Black Studies Third World Cinema
1) Distinguish between ‘Third World Cinema’ and ‘Third Cinema’, foregrounding the aims and context of the latter’s emergence, and its significance for the study of global cinema cultures.
Third World Cinema was a movement in the 1960s and 1970s that focused on films made in “Third World” countries—mainly those in Africa and Latin America. Its purpose was to create films that were produced and directed by people from Third World countries and to train actors of color to find roles in film and television. The films were also intended to send a message to the rest of the world that no matter how they viewed people of the Third World, it was incorrect and created by those who had oppressed people of the Third World through colonialism for so long. Kim Dodge of the website, Third Cinema, says that in the 1960s and 1970s, “Third Cinema was a militant practice parallel with revolutionary struggles of this period, produced with the intention of provoking discussion with and amongst its viewers and proposing alternative visions of the past, present, and future” (Dodge). The 1960s was a time of protest and many marginalized groups marched, rallied and protested the way the had been left out of the conversation that favored First World politics, ideas and even art.
Third World Cinema wanted to bring realism to the screen including the realism about Third World countries that was not shown in First World movies and art about the Third World. The movies made by Third World Cinema showed the world through the perspective of people who lived in Third World countries, those that were not in the Western industrialized world and those that were not part of the communist bloc. For many Westerners, this was an entirely new concept. It was also seen as revolutionary and politically radical because it pointed out the oppression and poverty that was present in countries that had been colonized by First World countries. People in First World countries did not like having their faults pointed out to them and they did not like to see the condition that the Third World countries were in because the films placed the blame on First World countries for the problems.
Third World Cinema then developed into Third cinema because, by the time that evolution was complete, there was a body of work created by cinematic professionals from the third world. First cinema is Hollywood, and Second Cinema is European filmmakers. Third Cinema is a political project that is also artistic in nature. Filmmakers in Africa, Asia and Latin America were taught and guided by the principles of Third Cinema, which came out of Third World Cinema. The term “Third World” is offensive though because it implies that those who live in the countries represented by the “Third World” are not as good or worthy as those who live in the countries considered the “First World.” Third cinema does not carry the same meanings that Third World has. The purposes may still be the same, but the name and the respect given to the filmmakers and other cinematic professionals of Third Cinema has increased. Today, Third Cinema is a respected group of filmmakers. Dodge says, “The tone of a Third Cinema film can reflect a revolutionary atmosphere and deliver its message with confidence, convey the disillusionment of failed or coopted revolutions, or express frustration with class, racial, or gender oppression continued colonial impulses from First World nations” (Dodge). Now, with Third Cinema, the forcefulness of Third World Cinema has given way to different battles and new issues have come about that the people of Third Cinema now focus on such as nation building, new types of cultural oppression, and expressions of disappointment.
Even though Third Cinema came out of Third World Cinema and are still quite similar, there are also some differences in them. Third World Cinema was socialist politically and was influenced by European artists who wanted to disrupt the normal idea that most people had of cinema. Third World filmmakers did not see any difference between art and life, and they wanted this reflected in their filmmaking. They wanted this idea along with their minority political ideas to be represented in a more artistic way rather than being distorted by propaganda. To do this, they mixed genres and filmmaking techniques and used visual cues to make political and cultural statements about the world.
These ideas still are at play with Third Cinema, but the difference is now that the Third World Cinema has been successful, Third Cinema now confronts First and Second Cinema with the reality of living in a Third World Country and suffering the consequences of years of colonialism. Nasrullah Mambrol of Literariness says that Third Cinema is a response to Western filmmaking that features colonialist ideas about what cinema should be like and how people of Third World countries should act. Mambrol says that there is an “unbalanced representation of race, class and gender predominantly in stereotypical images of non-Western people” (Mambrol). Third Cinema wants to show people that those images are wrong and to show people what the correct images are. One other difference between Third World Cinema and Third World is that initially Third World films were ignored by Western viewers, but today they are quite popular and enjoy large viewership. The ideas promoted in Third Cinema may not seem as radical as they did in the 1960s. This is because they have become more mainstream and have accumulated a following. The “World” was dropped from the name because Third Cinema is no longer about shocking the world.
Works Cited
Dodge, Kim. "What is Third Cinema?" 2007. Third Cinema. Web. 25 November 2019. < https://thirdcinema.blueskylim... >.
Mambrol, Nasrullah. "Third (World) Cinema and Film Theoryu." 30 July 2017. Literariness. Web. 25 November 2019. < https://literariness.org/2017/... >.
2) How the interplay between culture, community, taboos and relationships shape the narrative trajectories of The Salesman and Masaan.
In The Salesman an Iranian woman, named Rana, is sexually assaulted and her husband, Emad, wants revenge. He tracks down the man throughout the film. However, they discover that the apartment they have been living in after their old one collapsed formerly belonged to a prostitute who had issues with her clients. When the man attacked Rana in the bathroom, he thought he was having sex with a prostitute. He even left money for her and Rana used it to buy groceries thinking Emad had left it for her. While Emad wants revenge, Rana does not and wants Emad to leave the situation alone. Rana still suffers trauma from the attack, but does not hold the attacker at fault since he did not know he was attacking Rana.
While that scenario plays on cultural norms of a Muslim country where sex is strictly controlled and made legal or illegal by edicts from an Iman, the other aspect of the film is the story within a story that also speaks to the rape storyline. Rana and Emad play the parts of Linda and Willy Loman in The Death of a Salesman. Throughout the movie the actors playing Rana and Emad play these characters who play roles in the stage play. Death of a Salesman is about Willy Loman being incompetent and angry at the world because he feels that his inability to succeed has outside causes rather than his own personal failings. Emad feels incompetent because he could not protect his wife from an attacker and also has trouble tracking the attacker down even though the attacker left the keys to his pickup truck. Then when the attacker is found, and Emad discovers that he is not really an attacker, he feels as if he can do nothing to make the world right again for Rana. He also wants to blame the man who told him about the vacant apartment where he and Rana went to live after theirs was destroyed for not telling him it had belonged to a prostitute.
The Salesman is not about theater, but it uses theater to point out social and psychological problems in Iranian society. Godfrey Cheshire of RogerEbert.com says, “Some descriptions of The Salesman call it a thriller, suggesting a Hollywood-style suspense film. It’s not. It’s a psychological and moral drama about how one man’s anger and damaged self-image drive him to the brink of destroying the very thing he ostensibly most wants to protect: his marriage” (Cheshire). In this way, The Salesman demonstrates how it is different from movies made in Western countries because it is not able to be neatly fitted into a specific genre such as “thriller” or “revenge” films.
Masaan is a movie about bucking cultural norms in India. “Masaan” means crematorium, and one of the characters works in one of India’s crematoriums. The reference to burning is about the burning desire that two couples portrayed in the film have for one another despite the threat of jail for defying the law about sexual relations before marriage. While the film shows how sexual issues are considered immoral, bribing the officials is accepted as part of life and not condemned. Deborah Young of Hollywood Reporter says, “It's curious that while the film waves a big flag for personal liberty, it takes the corruption of public officials completely for granted. The end of the bribery story is morally jaw-dropping, especially on account of the lack of directorial comment” (Young). However, in the end, those involved in bribery are condemned. Because bribery is so common in India, it is a rather shocking ending.
The movie begins with Devi and a student in a class she teaches going to a cheap hotel to have sex. The police are called and Devi is arrested. The boy locks himself in the bathroom and commits suicide. Devi’s father must pay a bribe to keep her from jail and to prevent her story from getting out, but it does. Her father sends a boy who works for him to dive in the Ganges and get coins so he can take bets on who will get the most coins. He uses the money to pay the bribe to the police.
In a parallel storyline, a boy, Deepak, from one of the lowest social casts in India, works at the crematorium burning bodies. He defies the social stereotype by going to college and taking engineering classes so he can rise out of his caste. He meets and falls in love with a woman from a higher caste even though that sort of thing is not usually done in India. Jay Weissberg of Variety says, “Theirs is a generation wired to global social values and unwilling to be kept down by caste, but as the first age group to resist the straightjacketing hold of class, they have to fight the entrenched beliefs of their elders” (Weissberg). The woman dies and Deepak is heartbroken. He finds out when her body comes to his crematorium for burning. He keeps her ring as a souvenir, but eventually throws it into the Ganges as he moves on.
One can predict that Deepak and Devi meet as she decides to move to a different town and go back to college. The assumption is that they will fall in love and have a life together, but the movie ends with that in the future. The two of them have both defied the social norms and yet have survived the affects of it.
Works Cited
Cheshire, Godrey. "The Salesman." 27 January 2017. RogerEbert.com. Web. 25 November 2019. < https://www.rogerebert.com/rev... >.
Weissberg, Jay. "Cannes Film Review: ‘Masaan’." 23 May 2015. Variety. Web. 25 November 2019. < https://variety.com/2015/film/... >.
Young, Deborah. "‘Masaan’: Cannes Review." 24 May 2015. Hollywood Reporter. Web. 26 November 2019. < https://www.hollywoodreporter.... >.
