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...18-20 July 2002 - Showroom Cinema - Sheffield
- UK
A
CONFERENCE EXPLORING THE 'INDIGENOUS' AND THE 'EXPORTABLE' IN FILM AND TELEVISION
CULTURE
ABSTRACTS:
Professor
Roy Armes
Middlesex University, London
Cultural Hybridity and Maghreb Cinema
The state has had a key role to play in African cinema since its inception. This
is self-evident during the colonial period, when many of the key structures which
shaped post-independence film making were set up - initially to serve the propaganda
ends of the colonial system. In most parts of Africa - especially during the
1960s and 1970s - 'national' cinemas were synonymous with state cinemas.
More recently, however, it is foreign governments and their policies which have
had a key impact on many aspects of African film making. Taking the specific
example of North African cinemas (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia), this paper looks
at the ways in which film making in the 1990s and 2000s have been influenced
by French policies, to such an extent that any notion of a 'national' cinema
has virtually vanished. Hybridity rules.
It is worth noting that the shaping influence of French government policies has
a long history: as early as 1955, when Paulin Soumanou Vieyra emerged as the
first African graduate from IDHEC, he was prevented from filming in his native
Senegal under the terms of a decree introduced by the French colonial minister
Laval in 1934.
Professor
Tino Balio
Professor,
Department of Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Executive Director, Arts Institute, University of Wisconsin-Madison
The U.S. Art Film Market in the 1960s
The art film market in the United States flowered in the aftermath of World War
II, nurtured by successive waves of imports from Italy, Great Britain, France,
Scandinavia, and Japan. Distribution was handled by dozens of small independent
companies operating out of New York who battled censorship boards, the Production
Code Administration, and pressure groups to reach audiences. Although foreign
films won film festival awards and received attention in the national press and
prestigious magazines, they made barely a dent in the box office. However, when
films such as Roger Vadim's And God Created Women, Jules Dassin's Never
on Sunday, and Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita broke U.S. box office
records for foreign imports, Hollywood took notice.
This paper will analyze the impact of foreign art films on Hollywood inthe 1960s.
By art films is meant English- and foreign-language films produced abroad and
exhibited mainly in art theaters in the U.S. The growing popularity of such films
in conjunction with the tremendous social, political, and cultural upheavals
that were taking place in the United States changed the American film industry
in the following ways:
1. Studios began investing in indigenous foreign-film production in an attempt
to absorb promising film makers.
2. Hollywood used foreign films to cater to the youth audience that had adopted
film as its art form of choice.
3. Film content became more adult in orientation, leading to the replacement
of the Production Code by the Rating System.
Foreign-language films reached their highwater mark in the U.S. when both I
Am Curious (Yellow) and Z broke out of the art market and set new
box office records in 1969. The 'New Hollywood' that emerged in the early 1970s
had little interest in offbeat films, art films, or even foreign films that werehits
in their own countries. Understanding that only a few a year captured most of
the box office dollar, Hollywood stuck to the tried and true after 1970 and concentrated
on making big-budget pictures aimed at youth audiences that were capable of being
exploited in all the major markets worldwide, on television, and in so-called
leisure time 'profit centers'.
Heather
Beaton
Goldsmiths College
Too many solitudes? Globalization and the challenge of communications regulation
- lessons from Canada
The multi-channel and multi-platform mediascapes of the 21st century are transforming
notions of cultural identity and challenging traditional approaches to national
media policy and regulation. In Canada, the grey market reception of unregulated
satellite broadcasting signals from the United States is an example of how global
communications technologies are challenging national communication policies.
Broadcasting policy in Canada will likely continue to be challenged on a number
of fronts, from the pressures of globalization, the commodification of cultural
practices, Canada's obligations under international trade agreements, to the
changing preferences of Canadian consumers. In the global trade environment,
what role is there for domestic communications policy? Is there still room, within
current national strategies directed at supporting the global competitiveness
of indigenous cultural industries, for policies directed at fostering platforms
for cultural identity or for promoting cultural diversity? This paper will look
at the regulatory complexities involved in protecting national and local culture
in an era of free trade and globalization, particularly in the broadcasting context.
It will offer a brief comparison between Canadian, British and European Union
audiovisual policies in the era of global trade.
Marion
Benjamin and Lindsay Barrett
Centre
for Comparative Media, University of Western Sydney
At the edge of empire
In 1927 the Australian government conducted a Royal Commission into the Moving
Picture Industry. The officially articulated concerns that led to the Royal Commission
into this new media form were largely economic, but the underlying substance
of the inquiry was largely cultural. Indeed, these key social categories, the
economic and the cultural, are rarely independent of each other, and the early
Australian film industry provides an excellent case in point: local production
and distribution were increasingly being dominated by the Americans, and at stake
was Australia's already tenuous grasp on an independent identity as a 'white'
nation at the 'edge of empire'. A key outcome of the 1927 inquiry was the censorship
of films for indigenous audiences, a practice that continued for the next thirty
years. Decisions taken about films suitable for so-called native races were blatantly
political, and they included the proscribing of any films depicting the uprising
of coloured peoples against whites, or those depicting 'inappropriate' relations
between white women and black men. At the same time though, this censorship regime
paralleled another, more informal system of cultural control or engineering,
as British films imported into Australia were increasingly criticised for their
failure to uphold 'traditional' British and Empire values. At the periphery of
the empire it seems, the upholding of the values and civilities of the motherland
had acquired an urgency far greater than that found at its centre.
In this paper, we will explore these cultural imperatives and anxieties that
determined the shape and form of film and cultural policy in Australia in the
early decades of the twentieth century. Australia's film production and distribution
industries became, we will argue, a crucial cultural site in which the nation's
vision of itself in relation to the British Empire, and the wider world, was
both constructed and played out.
Dr
Shu-Ling C Berggreen and Katalin Lustyik
School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Colorado, Boulder
Is Mulan a cross-dresser? Disney's cultural sensitivity and the exportation
of animated stories around the world
Since the 1930s the Walt Disney Company has produced characters, images, and
animation that have captivated audiences around the world. Today, Disney has
become one of the largest media corporations in the world reaching millions of
children and telling or retelling them such classical stories as Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs and modern tales like The Lion King. The paper
analyzes three animated Disney movies, Aladdin, Pocahontas, and
Mulan, in order to examine the processes by which stories are selected
and developed for the youngest viewers by the company. These Disney animations
are based on classical tales from different parts of the world, and as they are
redesigned by a professional team of story tellers, and then distributed world
wide, a host of questions and dilemmas arise. While Mulan, the first Disney
animated movie featuring a Chinese tale, stays relatively true to the original
story, it does so without emphasizing some of the fundamental messages with which
children in Chinese society grow up: the principle of filial piety, the preservation
of family honor, the devotion to one's country and the enormous personal sacrifice
for the greater good of society. Some critics, however, completely misinterpreted
the story and explained Mulan as a film about a girl who pretends to be
a boy, or described the character as a 'cross-dresser'. While Pocahontas
is very far from being historically accurate, it is claimed that it teaches valuable
messages of environmentalism, harmony, Indian culture and philosophy that outweighs
its inaccuracies. Disney also argues that kids can 'discern that these are not
real people and that Pocahontas is no documentary'. The questions that
this paper also addresses are whether Disney, having ventured away from Mickey
Mouse, has a special responsibility to maintain fidelity to the original stories
and be culturally 'sensitive'? Also, in today's diverse and multi-cultural audio-visual
environment, in what ways have the Disney Company influenced local or indigenous
children's cultures around the world?
Simon
Blanchard
Sheffield Hallam University
Challenging 'Free Trade' in Culture - Issues, Problems and Prospects
The last 2 decades has seen the rapid consolidation of a new cadre of giant trans-national
corporations in the sphere of media,culture and communications - symbolised by
the recent merger of America On Line (AOL) and Time Warner.
On the trade front, this has been accompanied by a dramatic expansion in the
scale and scope of cultural commerce, and the emergence in the 1990s of the WTO
and the GATS framework - both designed to consolidate and extend this new epoch
of 'free trade' in culture.
Nonetheless, despite its proclaimed 'triumph', the 'free market' fundamentalism
of the New Right has not gone unchallenged. The second half of the 1990s inaugurated
a new wave of resistance to this paradigm, and the beginnings of an international
civic agenda of activism and argument about the costs and consequences of this
'New World Order'.
This paper will review the emergence of this alternative agenda,and examine how
its concerns and ideas can be brought to bear in the cultural sphere. What are
the key intellectual and practical issues at stake? What are the problems and
prospects which it must face in elaborating an alternative vision of culture
outside the confines of corporate commercial imperatives ? How would this'translate'
in terms of trade policy and politics?
Haim
Bresheeth
University of East London
USA vs EU: The Media Wars
The paper examines the cultural, economic and industrial struggle taking part
in the last couple of decades between the media production and distribution systems
(concentrating on feature films) of North America and the European Union. The
paper builds on the understanding of Cultural Imperialism and its mechanisms,
established by the work of Said, Hall, Waxman and Mattelart and others, and on
work in the area of Political Economy, such as Graham and Murdoch. The paper
establishes, based on statistics for the period 1980 -1996, both the trends and
mechanisms of the process, and also its likely outcome and its timescale.
While the paper is based on much statistical research and analysis, and uses
some graphic representations simplifying the findings for the purpose of clear
presentation, the argument is not limited to the political economy arena, and
its main argument is concerned with the complex cultural rivalry between the
two leading blocs of the West, made even more urgent since the collapse of Communism.
This struggle between the (economically at least) monolythic, monolinguistic
bloc of the north American continent, and the multilinguistic, multicultural
societies of Europe, may well be predetermined, but its twists and turns are
far from simple. This is not just a struggle over markets and market share, but
also a struggle of cultures. This is a battle between a collection of particular,
variable cultures, controlled by established elites with complex histories, against
the strong and almost irresistible grip of a newer culture, universal in its
simplicity and accessibility, adept at fast expansion, formulaic development,
and dependence on continued growth through the benefits of large scale production
and distribution. This is not just another battle in the struggle over the huge
media markets now unraveling - the South, and the ex-Communist countries - but
mainly the first act of the struggle over the direction of the cultural production
of the new millenium. How much will the results of this conflict be shaped by
the past, and by the identity struggles of recent history, is the research question.
Michael
Chanan
Faculty of Humanities, University of the West of England
Negotiating the exotic in Latin American cinema
Latin America has been one of the primary subjects of the exotic image ever since
the Spanish conquest, and cinema has added new dimensions to its representation.
It can be said that the very idea of the exotic is a creation of imperialism.
In expressing the point of view of the centre towards the periphery, it marks
the superiority complex of the conqueror towards the conquered, seen as primitive
societies full of strange and unfamiliar features - the stranger the more interesting,
as Lukács once observed, speaking of certain 19th century French novels. This
paper, which will be illustrated by a range of clips, is less concerned with
the construction of the Latin American exotic by foreign cinema, however, than
with the need of the Latin American film-maker to negotiate the category of the
exotic in the process of representing Latin America from within. This negotiation,
which has passed through several stages, can be read as an integral aspect of
the identity struggle of the criollo film-maker, which moves through aestheticisation
of the exotic, for example in Mexican 'Golden Age' cinema, to its repudiation
as a falsification by the new Latin American cinema of the 1960s, or in some
cases its parody; to its re-appropriation in the form of magical realism, a tendency
far less successful in the cinema than in literature; and most recently its recuperation
as a commodity on the world film market.
Dr
Steve Chibnall
Faculty of Humanities, De Montfort University
Rule, Cool, and Ghoul Britannia: Varieties of the British Cinema Export Brand
British cinema has long had a (not entirely deserved) reputation for Anglo-centricity.
Known for combining eccentric indigenous taste with authentic social realism,
British films have had something of an uneven career in export markets. The problems
suffered by the British brand in gaining widespread distribution in the USA have
overshadowed a much more successful marketing history in Europe and the countries
of 'The Commonwealth'. In recent years, however, a number of British-made (and
usually American-backed) products have enjoyed considerable acclaim in The States,
and a significant niche market for 'back catalogue' genre films has been established.
In 2001, a renewed interest in British cinema among American film buffs was evidenced
in a special supplement of Cineaste magazine. So what is the image of the brand
at the start of the new century?
This paper outlines the history of British film exports and identifies the changing
components of the national cinema's brand image, suggesting that they extend
well beyond the familiar notion of 'heritage'.
Pam
Cook
Professor of European Film and Media, School of Modern Languages, University
of Southampton
Cultural Exchange and Mmemory in the Archers' I Know Where I'm Going! (1945)
I Know Where I'm Going! was produced during a hiatus in the Archers' career.
When the extravagant fantasy A Matter of Life and Death had to be postponed due
to the unavailability of Technicolor, Powell and Pressburger produced a simple
love story set mainly in Scotland, shot in black and white. Despite its apparently
modest scope, I Know Where I'm Going!, made under the J Arthur Rank umbrella
at Denham studios, played a significant role in Rank's policy of producing quality
prestige pictures for the US market. The film was consciously aimed at Scottish
expatriate audiences in America, and part of its project was to provide a nostalgic
experience by recreating a mythical, imaginary Scotland, making extensive use
of the special effects facilities at Denham.
I Know Where I'm Going! revolves around a number of cross-cultural encounters,
of which the central romance between a materialistic young English woman and
an impoverished Scottish laird is only one. My paper will explore the interweaving
of different strands of cultural memory throughout the film, focusing on the
relationship between the projection of a fictional 'Scotland' and the memories,
skills and aspirations of the continental Europeans who formed the nucleus of
The Archers. My argument centres on a comparison between FW Murnau's 1927 classic
Sunrise and I Know Where I'm Going!, and I shall look at production
contexts as well as marketing strategies. I hope to illuminate some of the complex
ways in which memory is used in the Archers' film to cross national and cultural
boundaries.
Rayna
Denison
Institute of Film Studies, School of American and Canadian Studies, University
of Nottingham
No Longer Indigenous: The International Blockbuster
In this paper the blockbuster will reassessed to show it as an international
more than an American phenomenon. The blockbuster remains a contentious area
in film studies because, like other popularly conceived terms, its exact meaning
remains fluid. The blockbuster film has typically been perceived as a creation
of the American film industry. However, recent trends in blockbuster filmmaking
indicate a more complex relationships between calculated blockbusters and their
professed country of origin than has been proffered in academic criticism. An
examination of current trends in the production, marketing, distribution and
reception of contemporary 'American' blockbuster films is intended to problematise
their academic presentation.
Production of recent calculated blockbusters indicates that prohibitive costs
are driving American productions to film in locations outside the USA, dislocating
them from their geographical point of origin. Similarly, the talent that goes
into the creation of these films, whether in terms of their directors, stars
or other members of staff, will be shown to include vast numbers of non-Americans.
Film marketing too has begun to take on an international feel, as publicity campaigns
aim for low cultural discount in order to maximise exportability. In distribution
too, the recent inroads into new markets made by America's large studios, for
example in the building of chains of multiplex cinemas, offers further incentive
for America's large studios to internationalise their film products. Finally,
2001 was a watershed year for calculated blockbuster films made by Americans
on British subject matter. The extent to which these American-made films have
been re-naturalised will be considered here to indicate whether fan perception
still labels blockbuster films 'American' or of in fact we are entering the age
of the international blockbuster.
Dr
Terry Flew
Senior Lecturer and Discipline Head of Media Communication, Creative Industries
Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
Standards, Culture, Services: Tradeable Television and Changing Conceptions of
Broadcasting Policy
This paper will look at changing conceptions of the role of broadcasting policy
in relation to the extent to which television programs and formats become internationally
tradeable commodities. In emergent broadcasting systems, the principal focus
of broadcasting policy is upon standards, both in the technical sense of how
to deliver broadcasting to homes, and the moral sense of how to promote programming
that will 'improve' society. As broadcasting systems mature, and as the import
and export of programs and formats becomes more significant, culture becomes
increasingly important as a shaper of policy and regulation. Locally-produced
broadcasting content is increasingly seen as a marker of national identity and
cultural citizenship and, as the ambit of cultural policy is extended from the
arts into popular media, support for local content development becomes a significant
element of government media policy. As convergent media and digitisation promote
a globalised, post-broadcasting era, a services model becomes the framer of broadcasting
regulation, and the focus shifts towards how to make markets work better and
facilitate technological innovation. The GATS agreement is particularly important
in this regard, as it promotes both a discursive and a legal shift in the conception
of television programs as internationally tradeable forms of audiovisual content,
opening up the question of how one can continue to speak of television as a significant
element of a national culture.
Dr
Sheldon Hall
Course Leader, BA (Hons.) Film Studies, School of Cultural Studies, Sheffield
Hallam University
Internationalism and the Epics of Samuel Bronston
Between 1959 and 1964, samuel Bronston produced six big-budget spectaculars from
his studios in Spain, financing them by pre-selling distribution rights throughout
the world. These six films - John Paul Jones, King of Kings, El
Cid, 55 Days at Peking, The Fall of the Roman Empire and Circus
World (aka The Magnificent Showman) - are often listed as 'runaway'
Hollywood pictures, but they should more properly be regarded as wholly international
productions, funded by more than one country, conceived with a world audience
in mind, and recurrently addressing isues of national self-definition and international
union and cooperation. Bronston, born in Bessarabia, was formerly a European-based
distribution agent for the American majors, then an independent producer in Hollywood,
and he worked briefy for the Vatican before establishing his Spanish-based company
and building a lavish studio complex outside Madrid, which bankruptcy rapidly
forced him to sell. This paper explores the significance of his work as a model
of international co-production in the 1960s, the commercial heyday of the widescreen
blockbuster which Bronston helped define and, with El Cid and The Fall
of the Roman Empire, bring to a creative peak.
Andrew
Higson
Professor of Film Studies, School of English and American Studies, University
of East Anglia
Crossing over: exporting indigenous heritage to the USA
This paper will offer a case study of the exportability of the heritage film,
one of the most visible production trends of 'British' cinema during the 1980s
and 1990s. These quality costume dramas with an English period setting draw on
the conventions of the literary adaptation, the biopic and the womanís film.
They are pre-eminently middlebrow cultural products, celebrated for, amongst
other things, the way that they present ëindigenousí characters and stories and
reproduce heritage decor, costumes, properties and landscapes. Yet the commercial
viability of this production trend depended crucially on the ability of producers
to secure adequate exhibition in the lucrative US market, and therefore to attract
the interest of American distributors. The companies that handled such films
were typically the larger independents, the mini-majors or indie-majors, or the
in-house 'specialty' or 'classics' labels of the majors themselves. Many of the
heritage films were produced and marketed as crossover films, drawing on the
traditions of both the mainstream studio film and the art film and straddling
both multiplex circuits and the specialised art-house sector. These films are
thus compromise products in several senses. As middlebrow films, they fall between
the mass market and elite culture. As crossover films, they fall between the
mainstream and the art-house. And as 'British' films produced with more than
an eye on the export market, they foreground the complex hybridity and exportability
of 'indigenous' culture. Although the industry perceive them as niche products
for a niche market, the exploitation of that nationally specific niche should
be understood as a vital component in the globalisation of the media industry.
The case study thus raises important issues to do with the relationships between
indigeneity and exportability, and between the local or niche product and the
global aspirations of the major players in the media economy.
May
Adadol Ingawanij
London Consortium, Birkbeck College, University of London
The bourgeoisification of a 'vulgar' popular cultural form: Nang Nak
and Thai cinema's current 'renaissance'
In 1999, Thailand bucked the global trend when a local film became a record-breaking,
number one blockbuster. The surprise hit, Nang Nak (dir. Nonzee Nimibutr,
1999), is a remake of a well-known nineteenth century myth about a woman who
dies in childbirth but adopts human form to be with her husband. The myth is
extremely popular and has often been remade on film and television. The paper
examines why Nang Nak became such a hit at home, as well as the first
Thai film in recent years to have taken off on the international festival circuit,
resulting in (mostly Asian regional) commercial distribution. It addresses in
particular the ways in which the maker of Nang Nak consciously differentiates
his film from the many previous remakes of the myth, in order to attract the
kind of audiences that usually overlook Thai cinema, or worse, regard it with
disdain.
The paper argues that Nang Nak's domestic success has to be considered
within the context of the decisive recent shift in Thai cultural politics. The
latter is itself the product of profound economic, political and social transformations,
particularly since the 1970s. The transformation is best characterised in terms
of the emergence and struggle for bourgeois hegemony, which, in the cultural
domain, revolves around the appropriation of 'official' representations of national
history, and the re-articulation of accepted, visible notions of Thainess. As
part of its incorporation into the bourgeois hegemonic struggle, contemporary
Thai cinema is emerging fundamentally changed, away from its previous incarnation
as a popular cultural form long regarded as vulgar, to a legitimised, 'bourgeoisified'
national form. In Nang Nak, this process of 'bourgeoisification' is evident
on several registers: in the film's somewhat exotic portrayal of nineteenth century
Siamese life, with its minute attention to period details, but also in its recasting
of the romance between husband and wife, so that their relationship is ideally
sexualised and individualistic. The outcome is to shift what was once a staple
of the Thai B-movie horror genre into a tragic-romance, resulting in a prestige
film acclaimed for its so-called authentic rendering of the past, and its articulation
of 'essential' Thainess at the level of the film form. The paper concludes that,
in doing so, Nang Nak seems to have become exportable.
Dr
Dina Iordanova
Centre for Mass Communication Research, University of Leicester
From Cold War Paraphernalia to Esoteric Exotica: Eastern Europe's Hard Sells
On the example of feature film, this paper will trace some of the transformations
that cultural exports from the countries of the former East Bloc underwent through
the 1990s, and in particular their switch from cold-war imagery to lavish exotica.
In three steps, I will explore what from the former Eastern Bloc sells (and what
not), and will show that often key decisions in feature filmmaking are influenced
by fluctuations in the Western entertainment market demand.
I will look into three strands of the intricate interaction between those in
the West (a clientele that subtly dictates the demand) and those in the East
(a workforce that readily adjusts the supply). This investigation, which is meant
to be a study in political economy, will cover three areas:
1) The initial interest in Cold War times paraphernalia and communist kitsch
was swiftly abandoned as the Western attention moved away from the interest in
Russian diplomats selling Kalashnikovs and the disgraced monuments of Dzerzhinski
and Lenin littering abandoned parks.
2) A specific domestic filmmaking industry was said to have come into being in
Bosnia in response to market demand for footage featuring bloodshed (mostly of
newsagencies and Western TV networks). It is a trend that influenced feature
filmmaking as well. I will look into the commercial side of news production and
war films and will discuss the alleged 'commercialism' of filmmakers who made
(and sold) films about the war.
3) Finally, I will discuss the common-sense market strategies of those who chose
to stick to the tested recipe of reviving and selling the exotic inventory of
the region, summarised in the commercial exploitation of items such as Drakula
and Gypsies.
Michael
Keane
Creative Industries Research and Applications Centre, Queensland University of
Technology, Brisbane
Into Shangrila: making Survivor in the Tibetan liberated zone
This paper presents fieldwork from an ongoing large-scale study of television
formats in East Asia. Following the high tide of European originated television
formats (Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Survivor, Big Brother)
that have swept through Western television markets, similar developments have
been replicated in the East Asian region. I will discuss how some of the above
formats and their marketing strategies have been successfully localised in China,
SAR Hong Kong and Taiwan. I will also look at successful formats that have been
originated in the region.
Jeongmee
Kim
Institute of Film Studies University of Nottingham
Billy Elliot: Promoting British Cinema in the USA
This paper shall examine the way in which the marketing of Billy Elliot
(Stephen Daldry, 2000) operates in the USA. In doing so, the paper will look
at, mainly, how Billy Elliot was advertised in American newspapers such
as The New York Times. Taking into consideration the issue of cultural
discount, the paper will also discuss how Billy Elliot places itself as
a marketable product in America. When a film is shown across the international
market, there is a question raised regarding the cultural discount issue in reception.
Although cultural discount is viewed as a disadvantage in trading a film, equally
it can be used to promote the film as shall be demonstrated through the example
of Billy Elliot. It will be suggested that the marketing of Billy Elliot
positions the film within cultural discount rather than being dismissed by cultural
discount. The marketing of Billy Elliot in the USA is to place it in art
cinema, focusing on the national and cultural origin of the film as British cinema.
Despite the fact that the film is promoted and distributed through a mainstream
system (Universal Studios), Billy Elliot is still perceived as art cinema
through marketing. As the term art cinema does not represent indeterminate aesthetics,
art cinema is a means of specialisation for promoting British cinema in the American
market. Furthermore, I will argue that as British cinema has the potential to
occupy more theatres in America because of the increased financial involvement
of major American distribution companies in the 1990s, there is more of a need
to promote British cinema as an identifiable cultural entity in the American
market.
Peter
Kramer
School of English and American Studies University of East Anglia
German Nationality/Hollywood Patriotism: The Transatlantic Tales of Wolfgang
Petersen, Roland Emmerich and Oskar Schindler
When Wolfgang Petersen's The Perfect Storm and Roland Emmerich's The
Patriot were released in the US in July 2000, German newspaper headlines
announced: 'On Independence Day, there is a showdown between German directors
in US cinemas', 'Battle of the Teutons: Are German directors better US patriots?',
and 'Thanks to Germany: Hollywood imports patriotism and war'. Both films were
major hits in Germany and the US, adding to a long string of international hits
for the two directors. Critics in the US and Germany have pointed out that many
of their previous Hollywood productions are suffused with patriotism, most notably
Petersen's In the Line of Fire (1993) and Air Force One (1997)
and Emmerich's Independence Day (1996). Petersen has spoken of his suppressed
patriotism being released in Hollywood, while Emmerich (known as 'Spielbergle'
- Little Spielberg - in the German press) has denied this connection.
If it is somewhat paradoxical that Hollywood's most ardent promoters of American
patriotism are Germans, then it is painfully ironic that Hollywood's first major
movie about the Holocaust, Schindler's List (1993), centres on a Good
German - a Nazi war profiteer no less - while also implicitly dealing with the
founding of the state of Israel. Further layers of irony are added when previous
attempts at producing films about Oskar Schindler are considered: the Jewish-German
producer Artur Brauner failed to get the project off the ground in Germany in
the 1960s; Jewish-Austrian-American Hollywood legend Billy Wilder, already in
his 70s, was involved for a while in Spielberg's project; and Petersen turneddown
Spielberg's offer to direct Schindler's List because he felt that as a
(non-Jewish) German he was the wrong man for the job.
In this paper, I want to explore some of these paradoxes and ironies by outlining
the transatlantic careers of Petersen and Emmerich, and by examining their interview
statements, the themes of their films and of Schindler's List as well
as the films' marketing and reception in Germany and the US. Amongst other things,
this exploration will demonstrate that German filmmakers and critics are extremely
sensitive with respect to their own nationality, to patriotic feelings and to
the crimes of the Nazi regime - so sensitive, indeed, that certain issues can
best be dealt with through the mediation of Hollywood films.
Henrietta
Lidchi
Department of Ethnography, The British Museum
SOS Eisberg: a frosty epic set in Greenland
The paper will consider the history of encounters that took place in the making
of the film SoS Eisberg/Iceberg, an expensive German/American co-production
which resulted in three films (including a comedy called North Pole Ahoy)
made on primarily during an expedition to North West Greenland in 1932. SOS
Eisberg was a Mountain Film, the exclusively German film genre developed
by Dr Arnold Fanck, the expedition's leader. A geologist by training, Fanck had
since the mid-twenties grown successful in his chosen metier, and gathered around
himself a team of fearless and talented technical, artistic and sporty people,
amongst them, the controversial Leni Riefenstahl. Mountain Films were preoccupied
with nature and authenticity - filmed outdoors almost within a documentary style.
They contrasted starkly with the expressionism films and the German musicals
of the early twenties which were studio bound. SoS Eisberg was filmed
in communities in Greenland near to whom the film crew resided. The sequences
were shot with the assistance of Knud Rasmussen, the great explorer and the story
retold (with a suitable happy ending) the ill-fated Wegener expedition of 1931
where the leader of expedition, Alfred Wegener, died. Some of his fellow scientists
joined the 1932 expedition and were part of the crew. In this paper I shall look
at the history of the film, through the text written by the German participants;
the history of the encounters that lead to the making of the films and the views
of contemporary cultural critics (Rockwell Kent and Peter Freuchen). I shall
also consider its success through the various press reviews. The film was to
be Fanck's last Mountain venture and was not as successful as was planned. It
was to mark a change of direction for those participating, but as one of the
first films to be made on Greenland with a commercial goal, it presents an intriguing
testimony of a tri-cultural encounter.
Katalin
Lustyik
School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Colorado, Boulder
The global adventures of Mickey Mouse and the Rugrats: The role and characteristics
of global children's television channels
There is a growing global awareness that the role and nature of children's television
has fundamentally changed in the past ten years. By the mid-1990s, already worth
a potential 100 billion dollars a year, the global market for children's television
has become one of the most crowded and competitive within the audio-visual industries.
In the United Kingdom alone, there are at least fourteen separate channels offered
exclusively for children today. The most popular and commercially successful
global television channels targeting children, such as Disney or Nickelodeon,
are each currently available in over 300 million households worldwide. After
developing a market in the United States, they have gradually and aggressively
expanded to Western and Northern Europe, Australia, Latin America, and more recently
to Central and Eastern Europe, Asia and the Middle East. These channels not only
provide almost a continuous flow of television programming, but also offer movies,
magazines, online services, merchandise, clothing, theme parks, reaching into
nearly every facet of children's lives. Nickelodeon, for example, similar to
MTV (also owned by Viacom), is often called an 'unparalleled brand-building machine'
with localized channels, the Nick toys and the Rugrats movies. In addition
to Nickelodeon's innovative marketing strategies, another key to the network's
global market penetration and future growth potential seems to lie in its ability
to customize, 'glocalize' content to appeal to local youth, as well as in the
company's willingness to invest in innovative programming for children. This
paper, as part of a broader study of the globalization of children's cultures,
examines, on the one hand, the role and characteristics of global children's
televisions, as they become an increasingly dominant element of indigenous children's
cultures in many parts of the world; and on the other hand, the role and characteristics
of local and traditional children's television.
Susan
P. Mains
Department of Geography and Geology, The University of the West Indies-Mona,
Jamaica
Paradise Lost? Film, Mobility and Jamaican Identities
The influence of large-scale film production and centralised distribution systems
in mainstream cinema has frequently resulted in limited accessibility to indigenous
productions outwith the Hollywood system (socially, economically and spatially).
The political economy of mainstream media has had a significant impact on the
type and form of films that are exported to various locations throughout the
world. These systems of trade recreate and reproduce specific social cartographies
through visual media and through the ways in which they are translated, discussed
and challenged. Images of the Caribbean, and in particular Jamaica, for example,
have often been based on idealised representations of a mythical retreat to a
distant island. Within such narratives of 'Jamaicanness' limited opportunity
is available to interrogate the complex socio-spatial relations that exist within
the country, the economic difficulties that are negotiated on a daily basis,
and the contrasting representations of the island as both a tourist space and
a post-colonial politically contentious context.
In this paper I will examine the means by which specific film and television
representations of Jamaica have both reinforced and challenged dominant narratives
of the island as a space of retreat and as 'separate' from processes of globalization.
I will analyze specific images in order to illustrate the means by which externally
produced island representations have come under increasing scrutiny, while at
the same time a dependence on tourism has necessitated a readily available image
of a 'general' (and 'safe') Jamaica. In addition, I will illustrate that films,
such as The Harder They Come and Dancehall Queen provide important
moments for interrogating mythologised representations of Jamaica and moving
towards a more diverse and complex understanding of place and identity.
Justin
Malbon
Barrister and Senior Lecturer, Law School, Griffith University, Australia
Pirate spotting: Defining formats legally speaking
National and international broadcasting environments are becoming ever more competitive,
causing broadcasters to have increasing reason to seek to guarantee success for
new television programs. This is focusing attention on the need for legal protection
for television formats. The law, however, has no concept of a 'TV format' which
in itself is capable of legal protection. A number of commentators who lament
the lack of legal protection tend to assume the term TV format has an agreed
meaning.
An essential preliminary step in gaining legal reform is to gain consensus on
which kinds of program ideas and techniques deserve protection and which do not.
Debates about the protection of formats are suffused with cultural and political
value. They raise questions about the balance between free expression and creativity
on the one hand and protecting and rewarding the investment of time, creativity
and money into the creation of a commercially valuable product on the other.
It also raises questions about the appropriateness of large production houses
having the power (and the legal capacity) to effectively monopolise the process
for the creation and production of formats.
This paper will highlight some of the key issues in the debate about the legal
recognition of formats. It will refer to experiences regarding the protection
of IT and the patenting of genes to analogise the issues at stake.
For the panel on Television Program Formats to be chaired by Dr Albert
Moran of Griffith University
Dr
Paul McDonald
Reader in Film and Television Studies, University of Surrey Roehampton
Themed Television Channels in Europe: Specialized Entertainment Services and
Imagined Lifestyle Communities
During the 1990s the television market in Europe witnessed significant developments
as the number of cable households doubled and satellite households increased
tenfold. These conditions provided foundations for the growth of a multichannel
television economy in the region. One effect of this change was the proliferation
of themed television channels. In 1991, 145 such channels were in operation,
but by 2000 that number had increased to 1,013. These channels operated at national
and pan-European levels, running services across a range of specialized categories,
including sport, news, adult entertainment, movies, music and shopping services.
The paper examines Europe's multichannel economy and the expansion of themed
television channels. First, the paper will look at trends in the provision of
themed channels in Europe during the 1990s, considering the growth in particular
channel categories and identifying national and pan-European developments in
this sector. Secondly, concentrating on pan-European channels, the paper will
consider the issue of whether transnational channels are distancing television
audiences from national television services. It will be argued that while audiences
continue to show strong preferences for national terrestrial services, the effect
of themed channels on certain demographic categories - particularly children,
teenagers and young adults - has been to reconfigure audiences around leisure
and lifestyle choices. It will be argued that the multichannel economy is increasingly
creating a division within audiences between their relationship to national broadcasting
services and identification with imagined pan-regional lifestyle communities.
John
McMurria
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Cinema Studies, New York University
Discovering the World: Globalization and Television Documentary
The television landscape, once a province of nationally organized systems of
dissemination, regulation, finance, production and consumption, is increasingly
contoured by national industry deregulation and global media conglomeration.
Faith in market competition and new digital technologies drive cultural policy
as pay-TV channel proliferation offers the promise of limitless choice. As domestic
audiences fragment across these channels, programming networks such as TNT, the
Cartoon Network, MTV, and the Discovery Channel have expanded internationally.
This paper considers this emerging global television economy through the case
of the on-going international expansion of the Discovery Network.
The Discovery Network produces and commissions programming for its 32 regional
feeds that span 143 countries. Discovery's documentaries are often guided by
high-concept marketing imperatives that include dramatic reenactments, singular
narratives and cgi effects at the expense of multi-perspective accounts of natural
and human histories. Formats are made malleable for dubbing through excising
onscreen commentators, or they are made in template form, allowing certain segments
to be filled by local onscreen commentators. But political parameters are placed
on these globally circulating documentaries as Discovery's President of Worldwide
programming has made clear: 'I'm not sure Indonesians would care about Watergate
or would even begin to understand the passion that surrounded that issue [and]
in terms of global events, it's hard to do a film about human rights abuses in
Tibet.'
This essay considers the localizing tactics for feeds that include 24 languages,
as well as the harmonizing commodity processes of global brand imaging. While
niche channels such as Discovery offer more narrowly focused special-interest
programming, these global audience maximizing imperatives foster risk-reducing
strategies that set particular limits on political engagement. Through a better
understanding of these emerging global commodity processes in documentary television
within commercial multi-channel television systems, we might take pause in light
of the neo-liberal paradigms that have propelled media globalization.
Dr.
Albert Moran
School of Film, Media and Cultural Studies, Griffith University, Australia
Changing Power relations in International Television Industries: From Factory
to Franchise
While power relations in international television industries are constantly in
flux, nevertheless, they are presently undergoing significant change. The face
of television program production is being reorganised at both the national and
the international levels. In an earlier stage of television, broadcasters determined
to guarantee their program supply by producing television programs in-house.
This system was displaced by one of outsourcing. Now, following further changes
in financing, production, distribution and marketing arrangements, companies
and profits are no longer solely organised around the making of TV programs.
Instead, they increasingly depend on the creation of rights. Program format trade
systematises the circulation of international 'brand names' and the onset of
franchising in international TV industries. This paper explores these changes
and their significance, focussing particularly on the international marketing
of Big Brother.
Graham
Murdock
Loughborough University
The Political Economy of Fraternity: The Cultural Commons in the Age of Convergence
The continuing convergence of telecommunications, computing and the cultural
industries, demonstrated most forcefully in the on-going integration of broadcasting
and the Internet , poses problems for both the analytical models developed within
the political economy of communications and their ethical underpinnings. It prompts
us to focus on the continuing contest between three cultural economies - commodities,
gifts and public goods. Historically, each has been associated with a particular
ethical principal. Commodites have been presented as a sphere of personal liberty
(as configured by market mechanisms); public goods as a sphere of equality (as
embodied in the operating principles of public cultural institutions, including
public broadcasting), and gifts as a sphere of fraternity (grounded in an ethos
of reciprocity).
The strong maketising impetus of the last two decades has massively increased
the scale and scope of commodification within the cultural sphere and installed
cosmopolitan consumerism as perhaps the most powerful meta- ideology of the age
.At the same time, the convergence of public cultural institutions and the internet
opens up opportunities to develop new relations between gift economies and public
goods and launch cultural initiatives that can support a philosophy of cosmopolitan
citizenship. For most commentators this implies the construction of a new kind
of public sphere. In contrast, this paper argues that a revivified conception
of a cultural commons offers a more useful starting point and goes on to explore
the possibilities and problems of institutionalising this ideal.
Lúcia
Nagib
State University of Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil
The Rebirth and International Circulation of Brazilian Cinema Since the Mid
1990s
From the
mid 1990s the new Audiovisual Law, based on the principle of fiscal incentive,
caused a sudden boom which was called the 'Rebirth of Brazilian Cinema'. If between
1990 and 1992, the dark period under President Collor, film production was reduced
to near zero, between 1995 and 2000, 150 long feature films were produced and,
between 1994 and 2000, 55 new filmmakers appeared in the country. This significant
increase was accompanied by a wider reception of the films, both in Brazil and
abroad. Between 1998 and 1999 alone, Brazilian films received around 100 prizes
abroad, the most important of them being the Golden Bear for best film and best
actress awarded to Central Station, in 1998, at the Berlin Film Festival. Between
1997 and 1999, three Brazilian films were nominated for the Academy Award as
best foreign film. As film production flourished, new aesthetic tendencies emerged,
carrying an accurate image of Brazil and its social characteristics in the same
way Cinema Novo once did in the politicized 1960s.
However, if this boom made room for new talents and ideas, it did not guarantee
space for them on the screens, in Brazil or abroad. The Audiovisual Law did increase
the production, but it did not provide for distribution and exhibition, which
were left over to the market's wild laws and the irresistible pressure of American
cinema. Besides, recent Brazilian films often present marked auteurist features
and a desire for originality which can result in master-pieces, but also reduce
their commercial chances. With the exception of some openly popular comedy genres,
recent Brazilian cinema seems to be destined for the art niche, or, more frequently,
for early oblivion. This paper aims to analyse the penetration and reception
of recent Brazilian films in the internal and external market, articulating aesthetic
characteristics with factors of national and international policies of distribution,
in order to evaluate its situation in the global scene.
Steve
Neale
Sheffield Hallam University
Exchanging Adventure: British, American and UnAmerican Involvement in TV Costume
Adventure Series in the 1950s
In the late 1940s and 1950s costume adventure as a genre was the site of a complex
series of exchanges between the film and television industries in America and
Britain. During the course of these exchanges, Britain`s new commercial TV channel,
ITV, commissioned, broadcast and successfully exported to America such series
as The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Adventures of Sir Lancelot,
The Buccaneers, Sword of Freedom, Ivanhoe and Richard the Lionheart.
Some of these series involved American as well as British personnel. Some involved
American as well as British companies. And some involved Americans who had been
branded as 'UnAmerican' during the course of anti-Communist hearings in Hollywood
in the late 1940s. Looking at the varying mix of American, UnAmerican and British
involvement in some of these series, this paper will seek to question any straightforward
conceptions of 'the national' and of 'the indigenous'.
Geoffrey
Nowell-Smith
University of Luton
Export Quality: Italian producers' search for wider markets, 1950-70
After 1945 Europe's cinemas were faced with the problem of how to reconstruct
their industries while facing unprecednted competition from the deluge of Hollywood
films now free to enter the market. Their responses were threefold: protection,
co-operation, and counter-attack. Protection (effective from 1946) took the form
of levies and screen quotas designed to help indigenous production at the expense
of exhibition; co-operation (effective fom about 1950) led to market-sharing
co-production agreements between European countries. But what of the counter-attack?
How did the Europeans envisage countering the largely one-way flow of American
films onto European screens. This paper will review the options open to continental
European producers and distributors in the 1950s and 60s hoping to break into
the American market and the contradictory outcomes of some of the strategies
pursued.
María
Luisa Ortega and Marina Díaz
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Latin America Cinema in the 90s: Cultural Identity and International Visibility
Four decades ago, the New Latin American Cinema movement was born as a semi-institutionalised
form of a cultural identity project by which spaces of international visibility
were created for the cinema made in the region. Cinema became a privileged locus
for definition of national identities in a neo-colonial situation, for an ideological,
social and political struggle against imperialism which was shared by compromised
filmmaker from almost all Latin American countries and that made sense of a such
trans-national cultural enterprise. The cinema produced under this movement showed
very different aesthetic and address strategies, but the films had in common
thematic and representational features that identified them as 'Latin American'
products. These identity signs were very different from those of the golden age
of Latin American national cinemas which created national genres based in local
music and cultural traditions and, in doing so, generated a kind of trans-national,
Spanish global market, and a wide popular success among Spanish publics that
challenged Northern hegemony. These 1930s national cinemas got to go beyond the
local to construct cultural references with which different national, Latin publics
identified.
Things have changed a lot from these time and cinema production frameworks. The
adjective 'Latin' has galvanized very new meanings and it has become a label
to name and sale very different cultural products and industries, among them
cinema and a sort of trans-national star system. In this context, and moving
across genres and audio-visual formats, our paper will analyses Latin American
cinema made in the 1990s from two complementary perspectives and methodological
approaches. On one hand, we will focus on its more frequent topics and representation
patterns in order to study what images and imaginaries of the 'Latin' the recent
filmic production constructs and casts: how it represents Latin identity/identities
in the framework of local-global tension; how it uses common strategies to represent
the role of cinema and media in collective memory and identity construction from
a national or a trans-national perspective; how it deals with gendered images,
etc. On the other hand, we will analyse the grids of international visibility
for this cinema -mainly international festivals and distribution patterns- in
order to think about how the exportable 'Latin' image is constructed from these
outside perspectives and what identity elements are rejected from this category.
Dr
Duncan Petrie
Reader in Film, University of Exeter
How Scottish is it?: The indigenous Cultural Engagement and International
Circulation of Recent Scottish Film
One of the most interesting developments in British cinema in the 1990s was the
emergence of an identifiable Scottish cinema. While the most high profile example
was Trainspotting, a film fully funded by Channel Four and aimed at an
international market, many other productions have been nurtured by new sources
of indigenous finance administered by institutions such as Scottish Screen and
as such have been regarded by critics as constituting a new cinematic engagement
with Scotland and Scottish culture. Yet at the same time a number of these films
have performed well at International Film Festivals, including winning a number
of awards, and have subsequently found audiences outside Scotland. This paper
will consider recent developments in Scotland with a particular focus on the
dominant kinds of stories and images that have been produced in Scotland and
subsequently 'exported' in recent years, and the role played by Institutions
such as Scottish Screen - which administers lottery finance for film development
and production and runs a number of short film schemes - in the development of
a film culture that in ambition at least attempts to address indigenous cultural
concerns and reach a wide international audience. Scottish sources of finance
are also beginning to attract the attention of certain European producers, particular
from Scandanavia, keen to develop English language production in a way that also
suggests certain interesting cultural connections with a northern European context.
Among the films to be examined in some detail are Breaking the Waves (Lars
von Trier, 1996), My Name is Joe (Ken Loach, 1998) Orphans (Peter
Mullan, 1999), Ratcatcher (Lynn Ramsay, 1999) and Late Night Shopping
(Saul Metzstein, 2001).
Syed
Mizanur Rahman
TREE Foundation Ltd, Dhaka
Interactive Video for Awareness
From the government to NGOs, many institutions and organizations have been undertaking
numerous awareness raising and informative programmes regarding health care.
Interestingly, in comparison with the publicity and programmes undertaken to
combat AIDS, smoking habits, drug culture and child health problems, little attention
has been paid to reproductive health care. One of the reasons is some cultural
restriction that made direct discussion on sex and reproductive health issues
not agreeable, especially in mass media.
The common modes adopted for awareness raising include poster, leaflet, seminar,
workshop, on-spot awareness packages, street theatre, radio and television spots
and shows etc. Moreover, all the TV shows tend either to be informative (some
times, triangle) or dramatic (often too much to be credible enough). Thus they
do not reflect the real situation, nor do they include the public perception
or questions. They lack proper communication.
Interactive Video for Awareness (IVA):
Assessing the nature and status of TV programmes for promotional purposes, TREE
(Theatre for Research Education and Empowerment) intends to prepare a series
of programmes for social and health awareness. These videos would be interactive,
associating the performers and the audience (the details are following). The
programmes would be telecast in serial through any TV Channel.
Production concept:
Unlike customary programmes, Interactive Video for Awareness (IVA) puts primary
emphasis on interaction. Each programme is broadly divided into two phases:
-The first
phase is a drama, prepared and performed after popular folk fashion, on a select
issue.
-The second phase consists of a post-performance informal discussion session
among the performers and the audience around. This session includes questions
from the audience's part which are answered by the performers, general discussion
about the audience's understanding of the issue and so on. The mode is necessarily
of impromptu kind, while a portion of the audience being briefed beforehand so
as to secure the proper way of discussion and maintain time-effectiveness. Spontaneous
questions from the audience help clarify the issues (that are highlighted in
the drama) to a satisfying extent It also strengthens spectator's (both TV and
on-spot) emotional attachment with the programme which is very important for
any awareness programme.
Dr
Michael Richardson
Dept of Anthropology & Sociology, SOAS, University of London
Between Expectation and Wonder: The experience of viewing films cross-culturally
'World cinema' is now an established genre, given its own particular category
at film festivals. But what sorts of expectations are being formed by categorising
certain films in this way? Does it involve a new form of exoticism, relying on
an implied theory of the indigenous as an object being set up for contemplation
by Western audiences, or is a genuine arena for the consideration of cross-cultural
understanding being established?
This paper will look at some of the social determinants of the relation between
images and their reception by viewers in the context of wider debates about the
nature of otherness and the need for dialogue between cultures. It will consider
the question of who is speaking to whom and in what terms when we view films
from very different cultural contexts and what are processes of identification
and disavowal that are being established. Is a platform for a genuine dialogue
between cultures being established in world cinema or are we simply succumbing
to an exoticism that congeals different cultural experiences within a form that
makes them susceptible to incorporation into globalising processes of culture?
Tom
Ryall
Professor of Film History, Sheffield Hallam University
'Vacuous
Internationalism' - Anthony Asquith and the 'mid-Atlantic film' of the 1960s
'One is forced to wonder whether the British industry has not lost something
[...] if it has not exchanged autonomy and the chance to manifest its own culture
for the appetizing appeal of financial success with many 'mid-Atlantic' productions.'
Thomas Guback (1967)
During the 1950s the major Hollywood studios shifted some of their production
from the traditional Los Angeles base to a variety of European countries including
the UK - a phenomenon usually known as 'runaway production'. Subsequently the
term was joined by others including the 'mid-Atlantic' picture and the 'international'
film, terms which hinted at the cultural consequences of this geographical shift.
By the 1960s, Hollywood companies were investing substantially in the British
film industry not simply utilising studio facilities and technical staff to make
Hollywood 'runaways' but also establishing British firms to make 'British films'
designed for international audiences and financed largely from US sources. The
American film industry in effect became the major financier for the British cinema
with corresponding though at times somewhat elusive consequences for cultural
autonomy and indigenous cinematic distinctiveness. A long and varied list of
British titles of the 1960s including The World of Suzie Wong, Tom
Jones, From Russia with Love, A Hard Day's Night, The Guns
of Navarone, Lawrence of Arabia, Becket, Lord Jim, The
Night of the Generals, A Man for All Seasons, The Lion in Winter,
and Women in Love, can be traced in financial terms to US sources. However,
all were 'British films' at least in legal terms, and many of them reflected
aspects of British culture and history, suggesting a complex relationship between
the financial origins of a film and its cultural identity.
The long established team of producer Anatole de Grunwald, director Anthony Asquith,
and writer Terence Rattigan made two 'international' films for the American major
MGM's British subsidiary company during the 1960s - The V.I.P.s and The
Yellow Rolls-Royce. These will be used as case studies to consider the consequences
of the specific relationship between finance and culture established by the American
presence in the British cinema of the 1960s and notion of the 'international'
or 'mid-Atlantic' film as embodied in the form and content of the two films.
John
Sedgwick
University of North London
Gaumont British in America, 1934-36
In 1934, British Gaumont - a leading player in the remarkable resurgence of the
production sector of the British film industry following the Cinematograph Act
of 1927 - launched an ambitious strategy to market its films in the U.S. However,
rather than using the distribution network of the one of the Hollywood majors,
as say London Films did with United Artists, Gaumont British decided to develop
and invest in its own in-house operation. It did so because of the confidence
that the corporation's executives, and particularly Michael Balcon, had in its
product and their concern that the very best efforts should be made to ensure
its widespread diffusion. This paper charts this commercial venture by recourse
to two resources: the Michael Balcon Special Collection housed at the BFI and
the weekly box-office returns of the sample of first-run cinemas across the U.S.
found in the trade journal Variety. Although the venture failed, critically
wounding the production wing of Gaumont British, the analysis conducted here
focuses on the ex ante conjectures and perceptions of the organisation as it
embarked upon the venture and the actual critical and box-office reception of
its films.
Professor
John Sinclair
Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
'The Hollywood of Latin America': Miami as Regional Centre in Television Trade
Over the last decade, there has emerged a certain discourse about Miami as 'the
Hollywood of Latin America', or even as 'the cultural capital', not just of Latin
America, but also of the Spanish-speaking population of the United States. This
paper examines the basis and extent of Miami's status specifically within the
international trade in the production and distribution of Spanish-language television
programs and services in the Americas as a whole geolinguistic region. What appears
to be unique about Miami is the combination of cultural as well as locational
and economic factors which it offers the rapidly internationalizing Spanish-language
television industry. As such, it provides an interesting case for evaluating
the relative significance of cultural vis-ŕ-vis economic factors in the making
of such an industry, and for apprehending their fusion. Furthermore, in an era
steeped in globalization's dictum that 'time and space have disappeared', Miami
serves as a reminder of the degree to which geospatial features still exert their
gravitational pull upon the much-vaunted 'deterritorialization' of communication
media, as well as of the importance of regional factors in modulating globalization
processes. Of particular interest is the role of Miami as the locus of production,
distribution and exchange for both the Spanish-speaking television industry in
the US, and the major television companies of Latin America.
Dr
Jeanette Steemers
De Montfort University
Selling British
Television
After the USA, Britain is the second largest exporter of television programmes
both in terms of volume and value - albeit a distant second. Sales grew especially
as new commercial channels with low budgets and a huge demand for television
programmes, emerged in the major markets of Western Europe and the United States
in the 1980s. However, as these new channels have become more established, sales
of completed programmes have become more difficult. This is due to the fact that
in more mature markets, broadcasters have sought to raise their profile and improve
their appeal to audiences through domestically produced programmes in valuable
peaktime slots. Even in the US, traditional stalwarts of British drama programming
such as PBS and cable channels like A&E are seeking to increase levels of domestic
drama at the expense of 'classic' British drama. This more competitive environment
has forced those who wish to sell their programmes overseas to adopt a range
of strategies, which vary according to the type of programming on offer, the
overseas market being targeted, and the position of the British producer in the
UK domestic marketplace. Based on interviews with a range of UK producers/distributors,
this paper offers a case study in the development and implementation of strategies
designed to enhance British television exports. First the paper will examine
what factors inhibit or promote exports in the major markets of Western Europe
and the USA. Next it will consider what strategies British exporters are adopting
to overcome barriers and enhance performance. Finally it will consider the impact
of these strategies on domestic production. Underlying the research is the perception
of a basic tension between the culturally specific demands of the domestic television
market, and the industrial imperative of exporters whose products need to satisfy
a wider range of tastes and national circumstances.