Transnational Cinema

The term “transnational cinema” serves as a guide for us to understand cinema in light of the today’s global reality through mainly geographical, cultural, and political definitions. It is based primarily on the mode of production, such as the directors and actors, who financed it, where it was filmed and is set, and what language it is in. In this most typical sense the term has a fairly basic definition: “transnational” is a cinema that reflects the current global era, and can’t be linked to a single national influence and is associated with several countries. However transnational also takes into account the complex exchanges of economy, politics, culture, and aesthetics. For this reason it is considered a term that encompasses discourses within colonial and identity theories, causing many theorists to make the case for retiring “national cinema” or “international” terms. Essentially it is studying film by accounting for the current day dissolution of borders.

In Durovicová and Newman’s World Cinemas, transnational cinema accounts for the “persistent agency of the state, in a varying but fundamentally legitimizing relationship to the scale of the ‘nation.’” (Durovicová and Newman 2009, 127). Durovicová and Newman make the case for retiring “national cinema” and studying film accounting for the current day dissolution of borders. In the preface, Durovicová specifically dismisses “international cinema” for suggesting a “latent relationship of parity” whereas “transnational” accounts for “the persistent agency of the state, in a varying but fundamentally legitimizing relationship to the scale of the ‘nation’” (Ibid., 127). Particularly in recent years, the term has become widely popular in the field; some of the books that deal with or utilize the term and methodology are as follows: Though this is in no way an exhaustive list of works, we can see the diverse ways in which “transnational” can be applied to a large variety of cinemas.
 * Transnational Cinema, by Elizabeth Ezra and Terry Rowden
 * Transnational Cinema and Ideology: Representing Religion, Identity, and Cultural Myths, by Milja Radovic
 * Transnational Cinema in Europe, Manuel Palacio and Jörg Türschmann
 * Transnational Cinema in a Global North: Nordic Cinema, by Andrew Nestingen
 * Transnational Chinese Cinemas, by Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu

Examples of films that particularly deal with notions of “transnationalism” are The World (Jia Zhangke, 2004) or Babel (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2006). These films aim to show not only the growing impact of international economy and politics, but create an aesthetic or narrative that seeks to comprehend conditions in the present day. While transnationalism can be found to some extent in almost all films created in the last 20 years, it particularly seeks to challenge views of cinema that have a “Western” and “Other” dynamic.

Bibliography

Durovicová, Natasa, and Kathleen E. Newman. ''World Cinemas, Transnational Perspectives. ''New York: Routledge, 2010.

Ezra, Elizabeth, and Terry Rowden. ''Transnational Cinema: The Film Reader. ''London and New York: Routledge, 2006.

Lu, Sheldon Hsiao-peng. ''Transnational Chinese Cinemas. ''Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997.

Nestingen, Andrew. ''Transnational Cinema in a Global North: Nordic Cinema in Transition. ''Detroit: Wayne State University, 2005.  

Palacio, Manuel, and Jörg Türschmann. ''Transnational Cinema in Europe. ''Berlin: ZIT, 2013.

Radovic, Milja. Transnational Cinema and Ideology: Representing Religion, Identity, and Cultural Myths. New York and London: Routledge, 2014.