For me, this flags the venerable Nobel Laureate for Literature, Alexander Solzhenitsyn - who struggled with how to tell the truth about the horrible and savage things that people can do each other and who, sadly, died earlier this week. A day in the life of Ivan Denisovich was for Solzhenitsyn a fondly remembered twenty-year stretch in Joseph Stalin’s dystopian ‘Gulag Archipelago’, followed by a further three-year exile in the ‘decedent’ West for such treason! (Go figure) A dissident to the end, Solzhenitsyn, and after a pardon from good old ’Gorby,’ returned to his beloved Russia only to now reject the ’reforming’ Russia of Vladimir Putin and his predecessor, the ubiquitous tea-totter, Boris Yeltsin, arguing that Russia was intrinsically a separate civilisation with its unique culture and destiny and not Euro-centric, and as such, requires a separate system, whether it be economic or cultural, adapted to its history and traditions.
Perhaps the point here is that of hegemony, of the parallels with nationalist sentiments raised around questions of a successful national cinema for Australia: Can we, as Australians, consider ourselves to be in a similar position and make a similar claim as Solzhenitsyn? Russia historically has the advantage of a cultural tradition dating back a thousand years, whereas Australia's colonial history, since its brutal beginning as a savage and ruthless penal colony, is less than a quarter of that. Yet like Solzhenitsyn's claim for Russia, and doubly more so for us now with the contention that Australia lies on the precipice of itself as a republic, must it be also then that Australia too should go its own way, so as to demonstrate through our cinema that we, and like Russia, are no longer so Euro-centric, nor even American for that matter, to be able to produce a successful cinema that reflects who we are?
But then, are even nationalist sentiments an appropriate call in which to find a successful and prosperous cinema within?
I agree with the premise thus far about 'divergent points': that the smart play is a game-plan for both camps: "to be unique to... national origins, but as well, to represent points of connection to other cultures. However, both of these are also problematic in that a definition of how each is constituted must be attempted, and that certainly limits Carmine's point about the misguided appeal of universal themes.
Interestingly, if Philip Adams is to be understood, in his contribution to "Australian Cinema" (Allan and Unwin, 1994), on articulating the proposition for the new Australian national film industry - his historical ‘godchild, it was George Miller’s Mad Max, produced by Adams, that broke the mould of an Australian film for only 'reflective audiences', i.e., Art House, and which made the transition to the truly 'big time', as the first international blockbuster success. So the question then also is, what was so Australian about Mad Max that it should become such an international blockbuster if being ‘Australian’ was the basis of its success?
If not, then what was for sale—a sample of our unique national origins? (Mel is certainly far closer to that in his roles as Fletcher Christian than he is in this rendition of a ‘national character' or type, surely?)
Or was it the films ‘connectivity’ with other cultures: post-holocaust, future holocaust, or American collective cultural paranoia? It seems unlikely, or do we really share a universal distress about lawlessness and tribalism in a possible post-holocaust or cataclysmic-event world? Do we honestly feel that Australia's first-world prosperity and security conditions are under threat from such events, even after seeing the film?
I think not.
Perhaps, instead, and this is my point: there is also a separate and different category or approach that can be set apart from these sentiments that are only to do with a nationalistic type of unique cinema?
A category that parallels and can, if need be, respect such clustering and sentiments - as vague and problematic as they may be, that is more attuned to the economics and universal themes of an international spectacle, a category more along the lines of a blockbuster production style?
Cinema, as spectacle first: to overcome the dominant economic model of parallel distribution, maximising box-office revenues, and competing successfully in global distribution markets for television, DVD, and merchandise also?
I'm not suggesting that I would or do disregard films that fit a national or cultural profile (yet to be determined), but consider that there seem to be historical difficulties in attempting to define a successful cinema only in terms that must cogently reflect us: as to who we are, where we have come from, what we might possibly be, or what we want for ourselves.
Is it possible, then, that alternatively we can have the same sort of confidence in such a thing as trans-national cinema, where we uniquely participate with production skills first, so as to be competitive for film productions globally, then next with acting talent working in global markets, and eventually with writers and the production and distribution sector, competing in the global market with strong resources to commission their own competitively funded productions with refocused and invigorated visionary production crews?
To model our industry economically on a Hollywood style of production is to compete technically and financially while gaining access to the means of distribution that have so long hampered and strangled the Australian cinema industry.
To speak culturally, or 'traditionally', and only in terms of national characters is, to my mind, to eventually limit all productions only to us, and then, as we become bored with ourselves once again, to diminish our potential to keep funding stories and to make films.
Anyway, that’s enough of my musings.
So of course, vodka! Solzhenitsyn!
Thank you for your life.
No comments:
Post a Comment