Chapter 13 - Social Context and Film Style: National, International, and Transnational Cinema

Social context

The society, history, politics, and culture around a film.

Film style

The way a film looks, sounds, and is organized.

National cinema

Films grouped by the country where they are produced.

International cinema

Films that gain attention beyond one country.

Transnational cinema

Films that go beyond one single national identity.

Hollywood dominance

When Hollywood became the strongest international film industry.

Classical Hollywood style

A clear, smooth style focused on story and audience understanding.

Classical narrative

A story with clear cause and effect, goals, and closure.

Clarity

The viewer understands space, time, and events.

Unity

All parts of the story connect clearly through cause and effect.

Goal-oriented character

A character who has a clear goal and takes action.

Closure

An ending where loose ends are solved.

Romantic union

A common ending where a couple comes together.

Invisible style

Filmmaking that feels smooth so viewers focus on the story, not the technique.

Unobtrusive craftsmanship

Skillful filmmaking that does not call attention to itself.

Continuity editing

Editing that makes time, space, and action feel smooth and clear.

Classical mise-en-scène

A realistic world that supports the story.

Classical cinematography

Simple camera work that avoids flashy techniques.

Dialogue in Hollywood

Speech is important because it explains character and cause and effect.

International art cinema

A film tradition that rejects Hollywood’s simple stories and invisible style.

Art cinema

A cinema style focused on complex characters, subjectivity, and artistic form.

Complex character

A character with unclear motives, feelings, or goals.

Subjectivity

A character’s personal thoughts, feelings, or inner experience.

Art cinema style

Bold techniques that show the film as art.

Art cinema narrative

A story that may be slow, open, unclear, or not goal-driven.

Breathless example

An art cinema film that challenges Hollywood style.

Jean-Luc Godard

A French New Wave director of Breathless.

Michel in Breathless

A car thief who imitates Hollywood gangsters but is not a typical hero.

Disjointed narrative

A story that does not follow clear logic or smooth cause and effect.

Fragmented style

A broken or uneven style using interruptions and jump cuts.

Jump cut

An edit that skips forward in time and breaks smooth continuity.

Documentary-like cinematography

Camera work that feels natural and spontaneous.

Handheld camera

A camera style that feels free, shaky, or realistic.

Natural lighting

Light from real locations instead of controlled studio lighting.

Italian Neorealism

A postwar Italian film movement focused on poor and working-class life.

Postwar cinema

Films made after World War II.

Roberto Rossellini

Important Italian Neorealist director.

Vittorio De Sica

Important Italian Neorealist director.

Luchino Visconti

Important Italian Neorealist director.

Cesare Zavattini

Theorist and screenwriter connected to Neorealism.

Neorealist protagonist

A poor or working-class main character.

Location shooting

Filming in real places instead of studio sets.

Long take

A shot that lasts a long time without cutting.

Nonprofessional actor

A person acting in a film who is not a trained actor.

Vernacular dialogue

Everyday speech used by ordinary people.

Grainy black-and-white

An imperfect black-and-white image texture.

Unobtrusive editing

Editing that feels simple and not flashy.

Social purpose

Using film to show real social problems.

Third Cinema

A political cinema focused on liberation and decolonization.

Fernando Solanas

Argentine filmmaker who helped define Third Cinema.

Octavio Getino

Argentine filmmaker who helped define Third Cinema.

First Cinema

Commercial, industrial Hollywood cinema.

Second Cinema

International author-driven art cinema.

Decolonization

The process of resisting or undoing colonial control.

Liberation

Freedom from oppression or colonial power.

Collective social experience

A focus on groups and people rather than one hero.

Mass movement

Many people working together for political change.

The Battle of Algiers

A Third Cinema film about Algerian resistance to French colonial rule.

Newsreel aesthetic

A realistic style that looks like news footage.

Tone of truth

A feeling that the film shows reality honestly.

Colonial rule

Control of one people or country by another power.

Revolutionary

A person fighting for political change or freedom.

Insurgent

A rebel fighting against a government or occupying power.

Colonizer

A power or group that controls another people or land.

Algerian independence

Algeria becoming free from French colonial rule in 1962.

Fourth Cinema

Films made by Indigenous peoples.

Barry Barclay

The filmmaker who coined the term Fourth Cinema.

Indigenous peoples

Original peoples of a land whose cultures existed before modern states.

Aboriginal peoples

Another term for Indigenous peoples.

First Nations peoples

Indigenous peoples, especially in Canada and similar contexts.

Invader cinemas

Barclay’s term for cinemas tied to modern nation-states from an Indigenous view.

Homeland

Land connected to a people’s culture, history, and identity.

Ngati example

A Fourth Cinema film about a Māori community in New Zealand.

Māori community

Indigenous people of New Zealand.

National identity

The idea that a film or person belongs to one nation.

Nation-state

A modern country with political borders and government.

National values

Beliefs or ideas a nation wants to show about itself.

Film as national mirror

Film representing a nation to its own people.

Transnational identity

Identity shaped by more than one country or culture.

Unstable home

A situation where characters do not fully belong to one place.

Migration

Movement from one place or country to another.

War

Conflict that can move people across borders and shape identity.

Diaspora

People living outside their original homeland.

Exile

Being forced or pushed away from home.

Connection and separation

Feeling linked to many places but fully belonging to none.

Multiple national elements

When a film uses different countries in production, story, language, or cast.

Snowpiercer example

A transnational film that is hard to define as belonging to one country.

Bong Joon-ho

South Korean director of Snowpiercer.

Le Transperceneige

The French graphic novel that inspired Snowpiercer.

International cast

Actors from different countries in one film.

Global world

A world connected across national borders.

Class division

Separation of people by social and economic status.

Unstable identity

Identity that is not fixed to one nation, culture, or home.