National Cinema

“How useful is it to approach film texts through the category of national cinema?”

The concept of "national cinema" has been vastly discussed by film critics and scholars due to its
complex nature and the intricacy of defining a film's nationality. There is not a sole globally
accepted definition of national cinema. Is it defined by the nationality of the film production
company and the distributors? Or is there a text-based approach in which national cinema is
associated with the story the feature presents? (Higson,1989). Despite the ambiguity the term
may bring, the concept of national cinema has been utilised as a proclamation of national identity
and a "means of asserting national autonomy in the face of Hollywood's international domination"
(Higson,1989: p37). This essay will examine the relationship between nation and film, and how the
concept of national cinema through film texts provides a unique perspective of a nation's political,
social and historical context, employing Cuban cinema as a practical example of the discussion.
Firstly, this paper will analyse the term "national cinema" and explore how national cinemas have
used film as a form of resistance to Hollywood's cinematographic dominance. Cuban cinema will
then be examined through the films Lucía (1968) by Humberto Solás and The Death of a
Bureaucrat (1966) by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, primarily focusing on post-revolutionary cinema.
Cuban cinema is inexorably linked to the country's cultural politics. It is considered a synonym of
the revolution; the nation's way to portray a revolution that drastically changed a country's social
and political history. Through Cuban cinema as the primary example of the discussion, this essay
will then analyse the efficacy of approaching film texts through the category of national cinema.
Finally, the critical debate regarding the ambiguity of the notion of "national cinema" will be
discussed and how this concept impacts or shapes film texts.

The notion of "national cinema" has intrinsically been regarded as a matter that provoked
ambiguity due to a lack of an ultimate definition of what decided a film's nationality. This was
further problematised due to how "economically and culturally intertwined the film industry has
become" (Vieira, 2014: p1229). When talking about cinema in national terms, it has also created
great confusion due to cinema’s international nature, perhaps the most international artform since
it began (Chanan, 2011). At the start of cinema, the nationality of their films produced and their
respective production companies was not especially relevant. During the first years of cinema,
before the process of leasing features to distributors was ultimately established, exhibitors would
directly buy reels of film and screen them, ignoring their national origin (Vitali and Willemen, 2006).
However, the question of national cinema started to emerge as part of a discussion about the
connection between two different types of "internationalism": Hollywood's international
dominance and the "counter-cinema avant-garde" which defied Hollywood's appeal (Elsaesser,
2013). Gradually the idea of "nation" became a focus of analysis and the debate around the term
of "national cinema" intensified as the concept fed on contradicting approaches. Firstly, it
attempted to address national identity to audiences, concurrently with "more sociological
attempts to critically identify what was typical about domestic mainstream cinema and the
ideology of its narratives" (Elsaesser, 2013), in parallel to a cinema which originated from the
avant-garde and attempted to resist Hollywood's hegemony. This raises the following question:
Does the category of national cinema function as a mode of engagement with the nation? Or did
the concept evolve into a defiant reaction to Hollywood's global dominance?

In the book, "National Identity" (1999) Susan Hayward, who employs French cinema as a primary
example, describes cinema as a tool which operates as a cultural expression for the nation and
speaks for it. She considers that a "national cinema" is inevitably diminished to "a series of
enunciations that reverberate around two fundamentals concepts: identity and
difference" (Hayward, 1999: p93). To Hayward (1999), national cinema (in this case, French) is a
subject that should be investigated by analysing a country's cinematographic history and the
idiosyncratic film practices and discourses which they employ. To professor Philip Schlesinger
(2000) Hayward's view is mostly influenced by the French state's profoundly evident and long-
established defiance to Hollywood and the country's "self-conscious predilection for fashioning
the history of the nation" (Schlesinger, 2000: p25). Considering Hayward's argument, national
cinema is significantly stressed as a term that needs to be comprehended as a nation's cultural
device and examined through a country's film stylistics presented in the output. This argument
provides a perspective in which, when approaching film texts, it becomes especially favorable to
understand them through the notion of “national cinema” due to the cultural perspective it gives.
Furthermore, as Hayward has stressed, national cinemas are likely to make use of similar
cinematic techniques which facilitates the audience’s understanding of movies. Nonetheless, as
Schlesigner (2000) suggests, Hayward's view neglects the national cinema's financial side,
including production, distribution, and common movie-making elements.

Based on the same terrain, when attempting to interpret national cinema, the term “national
identity” has persistently been associated with it, as it is inherent to the category. National cinema
attempts to portray and represent a nation’s identity through difference, to exemplify a country’s
history and culture. It is the differentiation, not only of history or culture but recurrent use of
genres and stylistic approaches, which determines and establishes a national cinema’s identity
and separation from other national cinemas (Higson, 1989). Higson (1995) claims that national
cinema is substantially determined through a series of features, such as the frequent use of
genres, which compel the community to feel identified, thus reinforcing their national identity:

“Individual films will often serve to represent the national to itself, as a nation. Inserted into
the general framework of the cinematic experience, such films will construct imaginary
bonds which work to hold the peoples of a nation together as a community by dramatising
their current fears, anxieties, pleasures and aspirations.” (Higson, 1995: p7 cited
Schlesinger, 2000: p26).

As Higson argues, it is through this depiction of a nation’s shared feelings and experiences which
differentiate them from other cultures and strengthen a sense of nationhood. However, national
cinemas struggle with Hollywood’s enduring dominance, which they persist in defying by defining
themselves in relation to Hollywood. According to Schlesinger (2000), Hollywood represents a
significant dilemma; excatly because of its accomplished and versatile “capacity to enter the
national space” and not be viewed as “other” due to the acclaim and reputation of its features
(Schlesinger, 2000: p26). This not only reinforces Hollywood’s role as the most powerful and
influential cinema, but highlights the strong sense of rivalry which national cinemas have
developed throughout the years in order to be regarded as more than “other”. However,
Hollywood functions as more than “one term” within a organisation of “equally weighted
differences” (Higson, 1989: p39) it has gradually become an intrinsic part of entertainment for the
majority of countries; an elemental and “naturalised” component of national culture, and most
importantly, it has become “one of those cultural traditions which feed into the so-called national
cinemas” (Ibid: p39).

When discussing film production, national cinemas have been widely compared to Hollywood's
leading economic production. Through notable financial strategies, Hollywood has gained
international success and a consolidated position in global culture. To Veira (2014), American film
culture has mainly been criticised for exaggerating the "globalised nature of contemporary
filmmaking" and for progressively overlooking national filmic traditions (Vieira, 2014: p1230).
Considering Hollywood's continual rejection to national cinema's customs, this has led to a
prevalent view in which is believed that national cinemas play a marginal role within cinematic
context. To Schelinger (2000) for national cinema to become nationally successful, it must gain
international recognition as well; in other words, it must attain Hollywood's international standard
(Schelinger, 2000). However, he considers it is practically impossible for a national cinema
industry to achieve such success on a global scale due to the economic production it would
demand. Nonetheless, it is pertinent to highlight Schelinger's (2000) focus on Hollywood's
cinematic economic output rather than global contemporary culture.

Considering America's consistent rejection to national cinema's cinematic cultures, Hollywood

has achieved universal filmic hegemony and experienced years of a golden age in movie-making
but lacked cultural exchange. It has gradually grown to be isolated and disconnected from the
contemporary international culture and not "gained aesthetically from the growing
reciprocity" (Vieira, 2014: p1231). The multicultural representations of countries provided by
national cinemas have increasingly benefited and favoured not only the film industry but the
world's general understanding of different cultures and film texts. By ignoring the category of
national cinemas and merely focusing on the Anglophone, it perpetuates the long-established
Hollywood dominance and blatantly dismisses a deeper understanding of other cultures. As
previously mentioned, national cinema has been regarded as a tool that operates as a nation's
cultural expression and speaks for it. When analysed, the term also allows the interpretation of
"common traits through a variety of different cinematic texts" which consequently decipher the
authentic spirit of a nation (Farahmand, 2010: p264). A truthful example of a national cinema that
employs film as a form to portray the culture and the true essence of the nation is Cuban cinema.

During the 1950s, a new kind of cinema started to emerge in Latin America, a cinema which was
predominantly devoted to the “denunciation of misery and celebration of protest”, however, Cuba
became the first country in Latin America where this new cinema “both popular and critical” was
initially envisioned (Chanan, 1996: p427-429). Less than three months after it took command in
1959, the Castro government constructed the foundations of a film industry which would serve
the demands of a Revolutionary Cuba by setting up the Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria
Cinematográficos (ICAIC) commonly known in English as the Cuban Film Institute. Through
ICAIC’s vision, Cuban cinema rapidly started to cultivate an “aesthetic identity” primarily aligned
with the social and political “developments of the early Revolutionary period” (Ebrahim, 2007:
p107).

Through the establishment of institutions like ICAIC, the Cuban society started to experience
extensive support amongst the intellectuals and artists. Cinema had only been second to music
as the most beloved form of entertainment, and its popularity promptly catapulted ICAIC to the
heart of Cuban cultural politics. The Cuban Film Institute documented not only significant
historical or social events but also the lifestyles and distinctive personalities of the Cuban society;
they wanted to film diverse elements about Cuban life and project what was Cuban about those
elements. In his article “Cuban Cinema” (1980) Kalamu ya Salaam focuses on the revolutionary
aspect of Cuban cinema and how Cuba has created an industry which consistently asserts the
relevance of revolutionary work and legitimally belongs to Cuban people:

“Cuban cinema is a cinema of the Cuban people and their revolution and it is not a
“plaything” of an elite whose purpose is to either amass more profits or to amuse
themselves (…) Cuban cinema is a partisan proponent of the Cuban revolution. This
cinema not only commits itself to projecting the revolution, but also attempts to
emotionally move its audience to make a commitment to further the revolution” (Salaam,
1980: p85-86).

Here, Salaam (1980) highlights the importance of the dialogue established between film and the
Cuban society. In this context, Cuban cinema does not employ politics as a subtext which can be
neglected or included; it is intrinsic to the industry and an ongoing dialogue with the Cuban
people. Cinema has essentially been utilised as a form of commitment instead of being part of the
entertainment business; it was no longer about making or showing films but instead a cultural
device employed to speak to the nation. Therefore, Cuban cinema is an impeccable example of a
national cinema which rejects a profit-based industry and chooses to employ film not only to
represent the nation but to speak to it.

Considering the importance of revolutionary work in Cuban cinema, it is pertinent to reiterate how
this kind of national cinema has rejected and resisted Hollywood’s hegemony. In the article “For
an Imperfect Cinema” (1969) written by Cuban filmmaker Julio García Espinosa, Espinosa
commences declaring: “Nowadays perfect cinema-technically and artistically masterful- is almost
always reactionary cinema” (1969: p71). Hollywood’s films fit the idea of “Perfect” cinema- a
cinema which asserts a specific “conformist ideology” and satisfies the viewer through the
aesthetic and glamorous camerawork (Davies, 1997: p346). However, Espinosa made use of the
term “Imperfect” to define a creative cinema which persistently challenged the viewer and “the
mass culture”, denouncing as well a conformist film industry (Davies, 1997: p346). It aimed to
depict, without any form of judgement, the process of the problems experienced by the people
who struggled and encouraging viewers to rethink and feel, consequently creating a critical
audience. According to filmmaker Alfredo Guevara who also was the Director of ICAIC, it is the
first duty of revolutionary work to transform the public’s perception and consciousness about
themselves, for the audience to become more active and more critical. Through the category of
national cinema, we interpret Cuban cinema as revolutionary work; without the historical and
political background the notion of “national cinema” provides, it would not be likely that
audiences would fully comprehend the meaning of Cuban film texts.

An example of this kind of revolutionary work which assembles the notion of "Imperfect Cinema"
is the film Lucía, made in 1968 by filmmaker Humberto Solás. The movie is divided into three
separate segments; the story of three different women who share the name Lucía. Each segment
is set in a relevant historical period of Cuba: the 1895 Cuban War of Independence against Spain,
the 1932 rebellion against Gerardo Machado's dictatorship and the difficult years after the
revolution in the 60s. The arduous lives of these women become an allegory of the harsh political
reality of Cuba. The film explores the slow and tedious progress of Cuba's history through the
stories of the different Lucías and depicts the Cuban people's struggle to free themselves from
colonial subjugation. Lucía is considered one of the landmarks of Cuban revolutionary cinema and
received several international awards, including the International Film Critic's Prize and the grand
prize at the Moscow Film Festival (Taylor, 1974). Several critics focused on the portrayal of gender
in the film and women's political consciousness; New York Times film critic Nora Sayre described
the feature as "the best discussion of equality (and inequality) I've seen on screen" (Sayre, 1974).
On the other hand, other critics emphasised the stages of the historical progression of a country
which transitioned from "European colony" to "socialist revolution" (Taylor, 1974: p53). Lucía
manages to challenge the viewers to rethink their conceptions about gender and equality in a
tremendously chavinistic Cuba at the time, as well as demanding awareness of a revolution which
shaped a nation.

In an interview with the Cuban magazine Bohemia, the director stated that the connections
between the three stories are "a woman's presence, a woman's attitude during a specific period
of history and her relationship with a man" but most importantly of all, the depiction of the
decolonisation process (Taylor, 1974: p53). Through the sympathy the characters evoke, Solás
cleverly employed these as instruments for political awareness about Cuba’s liberation from
subjugation. Furthermore, Solás purposely gave different social classes to each character: the
first Lucía belongs to the aristocratic bourgeoisie, the 1932 Lucía is a daughter of the "white,
Americanized, neocolonial bourgeoisie" who joins the revolution against General Gerardo
Machado's dictatorship and the last Lucía is a peasant in "the classless society of Revolutionary
Cuba" (Mraz, 1975: 6). By these established social distinctions between the characters, the
director aims to reconstruct the portrayed economic materialism and bourgeoisie into a space for
growth and social investigation.

However, by exploring the significance of political consciousness in Lucía, this raises a question:
would audiences fully understand the significance of Solá’s feature without previously
acknowledging Cuba’s history? Is the spectator’s comprehension of Cuban film texts enhanced
by looking at it through the category of national cinema?

When analysing Lucía through the notion of “national cinema”, the feature becomes a legitimate
example of Revolutionary Cuban cinema and a vehicle to incite political awareness. Professor
Julianna Burton remarked: “post-revolutionary Cuban cinema strives to unite cultural expression
and political consciousness”. Lucía successfully manages, through its ingenious narrative to blend
the personal and the political, in order to evoke and strengthen political reactions “during periods
of revolutionary upheaval”(Porton). Humberto Solás masterpiece not only embodies the essence
of what is known as “Imperfect cinema” for challenging and transforming the audience into a
critical one but also for renouncing technical perfection yet achieving stylistic virtuosity.
Nonetheless, the feature aroused critcism and was accussed of Europeanisation. In the article
“Lucia: History and Film in Revolutionary Cuba” John.G Mraz (1975) identifies the different
European influences in Solás’s movie. He states the Cuban director owed much to European
directors like Pasolini, Bergman, Buñuel and especially Visconti; influences which derived from
“Sola’s own bourgeois orientation, manifested in his preference for Lucia 1932 about which he
admits his interest was the greatest” (Mraz, 1975: p10). Undoubtedly, Lucía is perhaps Solá’s
most internationally recognised film, his European influences are especially noticeable in the first
two segments of the film whereas the last Lucía gives a sense of “otherness” not only for the
cinematic techniques used, in which close-ups are much more employed and long shots are
limited, but also for the characters. Perhaps it is Solás’s awareness of the need to find a new form
of movie-making to depic a revolutionary reality.
At the time, Lucía was probably the most expensive film to be produced in Cuba, and it became
Solá’s most internationally recognised movie. Even though it achieved several awards and
outstanding reviews both from national and international critics, Lucía was first released in Cuba
in 1968. Still, it wasn’t screened in the United States until 1974. Humberto Solás speaks the
language of the revolution and social change in his film, and it successfully managed to reach a
bigger audience. Nonetheless, it is pertinent to examine the work of another revolutionary
filmmaker who also blatantly spoke to the nation through his film texts: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea.

Tomás Gutiérrez Alea is undoubtedly, especially for moviegoers outside Cuba, equivalent to the
best and most revolutionary Cuban cinema has offered. Deeply committed to revolutionary
filmmaking, Alea cofounded ICAIC and directed around a dozen fiction features, including the
prominent Cuban masterpiece Memories of Undervelopment (1968), and the fanciful satire Death
of a Bureaucrat (1966). Due to Alea´s Memories of Undervelopment outstanding success, Death of
a Bureaucrat was significantly overshadowed, as both films were screened years later in the
United States. Death of a Bureaucrat ’s aim is notably dissimilar from Lucía’s objective as a
feature. Death of a Bureaucrat is a dark humored comedy which explores the adamant “legacy of
the bourgeois society in a revolutionary Cuban context” (West, 2010: p18). The feature recounts
the unlucky attempts of a man who goes through administrative obstacles to try to get his dead
uncle’s union card back, which was buried with him. The film is filled with inside jokes and
references connected to the Cuban reality at the time, however, the director does notably employ
comedy as a resource to make some important points in which he critiques bureaucracy.

Both Lucía and Death of a Bureaucrat were largely influenced by prominent European directors
such as Buñuel, Bergman or Pasolini, however, both features managed to reflect Cuba’s identity
and represent a nation’s struggle. While Lucía is a synonym to Cuba’s revolutionary history and an
attempt to transform the audience into critical and politically aware spectators, Death of a
Bureaucrat has become instrinsic to Cuba’s society; a cultural device which speaks to Cuban
people and mocks the absurdities of the time. To film critic B.Ruby Rich, Death of a Bureaucrat is
a period piece due to the film’s references: “For Gutiérrez Alea, Death of a Bureaucrat, was an
exhumation and homage to a kind of cinema formerly loved to an authenthic Cuban cinema. For
us it has become an historical view of a certain juncture in Cuban social history” (Birch, 1979).
Alea’s film is a profound satire of the bureacratic problems in Cuba at the time and its risks in an
inceptive socialist society; it condemns and ridicules regulations. When comparing Lucía and
Death of a Bureacrat it becomes evident they both deeply represent Cuba as a national cinema,
as both features reflect the country’s social and historical struggles and speak to the nation in
different matters. Lucía rapidly became a landmark of Cuban cinema and of the revolution
whereas Alea´s movie is undeniably a satirical expression which belongs to the Cuba of the
1960s; it does not portray a political or social revolution, but deeply reflects Cuba´s national
identity due to the depiction of shared feelings and experiences. In the context of national cinema,
it is relevant to consider that Death of a Bureaucrat is a movie which despite the European
influences is heaviy filled with Cuban references. This consequently leads to a compelled
interpretation of Alea´s film through the category of national cinema, in order to fully receive the
film’s intended message.

In the article “Exhuming Death of a Bureaucrat” Linda Craig stresses Alea’s inclination to critique
and discuss the conditions of the Cuban state:

“We see that particularly in his later films Strawberry and Chocolate (co-directed with Juan Carlos
Tabío, 1992) and Guantanamera, a critique of the cuban state is a central theme. In Death of a
Bureaucrat, Alea’s critique was not an attack on the revolutionary government, but rather an
almost idealistic exploration of possible or potential shortcomings” (Craig, 2008; p524).

However, Alea, following the characteristic non-established guidelines of revolutionary cinema, is

not the only Cuban filmmaker whose work is primarily employed as a form of social criticism. The
film De Cierta Manera (1974) directed by Afro-Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez is an outstanding
example of the continuous and “systematic marginalization of the poor” (Veciana, 2018). Gómez
was the first woman to direct with ICAIC but her career cut short due to her premature death at
31. Gómez was predominantly interested in reflecting women’s lives, the treatment of the poor
and the revolution.

As previously mentioned, to Susan Hayward a national cinema reverberates around two ideas:
identity and nation. After analysing Lucía and Death of a Bureacrat, it becomes evident how these
two ideas resonate quite loadly around Cuban cinema. Cuban cinema is a synonym of revolution,
that reinforces the “other” factor. And then through cuban cinema, the nation feels identified…
“national identity”. It is a cinema which was essentially made so that it belonged to the Cuban
people.

“National cinema is significant stressed as a term that needs to be comprehended as a nation’s

cultural device and examined through a country’s film stylistics presented in the output.””It is the
differentiation not only of hisotry and culture, but also of stylistic approaches which determines a
national cinema’s identity and separates it from other national cinemas. National cinemas attempt
to represent a nation’s identity through difference. It is through the depcition of shared feelings
and experiences which strengthen a sense of nationhood. Cuban cinema’s aesthetic identity is
very much prevalent in the films. Reinforcing the sense of differentiation.

In conclusion, as Hollywood blockbusters continue to lead the film genre, it is pertinent to

remmeber the power of national cinemas.

Her first and only feature-length film, De Cierta Manera (1974), strikingly mixes documentary
elements and fiction, fleshing out some weighty ideas on race, gender, and the systematic
marginalization of the poor. In De Cierta Manera, Gómez clearly lays out, in an almost academic
manner, historical facts that directly lead to some disenfranchisement of Cuba’s poorest citizens,
tracing some of the country’s systematic injustices back to the island’s colonial history and
slavery. Shooting on 16mm, and often handheld, Gómez was unconcerned with production value
aesthetics; instead, she opts for a more raw, intimate representation of poor neighborhoods. This
anti-elitist, more populist approach to filmmaking is something that filmmaker Julio García
Espinosa would advocate for in his notorious 1969 manifesto, For an Imperfect Cinema. In 1974,
Alea along with Espinosa stepped in to finish the project after Gómez’s premature death at age
31.”

Bibliography:

- Higson, A., 1989. The Concept of National Cinema. Screen, [online] 30(4), pp.36-47.
Available at: <https://academic-oup-com.gold.idm.oclc.org/screen/article/
30/4/36/1614862>

- Vieira, E., 2014. National Cinema and Intertextuality in Alejandro Amenábar: From
Hollywood to Julio Cortázar. Bulletin of Spanish Studies, [online] 91(8), pp.1229-1231.
Available at: <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14753820.2014.920659?
needAccess=true>.

- Vitali, V. and Willemen, P., 2006. Theorising National Cinema. London: BFI.

- Elsaesser, T., 2013. ImpersoNations: National Cinema, Historical Imaginaries and

New Cinema Europe. Mise au point, [online] (5). Available at: <https://
journals.openedition.org/map/1480>.

- Hayward, S., 1999. Questions of National Cinema, in Ed Cameron, K., 1999. National
Identity. Exeter: Intellect, p.93.

- Schlesinger, P., 2000. The Sociological Scope of “National Cinema”, in Hjort, M. and
MacKenzie, S., n.d. Cinema And Nation. London: Routledge, pp.25-26.

- Farahmand, A., 2010. Disentangling the International Festival Circuit: Genre and Iranian
Cinema, in Galt, R. and Schoonover, K., 2010. Global Art Cinema. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, p.264.

- Chanan, M., 1996. New Cinemas in Latin America, in Nowell-Smith, G., 1996. The
Oxford History of World Cinema. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p.427-429.

- Ebrahim, H., 2007. Sarita and the Revolution: Race and Cuban Cinema. European
Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies | Revista Europea de Estudios
Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, (82), p.107.

- Salaam, K., 1980. Cuban Cinema. The Black Scholar, [online] 11(3), p.85-90.
Available at: <https://www-jstor-org.gold.idm.oclc.org/stable/41067895?
seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents>.

- García Espinosa, J., 1969. For an Imperfect Cinema. Jump Cut (20) p.71

- Davies, C., 1997. Modernity, masculinity and imperfect cinema in Cuba. Screen,
[online] 38(4), pp.345-359. Available at: <https://academic-oup-com.gold.idm.oclc.org/
screen/article/38/4/345/1649374>.

- Mraz, J., 1993. Absolved by History: On the Aesthetics and Ideology of History in the
Cuban Film Institute. Filmhistoria online [online] (3) p.6-10