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March 1995, Week 2

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Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
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Wed, 8 Mar 1995 19:45:08 CST
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In article <[log in to unmask]>
[log in to unmask] writes:
 
>> The consciousness  of cinema in Europe is light years ahead of that in the
 USA.
>> The Brits, the Scots, the Irish, the Welsh, the French, the Italinas, the
>> Greeks, the Czechs, the Poles, the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the Belgians,
>> tghe Dutch, the Swiss, the Swedes, the Nowegians, the Finns, the Danes, the
>> Luxembourgois,the Austrians, the Germans, the former Yugoslavians, the
>> Bulgarians,the Cypriots, the Hungarians (am I missing someone? The
>> Albanians perhaps? the Maltese? The Slovaks? or the Turks of Ankara and
>> Constantinople)
>> ....are very strong (at least in circles equivalent to ours) in American
>> cinema, while we are near-zero on non-American cinemas.
>>
>> In Madrid, London, Paris, Barcelona, Geneva, Athens, Brussels, etc.
>> (speaking from first-hand knowledge) there is a wealth of films from around
>> the world.
>>
>> Esp.in Paris, between the Cinematheque Francaise and Beaubourg, and the
>> hundreds of cinemas (some showing over 12 titles a week), world cinema is a
>> permanent feast. And in the French film magazines, every nation is
>> discussed. Not just the films of Tarantino and "Forrest Gump."
>>
Not to mention that, at least before '89, Indian cinema (popular, I mean),
used to be quite well-known in Eastern Europe (as far as I've heard,
especially in Yugoslavia, Poland and the CSSR of that time). Unfortunately,
the Iron Curtain seemed to have blocked the dissemination of this
knowledge into Western Europe :)
 
(BTW, does Russia count as Europe? Or are we facing some deplorable
EC-centrism here?)
 
From my experience, Europeans DO know more about US-cinema than
US-ers know about European (or any other non-US)-cinema, but that's
probably due to the "privilege of the under-privileged" - giants
(in political, economic and pop-culture terms) have trouble moving,
and sometimes even have troubles seeing anything beyond their toes, whereas
dwarfs are more flexible and HAVE to move around merely for the
sake of survival.
 
Oh, please DO discuss Third Cinema, but this is going to cut down
the number of participants enormously - who's ever seen all these films?
Cut to next demand: show more films, distribute more films.
 
Birgit Kellner
Institute for Indian Philosophy
University of Hiroshima

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