----------------------------Original message----------------------------
David Desser wrote:
>In the name of political correctness, not to mention my academic
>speciality, might we want to insert another term in the binary opposition
>"American vs. European" debate currently raging on Screen-L, namely a
>little place some like to call "Asia"?
 
OK, being the fool that started all this, I hereby dub this debate 'American vs.
the rest' :-).
 
Gloria Monti wrote:
>        That is precisely the issue at stake here: who has ever seen
>these Third Films?  Thus the discussion of Third Cinema automatically
>excludes a large segment of participants.  Chicken&egg problem: we can't
>discuss Third Cinema because not enough people are conversant with it.
>We can't be conversant with it until more films are shown.  Why aren't
>there more films being shown?
 
As Richard Dyer and Geanette Vincendeau Popular European Cinema (London:
Routledge 1992) point out, most of the European films are rarely screened
outside their native country. The films most prone to cross the borders are
high-brow oevres (maybe with the exception of France and Britain). The reason?
Supposedly the sense of humor and the cultural references in most popular films
are too closely bound to a specific nation to make it abroad... I'm perfectly
well aware that arguing from this point of view can be considered eurocentric,
but I must admit that my knowledge of Asian and African film is - due to the
lack of distribution - very limited.
 
The easiest way out is to stay with debating american film since they're
generally the most screened around the world. But we don't we, the eurotrash
(and the asians, africans etc.), take SCREEN-L as an opportunity to <irony mode
on> enlighten our ill-fated american brothers and sisters <irony mode off> with
recommendations on new european (african, asian etc.) cinema. If we're really
lucky, they'll never get a chance to see it, and we can feel like we are the
ones with the privileged knowledge ;-)
 
I hereby declare that danish direcor Lars von Trier's (of 'The Element of Crime'
and 'Europa' f ame) new TV mini-series 'Riget' (aprrox. 'the nation')is...
absolutely brilliant. I don't know wheter it's sold to the US. or not, but I've
read that it's sold to 27 countries. Several critics have stressed that this is
renewal of the TV-series narrative that makes Twin Peaks look dull and I can't
but agree. A must-see.
 
Cheers,
 
Ulf
 
Ulf Dalquist                Phone:  +46 46 104266
Dept. of Sociology          Fax:    +46 46 104794
Box 114 221 00 Lund SWEDEN  E-mail: [log in to unmask]