Cultures of Resistance in the Spanish-Speaking World - Week 10: Third Cinema

All films are political, but films are not all political in the same way.
Some films address unequal access to material and cultural resources, and the hierarchies of legitimacy and status accorded to those differentials. (Wayne, 2001, 1).

The 20th century was a century of social and political revolutions, especially in the Spanish-speaking world.
In the arts, the development of cinema was a major revolution.
Early cinema was raw and documentary-like. The first film ever made was a shot of workers leaving the Lumiere brothers' factory in France.

Cinema gradually developed during the 20th century.
Technological advancements and artistry transformed cinema into a massive global industry.
Due to its cost, film production was primarily in the United States and Europe (Hollywood and Europe), with some production in the USSR.
During the Cold War, Latin American filmmakers wanted cinema to participate in the revolution.
Committed filmmakers formed a movement, wrote a manifesto, and produced films under the name "Tercer Cine" (Third Cinema).

The post-war world was divided into capitalist Western and Soviet Eastern blocs, competing for economic hegemony.
A third bloc of non-aligned countries existed, sympathizing with non-Soviet left-wing ideologies.
Rapid decolonization of the Third World occurred.
The New Latin American Cinema adopted the fierce criticism that European cinema raised against the depersonalization of the film industry.
Amidst insurgent and national liberation movements guided by the Cuban Revolution, filmmakers committed to the left rejected cinema as an industrial product for entertainment.
They rediscovered cinema as an instrument of national liberation in service of a socialist utopia.

Cinema was seen as synonymous with spectacle or entertainment, an object of consumption, satisfying the interests of those who own the means of film production, primarily Americans.
A new historical situation and a new man being born through anti-imperialist struggle demanded a new and revolutionary attitude from filmmakers.
Culture, art, and cinema always respond to the interests of conflicting classes.
In the neocolonial situation, there are two competing conceptions of culture, art, science, and cinema: the dominant one and the national one.
"Our culture", as it drives towards emancipation, will continue to be a culture of subversion, carrying with it an art, a science, and a cinema of subversion.
The anti-imperialist struggle of the peoples of the Third World and their equivalents within the metropolises constitutes the eye of the world revolution.
Third Cinema recognizes in that struggle the most gigantic cultural, scientific, and artistic manifestation of our time, the great possibility of constructing a liberated personality from each people: the decolonization of culture.

Third Cinema has diverse characteristics and styles, generally adhering to a "cine-guerrilla" style of production.
Characterized by the use of portable 16mm cameras (versus the standard 32mm camera of Hollywood).
Cinema is totally auteur-driven, often self-financed and produced.
Projections take place outside the commercial circuit (in universities, social clubs, political events, rural regions).
Strong images (misery, violence, hunger), violent juxtapositions, 'imperfect' filming.
Plays with the limits of genre: documentary; cinema verite; surrealism; realism/neo-realism; fiction.

Questions posed include: What do you think of Third Cinema as a vehicle for revolution and education of the masses? What a priori problems can you think of with this cinema? Why do the working classes go to the cinema?

Comments on the protagonist, Yalitza Aparicio, included both praise and criticism regarding her acting and nomination for awards.

In what way can Roma be considered (or not considered) as contemporary Third Cinema?
Mazierska argues that Roma flattens the oppression of women across classes, promoting preservation of the status quo, and cannot be feminist because it offers no avenue for liberation.
The beauty of the image and the virtuosity of the camera function as reactionary distraction from the real class issues at hand.
Questions posed include: What do you think of the assertion that Roma promotes the status quo because it shows the oppression of all women as equal? What do you think about the assertion that refined and virtuous cinematography is "reactionary" and distracts from the class struggle?

A more subtle and interesting analysis involves an intersectional analysis of Cleo's social position in terms of class, race, and gender, and the consequences of this position on her identity and life.
Is Roma reactionary and a defender of the status quo? Is it true that there is no difference between the situation of Cleo and Sofía, for example? Do you find it a politically useful film or not?