European Identity in Cinema

Wendy Everett

• Publisher: Intellect Books
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN: 9781841509167
• eBook ISBN: 9781841509440
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

The identity of European cinema, like the identity of Europe itself, is multiple, complex, and fascinating. Providing both a general survey of contemporary European cinema production, distribution and exhibition and detailed critical analysis of specific films, directors, and national cinemas, this volume offers a stimulating and thought-provoking contribution to current film debate.

While the book's critical essays offer keen insight into the complex identities of European cinema, its combination of breadth and detail, and its interdisciplinary focus and background ensure its wider relevance to anyone interested in questions of contemporary culture and European affairs in general. Its stylistic clarity and freedom from jargon make it readable and accessible.

 

The essays have been written by respected academics working in a number of disciplines including Film and Media Studies, Modern Languages, and Cultural Studies.

Topics include questions of memory and identity; filmic autobiography and first-person narration; cultural identity; peripheral voices; popular film and political film. Individual directors, and different national cinemas, including those of France, Germany, Northern Ireland, Russia, Scotland and Spain, are viewed in a wider pan- European context.

Re-framing the fingerprints: a short survey of European film

Wendy Everett

Europe is a patchwork of contrasting cultural and linguistic identities, and nowhere is this more clearly illustrated than in its various national cinemas. It follows that any definition of European cinema is problematic since diversity and contrast must be recognised as fundamental. As was explained in the introduction, questions of identity are approached in this book as a series of ‘fingerprints’ or traces, in essays which focus on specific directors, genres, themes or national concerns, in the belief that from these detailed studies certain common characteristics may provide further indications of the identity of European cinema. Since such an approach must essentially be partial, the following brief survey of the contemporary status of film in Europe, concentrating in particular on areas such as funding, production, and distribution, as well as on linguistic and national difference, aims to provide a wider context in which to situate individual contributions.¹

History and Film

One of the reasons why Europe feels a privileged affinity with cinema is the seminal role it played in its invention, and it is undoubtedly the case that much of the talent that helped to develop and sustain the Hollywood system actually originated in Europe. The majority of the genres that characterise contemporary film (including comedy, romance, costume dramas, thrillers, and science fiction, for example) were developed in Europe in the first decade of the twentieth century, and in the work of pioneer directors such as Georges Méliès the seeds of today’s camera techniques and special effects can be found. In the years leading up to the First World War, European cinema entirely dominated international markets, a position illustrated by the fact that between 1906 and 1913, a single studio in France (Pathé) was responsible for one third of the world’s entire film output, for which it owned the means of production, distribution, and exhibition (Sadoul 1947: 221). Moreover, its closest competitors were other European nations, primarily Italy and Denmark. Ironically, Pathé’s largest market at that time was the United States where, in the decade preceding the First World War only about one third of the films that were screened were American (Nowell-Smith 1996: 24). (It may be salutary to compare this with today’s position in which the American film industry accounts for 74 per cent of worldwide film production investment, see Wayne 2002: 6).

However, by the time that the war had ended, much of Europe lay in ruins, and its film industry had largely been decimated. In the meantime, Hollywood had set about creating an economically efficient method of film production, based on a highly developed studio system and conceived, from the first, as a profit-making industry, and from this period onward, its films would increasingly dominate European screens. Nevertheless, cinema continued to play a central role in European life, offering, in turn, escape and entertainment, intellectual and artistic challenge and, vitally, a means of interrogating and expressing identity and memory, and constructing and deconstructing national myths. Film has provided solace in times of hardship, has served as both political tool and subversive

weapon, has been exploited as propaganda, and silenced by censorship. Film-going reached its apogee in many European countries in the grim aftermath of the Second World War, when audience numbers soared and cinemas provided an important community focus and social function, whilst the films so fervently viewed offered audiences a shared set of images of the world. Of course, the source of the majority of these images was Hollywood, hence Sorlin’s comment that ‘we Europeans create images of the world through Hollywood’s lenses’ (1991: 1); nevertheless European films were still being made, and by the late 1950s the explosion of talent signalled by the French New Wave heralded new creative vitality right across Europe and beyond. In the closing decades of the twentieth century, the importance of cinema appeared to be in decline, in many ways, and for a number of reasons. However, despite the gloomy prognostications for its future, European cinema has survived, and currently could even be described as flourishing, even if not everywhere, and one could argue that the need for film as exploration of difference, as expression of new, fluid concepts of identity, and shifting centres and peripheries has never seemed greater.

An industry in decline?

For a good many years, prognostications concerning the future of European cinema have been poor. The number of cinemas in Europe declined steadily from the 1950s until the end of the century as audiences numbers decreased and public enthusiasm for cinema seemed to have been replaced by television and other forms of entertainment. While the reasons for this decline were multiple, its consequences for Europe were aggravated by Hollywood’s increasing domination of the European market. In 1993–94, for instance, research for the first edition of this book revealed that Jurassic Park was at the top of box-office charts in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Spain and the UK, that is to say, in all but three of the countries whose statistics I was, at that time, able to access. It is true that there were some exceptions: France, Switzerland, and Sweden relegated Jurassic Park to second position, but since this was after Aladdin in France and Switzerland, and after Sister Act in Sweden, these exceptions did offer much consolation.

As the final decade of the twentieth century drew to its close, the situation showed no signs of improving. Titanic, at the time the biggest box-office success in the whole of film history, amassed receipts totalling 2,056 million Euros by the end of 2000, decimating admissions to European films, and by 2002 the top ten films (by box-office admissions) in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Switzerland and the UK were all wholly or partly US funded (EAO 2003). Once again, there were a few exceptions: Spain had a Spanish film in ninth position: El otro lado de la cama (The Other Side of the Bed, Emilio Martínez-Lázaro) which, although not a huge achievement, was at least a minor victory. France and Italy were slightly more successful, with France giving top box-office position to a French/German coproduction, Astérix & Obélix: Mission Cléopâtre (Astérix, Alain Chabat), with an entirely French-funded production in eighth position: 8 Femmes (8 Women, François Ozon). Italy had Italian productions in both first and fourth positions: Pinocchio (Roberto Benigni) and La leggenda di Al, John e Jack (The Legend of Al, John and Jack, Aldo Baglio, Giovanni Storti, Giacomo Poretti, Massimo Venier) respectively.

The fact that in any given year so very few home-produced films make it into the top ten anywhere reveals the extent to which US films dominate our screens. However, the fact that there is almost no trace of European films crossing internal national borders indicates what is potentially an even graver problem. And as Peter Lev pointed out more than a decade ago, the inevitable result of American companies investing on a massive scale in European film production since the 1960s is that major decisions about writing, casting, shooting, and editing, even in films that are nominally British, French, Italian or whatever, will reflect American, rather than European, values (Lev 1993: xi–xii).

The reasons for this situation are complex. The professionalism of mainstream American movies is, of course, important, as is the fact that they tend to be made according to a successful commercial formula. They aim to attract a mass audience by providing dramatic narrative, fast action, and impressive computer graphics and other special effects, and they represent a fashionable modern viewpoint to the younger generation. However, to conclude that their overwhelming success is a mere reflection of consumer choice would be over simplistic, for as much as the quality of the films, it is their universal availability and the powerful advertising used to promote them that really decides their success. Distribution and exhibition networks across Europe are controlled by an ever-decreasing number of companies, most of which are American owned and therefore concerned with promoting American films. This considerable investment reveals the importance of the European market for America whose exports in film and media are its second most valuable. In comparison, despite the undoubted improvements in distribution and marketing that have resulted from various measures introduced by the EU, European film-makers still suffer from inadequate funding, low publicity budgets, and limited exhibition outlets. The result is that European films are unlikely to come to the attention of the wider public, a fact that inevitably restricts potential audiences, whatever the quality of the film. With little prospect of achieving large profits, directors still find it difficult to obtain adequate financial backing, and most European films produced today will have a large number of different investors, operating in an international context, listed in their final credits. European films are almost inevitably small-budget productions, and while this can be argued as one of its strengths and indeed its specificities, nevertheless it also damages their image amongst audiences accustomed to the huge budgets and expensive special effects of American blockbusters.

The consequences are clear: as Europeans have less and less access to the films which purport to represent them, they become increasingly alienated from the slower more reflective language of European cinema. Does this matter? Clearly, it does to directors who are under pressure to produce more commercial, less ‘European’ types of film, if they wish to survive; for European audiences the consequences are a matter of ongoing debate. However, if film does offer a means of questioning notions of identity, and if it is true that visual images constitute our chief access to reality since ‘our relationship with events and people is mediated by images’ (Sorlin 1991: 6), then the loss of specifically European images may indeed have serious consequences.

The context of the increasing dominance of American films thus provides the first of the characteristics all European countries share. The impact of this is initially revealed in European cinema’s attempts to define itself by what it isn’t; by its difference from classical Hollywood film (linear narratives leading to a closed conclusion; fast cutting and action; a highly developed star system; ambitious and sophisticated special effects). Thus, European directors often distance themselves from these attributes by identifying their own opposing specificities (for example: irony and self-referentiality; slow, reflective camera work; innovative editing; ambiguity).

A second result of the American monopoly is the increasing pressures on European directors to compete with Hollywood on its terms; to modify their work so as to achieve larger profits, and to attract, in particular, the expanding youth sector (Thomas 1995: 44). The ways in which individual directors and national film industries respond to such pressures will have significant consequences for the future of European film. Should directors agree to emulate Hollywood by reducing the number of films being made in favour of a few large budget productions, and by making films that closely mirror their American counterparts? This is certainly the model favoured by the British Film Council, and expounded, as we have seen, by Sir Alan Parker in his speech to the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in November 2002. However, films that have attempted this model have not generally met with success, while the idea that merely imitating Hollywood will provide a universal solution to European problems is somewhat simplistic, not least given the cultural and linguistic differences which, as we have seen, characterise Europe’s widely divergent markets.

Alternatively, should directors and producers ignore such pressures, and instead insist that what Europe is good at is producing complex, challenging films which, by definition, will never attract a mass audience, but which are nevertheless of vital importance in allowing a nation to examine and voice its own identity? Such convictions characterise, for example, Alex Cox’s response (widely championed by directors across Europe), when he reminds us that the most successful recent films, far from reflecting the Hollywood model, are ‘surprises which sprang from the warp and the woof of regional production, low-budget movies whose success could not have been predicted’ (Cox 2003: 6). Such a response may, however, have serious financial implications: its tacit acceptance of the notion of film as art necessitates some form of subsidy, a solution which not all European governments are willing or able to provide. On the other hand, it has been widely argued, small budget films do not, in fact, need to make vast profits to be deemed successful, so that perhaps what needs to be changed are the criteria for evaluating success rather than the films themselves. A further increase in the number of co-productions, specifically European co-productions, is often posited as a solution; a way forward. It is true that many smaller countries are finding this development helpful, since costs are shared, and more films can (perhaps) be made. However, it must also be acknowledged that co-productions have not so far proved a guaranteed recipe for success; indeed, the resulting watering down of differences, and potential blandness that may result suggest to some that they are ‘compromised vehicles’ (Horton and Brashinsky 1992: 24). Problems generally crystallize around language, of course, with English tending to predominate. Whether a nation can feel itself to be represented through a film which does not use its national or regional language is a sensitive and much debated issue (see, for example, Almodóvar 1992: 30).

Reframing European film

It is obvious that these underlying concerns must be recognised in any discussion of the identity of European cinema, and that the various responses they elicit will provide important pointers within the debate. It is perhaps comforting that merely by suggesting that European film should change, its critics are acknowledging that it does indeed possess an identity. Moreover, in spite of these problems, a wide variety of exciting and challenging films is still produced throughout Europe; in 2002, for example, some 625 films were produced in the European Union (EAO 2003), a total which is impressive by any standards.

Audience numbers across Europe rose by 10 per cent in 2001, and despite a slowing down of the growth rate in 2002, there was still an overall increase of 0.5 per cent, bringing total EU admissions to 933 million. In 2002, Finland experienced the most dramatic increase in audience numbers (18.5 per cent), while Britain registered the strongest overall performance, with 176 million tickets sold (an increase of 12.9 per cent in relation to 2001), to make it the second largest market in the EU after France. Furthermore, the average age of cinema audiences throughout Europe is falling, which has to be a positive feature. If the European film industry continues recent work in developing coherent infrastructures, it is clear that it could soon be in a position to profit from this upward trend. And of course, increasing sales and rentals of DVDs and videos confirm that films themselves are still perceived as important, even if the social connotations of watching them have changed.

It is important to recognise the importance of recent European initiatives designed to strengthen the industry, such as the European Union’s MEDIA Programme, in its various incarnations: MEDIA (1987), MEDIA II (1995), and MEDIA Plus (1999). While the Programme’s responsibilities and levels of success have fluctuated, it has undoubtedly helped to establish a climate of closer co-operation between different European countries, and has gone some way to improving traditionally weak areas such as training and distribution. Thanks to the MEDIA initiatives, the number of European films distributed outside their countries of origin has steadily increased, and financial support has been given to a range of both new and established directors including Terence Davies, Fridrik Thór Fridriksson, Damien Old, Istvan Szabo, and Lars Von Trier.

Amongst recent European initiatives, Eurimages, the Council of Europe’s fund for co-production (set up in 1988), has been almost unique in prioritising film as expression of cultural identity (Jäckel 2003: 76). Between 1989 and the early 1990s Eurimages supported a large number of films whose cultural importance has been widely recognised, including – for example – Reise der Hoffnung (Journey of Hope, Xavier Koller, 1990, Switzerland/ UK), Toto le héros (Toto the Hero, Jaco van Dormael, 1991, France/ Belgium/ Germany), and Trois couleurs: bleu (Three Colours: Blue, Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1993, France/ Poland/ Switzerland). By 1996, Eurimages’s involvement in European film co-productions reached 46 per cent, and the centrality of its role, particularly for countries with low production capacity, is now widely acknowledged (Bizern and Autissier 1998: 70).¹

Finally, many of the smaller and/or newer nations are actively striving to create their own film industries, which provides proof enough that European films are still thought worth fighting for. ‘Film both reflects and refracts; it both mirrors and interprets the society which we inhabit, and our responses to it’, declared Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, President of Iceland in 1993, arguing the case for her country to develop an autonomous film industry since this would help to establish a sense of identity amongst its people (Kristinsson et al. 1993: 4). This shared belief in the importance of national voices and European images is fundamental to European cinema, and it is with this in mind that we shall begin our wider survey.

National voices

Clearly, in a short chapter such as this, only a limited amount of information can be provided, and as a consequence, there are inevitable gaps, for which I apologise. The aim of this short survey is to indicate both the wider context of European cinema (in which the following chapters may be situated), and the sources where further information can easily be accessed. For expediency, representative countries will be examined within three main categories, although the divisions must be acknowledged as artificial and problematic in all sorts of ways. The main countries in the first group (Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain) all have long-established domestic film industries and, despite certain differences of attitude, reveal much common ground. They also tend to be the countries whose films are most familiar to us, and most widely studied in Britain. What is important, in the context of this study, is to compare their reactions to recent problems and challenges, and to identify the focus of dominant filmic debate along with recent changes in modes of film production which may indicate important new trends.

Each of these nations has, as we have said, individual film traditions dating back at least to the early years of this century, as well as common historical and cultural points of reference. But even this statement is open to challenge. Spain, for example, was isolated from many of the shared European experiences under the Franco dictatorship: ‘For decades the Iberian peninsular lived in isolation, ignoring the transformations and crises the other countries went through’ (Sorlin 1991: 21). However, since the 1970s, film in Spain has experienced a dramatic transition which has given rise to a new generation of film-makers aware both of their filmic heritage and their affinity with the rest of Europe, and whose work is characterised by what Erice has described as a new ‘spirit of discovery’(Hopewell 1986: 5).

Freedom of expression is, of course, always fragile; if Franco stifled the voicing of national (and regional) concerns in Spai...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface: Filmic fingerprints
• Introduction: European film and the quest for identity
• Re-framing the fingerprints: a short survey of European film
• Louis Malle: a European outsider in the American mainstream
• Les Visiteurs: a popular form of cinema for Europe?
• Wenders' Paris, Texas and the ‘European way of seeing’
• Identity and the past in recent Russian cinema
• The critique of reification: a subversive current within the cinema of contemporary Spain
• Current problems in the study of European cinema and the role of questions on cultural identity
• Film and Northern Ireland: beyond ‘the troubles’?
• Peripheral visions: film-making in Scotland
• Timetravel and European film
• Bibliography