FILM FORM IN WORLD CINEMA Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

FILM FORM IN WORLD CINEMA - Essay Example The cinema in the 1950s represented the true spirit of Africans; it was at the same time that the West believed that Africa was a country with no history. Most of their histories were locked up in small museums in the Western World itself. Something of the same kind is going on today in countries like India, Iran and Iraq. The cinema that emerged in Africa was not just movies made out of passion but was culturally a strong factor to bring the entire history of Africa under one roof.in fact, Frantz Fanon’s work, On National Consciousness, includes the work a poem called ‘African Dawn’, that was later made into a film called ‘Camp D’Thiarove’, by Ousmane Sembe`ne. Then came ‘The Battle of Algiers’, which was made in 1965 which was a highly influential movie by an Italian Director, Gillo Pontecorvo, This was basically a movie about the Algerians who fought against the French in the attempt to break away from the Colonial Yolk in the 1 950’s to 1962. African Movies were at the time influenced by both Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism since almost all art forms including Poetry, Paintings, Art Works and Songs were influenced by the indigenous culture. For once, art was influenced by the nationalistic spirit and it real function instead of mere western aesthetics. The cinema in Africa was known to be ‘militant fighting cinema’, and worked in opposing the dominant imperialistic rule. The Cinema in Africa represents largely the definition of ‘Towards Third Cinema’, they represent their distinct style and form in almost all their works. It is quite a cinema of opposition as counterpoised to the lavish cinema of the First World. As mentioned earlier, the Third World Cinema has thus earned the name ‘An Imperfect Cinema’ (Roy Ames, 1987). Among the Latin American film makers, Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino; both Argentinean film-makers, were the key authors of creating the manifesto of ‘Towards a Third Cinema’ with their Cinema Liberacio`n movement.with time the growth of the manifesto was incredible. The talented duo then went on to make a three part, four hours documentary called, ‘'La Hora de los Hornos' [Hour of the Furnaces]. A lot of films got into severe censorship issues since Argentina was under the military dictatorship (M. T. Martin, 1997). This film exhibited major politico activities which exhibited many militant work that dominated the Latin American Scene. The manifesto majorly saw certain anti-colonial struggles of the third world people. These ideas were heavily borrowed by thinkers such as Marx, Fanon and Mao and were all connected to the populist leader of Argentina, General Per`on (Martin M. T. 1997). Moving back to the Cinema’s of Africa, the threads are quite similar to that of