Cinema 101: How Colonized Cinema Can Decolonize Itself.
Consolidating the Box Office Hits with the Third Cinema Risks.
If you ask Martin Scorsese, the primary intention of cinema is to provide moving images with meaning. While Scorsese makes a conceptually standard point about the medium, it stands in a contrast to the ideology of the modern blockbuster; to make entertaining movies that can turn a profit.
The argument over film’s inherent value is ongoing and seemingly one that every filmmaker feels the need to weigh in on. Yet, as subjective as the answers remain, it’s evident that film has traditionally been a tool used to spread messages through mass communication.
No other genre exemplifies cinema’s ability to directly inform an audience than documentary filmmaking.
However, if you ask filmmaker Trinh T. Min-ha, she might articulate that the concept of the documentary doesn’t even exist.
Trinh T. Min-ha is a documentarian, known for her work in more abstract pieces such as “Reassemblage” and “Surname Viet Given Name Nam”. Works that, at face-value, are seen as documentaries. So from a documentary filmmaker, what does the purpose of invalidating a whole genre of cinema due to the medium.
By negating the existence of documentary, Min-ha’s goal isn’t to sensationalize, but rather to draw attention to how audiences perceive the authority of documentary filmmaking. Through her work, Min-ha tries to dismantle the traditional perception of documentary without “assum[ing] a position of authority,” as she says is usually the case with documentary film.
Min-ha’s viewpoint comes from the obligation she sees cinema has to dismantling colonial traditions; especially, from the perspective of Asian culture. Asian-American representation has been an issue that’s pervaded cinema for generations and has only recently been a focus in mainstream media.
Min-ha acknowledges the influences of traditional filmmaking styles, as she says, “We unavoidably import, internalize and adapt…the master’s tools and values. However, to put them to use when necessary is very different from unquestioningly letting them drive our political outlook on life.”
Min-ha’s reference to traditional cinema is a point this article intends on expanding on. While Min-ha recognizes the flaws of traditional cinema and uses her own art to deconstruct those notions, this article intends to make a case for traditional styles of cinema as a means to uplift revolutionary cinema.
In a generation with unlimited access to creating new forms of media, the tools standardized by western society to create modern media are almost a necessity to creating revolutionary cinema that can shed new light on the Asian-American experience.
Mainstream media has always had a problem with accurately representing Asian-Americans in cinema. Based on an analysis by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, studies show that representation in cinema looks more akin to token inclusion. Out of 1,300 films, 67% of the asian demographic of characters shown in film “reflect tired tropes”. Concepts such as the oriental asian, emasculated asian man and even casual references to Bruce Lee all made up the tropes being recorded by the study.
Nancy Wang Yeun, sociology professor at Biola University stated in a press release, “…when representation looks like tokenism, Hollywood is doing the bare minimum for inclusion. ”
In short, Asian-American depictions in cinema can often come across as a caricature of an entire demographic.
As bad as the representation can be, some filmmakers see the recent success of Asian-American in media as a major shift for the industry.
In one of the most apparent examples, viewers can look at “Crazy Rich Asians” as a landmark in Asian-American film. While not the most nuanced look into the cultural journey of Asian-Americans, the film was the first film to feature an all-asian cast since 1993’s “Joy Luck Club” while also achieving immense box office success.
Movies like “Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings” have allowed for immense mainstream representation as the film garnered excessive commercial success at the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first asian-led superhero film. More independent films such as Lee Isaac Chung’s “Minari” paved the way for Yuh-Jung Youn to become the first Korean actor to win an Academy Award.
In an interview conducted by the New York Times, filmmakers had the opportunity to discuss the burgeoning new energy for Asian-Americans in Hollywood. Chung disclosed that while filming “Minari” he had his reservations. Chung spoke about how “We didn’t want [‘Minari’] to be a ‘by us, for us’ sort of film.” Sandi Tan, director of the documentary “Shirkers”, had similar sentiments as she said that she was “not interested in thinking and working within the ‘Asian-American sphere’ or addressing its issues.”
Exposure in the mainstream is a drastic change to how audiences praised Asian-American films in years prior. New standards are being set on the stories being told that more accurately and fairly represent Asian-American cultures and to see institutions such as the Oscars honor that is a progressive step towards normalizing more personal Asian-American stories.
The recognition of Asian-American experiences on some of the biggest stages in the world is unprecedented. Commercial and critical success on global scales has the potential to open the door to turning the mainstream into a much more diverse landscape for Asian-American culture.
Mainstream media, however, is not the end-all be-all of recognizing cinematic stories.
Hollywood has a ways to go before the industry can say it’s beneficial to creating decolonized Asian-American works. And filmmakers are excessively cognizant of that.
The creators behind “Shang Chi” were adamant about deconstructing the racist origins of the character as they said they wanted to “explode” those tropes. Director Daniel Cretton spoke about how the film attempts to battle the stereotype of the “kung-fu asian” in an interview with the Washington Post.
Viewers should not expect to look toward Hollywood to set the precedent behind revolutionary works. The mainstream can only hope to normalize the concepts exemplified by filmmakers willing to take risks in order to combat western stigmas of Asian culture.
To make a stronger Hollywood, big budget films must look to the little guy; towards the world of the independent film.
When you look at the corporate machine that is the film industry, audiences might understand why the market is so saturated with film. Sequels, prequels and adaptations rule the industry and with only five major film businesses maintaining the largest stock, it’s no wonder movie studios interfere to turn a profit.
With profit margins taking center stage within international production studios, smaller filmmakers have more room to tell riskier and experimental works.
In an essay from Octavio Getino and Fernando Solanas, the pair discuss the need to create a subversive form of cinema. In their eyes, this is the “Third Cinema”. In this essay however, this subversion faces an ultimate paradox. In a filmmaker’s haste to become subversive, it begins to work within the confines of filmmaking that starts to support the traditional movie industry.
What was initially thought to be revolutionary is only just colonized film that exists within “the system”.
The authors call for a filmmaking experience that’s almost fluid in its definition. Constant discourse surrounding the films, “guerilla film-units” that use new tools to create experimental film and active response from the audience that influences critical awareness of the art form.
The third cinema, essentially…is confusing. It’s a combination of audience and filmmaker engagement on a systemic level that provokes thought. It’s hope is to create change and actively promote messaging from the perspective of the disenfranchised.
Looking at the third form of cinema in the face of movie industry behemoths, however, is an alarmingly tense goal. Cinema’s over saturation and constant influx of ideas means that businesses will consistently battle for the attention of viewers.
Yet, the contention of ideas in a saturated market of film is a concept Getino and Solanas take into account. The essay comments on the process of creating revolutionary cinema, saying, “the existence of a revolutionary cinema is inconceivable without the constant and methodical exercise of practice, search, and experimentation.”
Media being oversaturated with a plethora of stories is no new idea. It has fundamentally never been as accessible for anyone to create cinema than in this present moment. While this may come across as a fight for attention, it exemplifies the ideals of how a new generation can contend to create revolutionary cinema.
Contrastingly, these forms of revolutionary cinema however can still use “tools of the master” to decolonize the film landscape.
The evidence is in concurrent work experimenting to normalize essential Asian American stories. The New York Times short-form opinion documentary pieces have previously highlighted work from Sean Wang in a piece titled “H.A.G.S (Have a Great Summer)”. Wang’s piece has seen the likes of the Sundance and been selected as a winner of YoungGuns19. In an interview with NBC, Wang describes the piece as something that “feels very personal and familiar to me, sharing that perspective is ultimately just sharing a perspective that hasn’t been seen.”
When looking at Wang’s piece however, it tows the line of traditional and experimental film.
Is the narrative a relic of western storytelling or does the perspective of an Asian American transcend the western influences of a piece like this?
The catalog of films that can bring up questions like this is similarly staggering.
Does a film like Eternals, while representative of an Asian-American director, influence the revolutionary cinema argument? Can a short on YouTube elicit the amount of change being discussed in the essay from Getino and Solanas.
There isn’t an answer to these questions. These films have different meanings and different missions upon their creation. A Marvel blockbuster may not be able to compare to a series intercutting the English language with Korean?
To say one is more valuable than the other invalidates the perspective of another and takes away from the overarching work that each film does in normalizing a nuanced look at the Asian-American experience.
In short, the mainstream and independent cinema experiences are disparate. They can’t be compared and serve very different purposes. Yet, each form of cinema utilizes the other. Independent films provide the new experiences and perspectives that provide the mainstream with fresh faces and ideas. Yet, the independent takes the traditional tools made available by the mainstream to create more art that can be more accessible to the masses.
Cinema is a unique medium for mass communication and it’s uniquely indicative of individual perspectives. While the cohesion of mainstream and independent filmmaking may not be what Getino and Solanas had in mind, they create an argument that fits well within a platform that could seemingly combine the both their “Third Cinema” with mainstream box office successes.
In the end, the authors said it best…
“Be receptive to all that the people have to offer, and offer them the best; or, as Che put it, respect the people by giving them quality.”
