ko, 1999). In 1986, Vietnam's economy plummeted. This greatly affected the filmmaking industry as they cannot respond anymore to the need of cinematic development prevailed during the 80'up to the 90's, started by the Hollywood cinema. The text expressed in Cyclo was very rich and realistically executed as the film portrayed the destituteness of the citizens in the country (Johnson 2003). It was played and recognized in many countries. The movie Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros (2005) (The Blossoming in Womanhood of Maximo Oliveros) is from the Philippine cinema. The film garnered handful of recognition and awards from various independent film award-giving bodies of different countries. The movie is a dimensional portrayal of the Philippines' condition in allusion. The hero is a homosexual boy that is set to bloom in womanhood, whereas he supposed to get developed in manhood. The discrepancy is suggestive in the very title of the movie about the contrariety of the development of the country regarding poverty and hunger (Thomas 2006). The expected development of the country towards rise of its economy was never portrayed, but the citizens were depicted already adjusted with its economic condition as though being softened, as juxtapose of the main character's nature. Using a homosexual for main character gives a new perspective yet more precise of depicting the country in its economic slum, and the effect of its modernization to the people (Thomas 2006). Cinema of Morocco produced a film titled Jawhara. The movie was noted internationally and has been reviewed online by various critics. Hachim Raji of Babel Med, an independent multi-cultural website for journalists in Mediterranean, stated that Jawhara is movie that was "practically the first film to tackle the dark period of the lead years in Morocco". The film was about a little girl borne and raised inside a prison cell all through out her mother's incarceration term. The cruelty of the country's former administration was strongly depicted in the movie, but delivered presently as reflection of the current administration of its any possible stir (Raji 2007). By the depiction of the situations in the very movie you can easily tell how Morocco as a nation is. Police brutality and suppressed human rights reflects the economic status of the country (Raji 2007). Technological equipment in making film of a nation can also affect the film and define the country's technological development as well. Other country can afford to use more advance technology in making their film, even the very theatrical venue of representation of the film. Hollywood can provide a film that is polished by computer technologies in graphics and animation-required text. Hollywood legendary films like the saga of Star Wars by George Lucas, and Extra Terrestrial of Steven Spielberg cannot be executed well as good as the cinematic text of their own if not for the expensive technological equipping in their production (Bordwell 2006). Japan Cinema comes second to the Hollywood cinematic technologies. The movie Godzilla and its subsequent installments even in the leading years of the nation's film industry showed promise already of its advanced utility as to enhance the visual representation of the film (Richie 2005). However, the latter years of Hollywood cinema, as some major film productions are putting more effort in innovating cinematic technologies rather than working on the story content of the films. Therefore, the tendency was the declination of the reality of the cinematic text and frequently gaining improbable reputation from respectable film critics (MacKenzie 1992). Films that enriched with text rather than technical and visual aesthetics are more plausible before the intelligent viewers. World cinema complies with the criteria of text sensibility, most Hollywood films failed to do so as its filmmakers are more succumb in enhancement of technical presentation (MacKenzie 1992). Differences of World Cinema and Hollywood Cinema Through social and revolutionary changes in the history of cinema, two major classifications have been politically and formally acknowledged, the world cinema and the history of renowned Hollywood cinema (Bernardi 2007). A very big difference for one is each other's history. The pioneers of the Hollywood cinema, from screenwriters to the very actors are all artists, whereas world cinema prefers to have credible people to work in their own production. Hollywood started in one history, whereas world cinema has many origins, depending upon one's nation's cinematic history. Upon the history of Hollywood cinema made the pioneers an iconic symbol incorporating the industry, but in world cinema credits of its pioneers were as good as their own first outputs (Elsaesser 2005). One of the differences of world cinema to the Hollywood cinema is ethnicity. Hollywood only knows cinematic characters, but world cinema knows ethnicity. A country's own cinema can deliver more depth and credibility of its own ethnic belonging (Garcia 1989). Roy Armes in his work Third World Film Making and the West (1989) stated that in third world countries, film is "an imported form of communication". For many nations, film is a mean of transport of messages from personal, in correlating national, to a universal awareness (Garcia 1989). Hollywood, on the other hand, instead of depicting reality in ethnicity is commonly presenting superficial stories for the viewer's entertainment. The sensitivity in sub-cultural depiction are lacking, thus making Hollywood gained a reputation inclined in implausible realism (Garcia 1989). Another factor is budget for the film production between the two classifications. Hollywood tends to concentrate on the money spent on the film production rather than the movie content itself. Some culture are looking up in Hollywood as they are spending a lot with the production and considering it a "better film" compared to low budgeted ones like those produced by other nation. The speculation may be true, especially in terms of science fiction films. The ability to equip high quality cinematic equipments is also contributing a lot with the visual execution of film in whatever genre (Garcia 2003). Hollywood can afford to put a King Kong to life, an excellent strategic battle of the legendary troupe of 300 Spartan of the ancient times, all of these by the aid of the ability to produce a high soaring amount of budget for extravagant production and more advanced computer graphics. World cinema may have a difficulty to level yet with this. Other countries especially those in the third world lack financial budget, an epic movie maybe done though the production will be an improvised using more natural in resources like the historical Thai epic movie Bang Rajan. An advantage of this condition, other nation's cinema can focus more in enriching the story content and the cinematic text rather than enhancing a scene visually (MacKenzie 1992) Editing also differs between Hollywood and world cinema. A montage editing came from French cinema, which influenced the Russian filmmakers and they came up with Soviet Montage, developed by Sergei Eisenstein (Glenny and Taylor 1991). Montage refers to the editing of scenes, cutting films and connecting different text to another. The justification is to bring a deeper and impacting message in cinematic text that cannot be done by Hollywood continuity of editing (Glenny and Taylor 1991). Hollywood, on the other hand, is known for their execution of continuity. The messages rely upon delivery with the actors' acting, directive flow of the story and the visual backdrop (Glenny and Taylor 1991). However, modern Hollywood is being more innovative with their approaches, recognizing and adapting other editing techniques that could enhance their visual presentation. The movie Rocky inserted a soviet montage clip upon depicting Rocky Balboa's training matched with the film's original musical background (Glenny and Taylor 1991). These factors are stating and justifying the recent rising fame of world cinema over Hollywood cinema. Richness in text and the credibility in depicting realism are undeniably the commodity of the world cinema, while only visual delights is what Hollywood cinema could offer (Film Encyclopedia 2007). In another angle though, the notion of the cinema technology as a creation of Western Capitalism is impossible to exclude in the mind of the people. The ideology of this form of art and entertainment industry comes from the Western Capitalism, being transported and introduced to many nations. They influenced the third world countries' conceptual views and eyes for their own tradition of cinema technology. Thus the mark of colonial codifications still incorporated with the cinema technology despite a creation came from other nation (Scott 2005). Influence maybe from the origin of the Hollywood cinema ideologist yet most promising outputs of this technology is now being credited in the more credible nations' cinema. References Armes, R. 1989. Third World Film Making and the West, University of London, England. Bernardi, D. 2007, The Persistence of Whiteness, Routledge Publishing, Arizona State University Bordwell, D. 2006, The Way Hollywood Tells It, Story and Style in Modern Movies, University of California Press Elsaesser, T. 2005, European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood, University of Amsterdam Fabe, M. 2004, Closely Watched Films An Introduction to the Art of Narrative Film Technique, University of California Press. Garcia, M. 2003, Foreign films appeal to emotions, surpass Hollywood: The Periscope [Online] Available at http://media.www.theperiscope.org/media/storage/paper633/news/2003/10/10/Editorials/Foreign.Films.Appeal.To.Emotions.Surpass.Hollywood-529288.shtml Glenny, M. and Taylor, R. 1991, Towards a Theory of Montage, BFI Publishing, London Johnson, K. 2003, Social Evil Sells. Time. Ko, A. 1999, Xich Lo, The Internet Movie Database [Online] Available at http://www.imdb.com/user/ur0242676/comments MacKenzie, S. 1992, National Identity, Canadian Cinema, and Multiculturalism, University of Glasgow Raji, H. 2007, Babel Med: Jawhara, Prison Girl, [Online] Available at http://www.babelmed.net/Countries/Mediterranean/Appeals/index.phpc=94&m=146&k=&l=en Realism 2007, Realism in Film History, Film Encyclopedia, Film Reference 20 Dec 2007 [Online] Available at http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Independent-Film-Road-Movies/Realism-REALISM-IN-FILM-HISTORY.html Richie, D. 2005, A Hundred Years of Japanese Film: A Concise History, with a Selective Guide to DVDs and Videos, Kodansha America. Scott, A. J. 2005, Hollywod: the Place, the Industry, Princeton University University Thomas, K. 2006, The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros Movie Review, Los Angles Times: Calendar Live.Com [Online] Available at http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-maximo29sep29,0,1810990.story Read More