INTRODUCTION
A student of cinema faces many challenges and confronts great difficulties when writing on non- Western films. The huge theories of cinema and the long tradition of film making of the West do not merely act as strong influences on all those concerned with cinema, in whatever manner they may relate themselves to it, but, more crucially, for various reasons, become centres of power and authority making it almost impossible for those who believe in the creative energy of non-Western cinematic traditions to establish their value and significance. Western cinema is indeed a canon that rules, even controls, film makers and theoreticians of the non-western world. It is quite pathetic to see many non-Western theorists and filmmakers, even at this point of time, regarding the Western cinematic tradition as a paradigm they need to embrace and emulate for their creative and intellectual efforts to blossom.
The dominant western notion of "universality" - in the areas of literature, painting, sculpture, philosophy, cinema (to name only a few) - has strongly unleashed the belief that the Western world produces 'Universal' models applicable even to those parts of the world that have very different notions of art and knowledge and, most certainly, concepts and experiences of society, culture and ideas of reality. (One is referring here to the dominant West, quite conscious of the diverse traditions embedded in it. But the point is that even the diversities of the west are engulfed by the dominant part). There is also the argument, made in an incredibly emphatic manner, that the west is deeply 'metaphysical' in its creative and epistemological explorations and enquiries whereas the non-Western societies and cultures generate mere sociological and political categories of thought and experience. It also means that a Western individual has a 'metaphysical being' while the non- Western human being can only be sociological or political in orientation and attitude. Our parts of the world - the so-called third world - only produce local/regional patterns of thought and experience without universal validity, as they do not have larger metaphysical dimensions.
For a long time films of the third world have been regarded as sites that provide anthropological material and information to those working on different cinematic traditions and also desiring to understand non-western societies and cultures through them. In other words, the living realities of non-western societies portrayed in films are but archival material for those commentators of the self-proclaimed first world. Consequently, filmmakers of the third world are native informants who cater to the demands of the theoreticians of the first world and are not creative artists of a high order. By and large, this has been the general attitude of many critics and film makers of the dominant west. The great implication of this position is that in terms of narrative style, thematic content, visual imagery, construction of frames and several other technical issues, third world cinema is always to be measured against the great standards set by the innovative creative spirit of first world film makers. The extension of this argument is that the third world cannot engender first rate film theory and, therefore, has to necessarily borrow fundamental concepts about cinema from the western film theoreticians. Thus, Cinema and film theory produced in the third world are derivative and owe eternal allegiance to the pioneers of cinema of the first world.
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Visual Search
Manage Wishlist