Everett - European Identity in Cinema

European Identity in Cinema

Edited by Wendy Everett

Second edition published in the UK in 2005 by

Intellect Books, PO Box 862, Bristol BS99 1DE, UK

Second edition published in the USA in 2005 by

Intellect Books, ISBS, 920 NE 58th Ave. Suite 300, Portland, Oregon 97213-3786, USA

Copyright 2005 Intellect Ltd

First edition published in 1996

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Electronic ISBN 1-84150-944-2 / ISBN 84150-916-7

Series Editor: Keith Cameron

Cover Design: Gabriel Solomons

Copy Editor: Tess Moran/Julie Strudwick

Printed and bound in Great Britain by 4Edge Ltd, UK.

Contents

Wendy Everett

Wendy Everett

Peter Hawkins

Anne Jackel

Stan Jones

David Gillespie

Dominic Keown

Ian Aitkin

Brian Neve

Duncan Petrie

Wendy Everett

Preface: filmic fingerprints

Wendy Everett

In 1996 when European Identity in Cinema was first published, the idea of a European focus was still something of a novelty in a field overwhelmingly dominated by studies of national cinemas. Since then, of course, the critical interests have changed, and many more texts now address cinema on a pan-European scale. I remain grateful to Robin Beecroft and to Intellect for their flexible and innovative attitude to film studies at that time, and hope that the fact that this volume is still in demand, and that the issues it addresses have remained central both to cinema studies and to wider cultural concerns, vindicates that support.

The title I originally chose for this book was Fingerprinting Europe, reflecting the idea that the identity of European cinema could perhaps best be approached through the small-scale individual, national, and regional traces that made up its complex multiple composition. The title was rejected in favour of something less ambiguous, but the idea of exploring a more general identity through detailed traces is still valid, not least since one of the most striking results of the dynamic of globalisation has been an increase in fragmentation and difference. More than ever, therefore, it would be pointless to suggest that identity can be approached as a fixed unitary concept. This makes the objective of this volume, the attempt to explore and unravel the many concepts and forms of identity that emerge in the interrogation of European cinema, arguably even more exciting and unpredictable today than it was in the mid-1990s. Contemporary Europe and its multiple identities are perhaps best envisioned as a form of fractal geometry, pattered by chaos, with national and regional differences endlessly breaking down into ever more complex sub-divisions that reflect differences such as gender, sexuality, and ethnicity, and these differences perhaps find their most powerful expression in spatial metaphors of the city as transitory meeting place of difference and change. What is particularly fascinating, therefore, is the process by which, starting from minute observations of individual films, we are able to identify wider trends and movements that occur right across national, cultural, and linguistic divides, and that reflect and articulate not only artistic and filmic preoccupations, but also the social and political concerns of contemporary Europe.

In 1996, when this book first appeared, questions of identity were beginning to dominate European cultures long-standing preoccupation with history and memory, and identity itself was gradually gaining acceptance as a defining characteristic of the postmodern condition (Sarup 1996: 28). Fascinatingly, by 2001 identity was seen as possibly the single most important characteristic of postmodernism, with critics such as Bauman describing it as a prism through which other topical aspects of contemporary life are spotted, grasped and examined (Bauman 2001: 121129).

Thus, as European Identity in Film vividly reveals, the issues that characterised European cinema in the mid-1990s have grown not less but more important as cinema embarks upon its second century. Even today identity is a dominant concern, and the ideas explored by the books original contributors remain as central and pertinent as ever.

However, this new edition does provide entirely new material where this is helpful, in the form of an updated and expanded Introduction, which offers a slightly different critical focus, reflecting changes both to European film in general, and to the critical discourse that surrounds it, while the first chapter, Framing the fingerprints: a brief survey of European film, has been largely rewritten to reflect some of the many changes that have occurred in the production, distribution, and exhibition of European films. This reworking was essential, not least because of the remarkable change in fortunes that has occurred across European cinema in the last few years. The remaining chapters remain as they were, their insight being as valid now as it was when they were written.

The identity of Europe and its cinemas is multiple, unstable, and perpetually changing, and this fact on its own accounts for much of its enduring fascination and perhaps constitutes its ultimate strength. European films remain as varied, innovative, and challenging as ever, and I welcome with delight this chance to revisit old haunts, and to make entirely new discoveries, secure in the knowledge that ultimately definitions and labels will prove as elusive and unreliable as ever.

Introduction: European film and the quest for identity

Wendy Everett

Understanding and defining European, let alone the identity of European cinema, involves an obsessive wrestling with contradictions, suspicions, and uncertainties, and that fundamental complexity provided the starting point of the first edition of this book in 1996. It therefore seems somewhat ironic that attempting such a definition is no easier now than it was then. Indeed, if anything, the fact of closer union and the increasingly sophisticated political and social mechanisms that have characterised recent developments within the EC seem to have complicated still further the concept of European identity. Writing in the early 1990s, Pierre Sorlin felt able to draw a clear distinction between the diverse and divergent cultural identities of Europe and what he saw as its much more focused economic and political status. On the one hand, he suggested, European culture is a patchwork, a juxtaposition of various conceptions and practices of entertainment, a collection of individual ways of singing, dancing, telling stories, practising sport and having some rest, while, on the other economically and politically, Europe is already a reality (Sorlin 1991:3). Still today, few would disagree with the first statement; indeed divergence and difference are now accepted as central to any concept European culture; however, the second comment remains less persuasive. For all the progress that the EC has made in political and economic spheres, each step towards unification brings new problems, and in many ways the goal is no less hazy and uncertain than a decade ago (Wagstaff 1994: 1).

It is also the case that, far from being forgotten, the suspicion and prejudice that for so long divided the nations of Europe, can still be seen, resurfacing in political wrangling and public manifestations of xenophobia and prejudice. Even the climate of optimism that followed political developments such as the fall of the Berlin wall, glasnost, and perestroika proved short-lived in the face of territorial and material conflict and the unspeakable horrors of ethnic cleansing. Over the last few years there has been worrying evidence of the resurgence of the extreme right across the continent, fuelled by inflated immigration statistics and the age-old fear of the Other, while external conflicts and the threat of escalating global terrorism, instead of uniting Europe, appear to have divided it still further. In other words, even today Europe remains in many ways a fragile construct, an archipelago of differences, an uncomfortable coalition of awkward and ill-matched components whose outlines and composition are constantly changing (Compagnon 1992: 108).