the following is an essay i wrote for my middle eastern film class... to be edited
- “The principal characteristic of Third Cinema is really not so much where it is made, or even who makes it, but rather the ideology it espouses and the consciousness it displays. The Third Cinema is that cinema of the Third World which stands opposed to imperialism and class oppression in all their ramifications and manifestations.” (Gabriel, Third Cinema in the Third World, pg. 2) Assess the usefulness and tenability of Gabriel’s definition and assertion in light of the cinemas of the Middle East, past and present.
Appearance and Reality in “Third Cinema”
In the early 1980s a new generation of rock bands was exploring an entirely new medium. This medium was called the ‘music video’ and it was to be broadcast easily and without interruption on a cable television station in the US by the name of MTV. A part British-part multinational politically charged band by the name of The Clash seized the opportunity and made arguably the most successful music video of all time. The name of this video is ‘Rock the Casbah.’ It depicts a ‘Shareef’ and a Rabbi dancing together in what appears to be a middle eastern desert as military jets, presumably Israeli pass by and the band rocks out in front of an oil rig. The song has been cited as being used as a rallying cry for the US Air Force in the First Persian Gulf War (Songfacts.com). How this song was made and what its intentions were are almost a mystery at this point but the truth is that it was not filmed in the middle east but in Austin, Texas. The disconnect between the message and the message maker is anything less than illusory. This historic media moment cannot be overstated but really the question is begged …what was the point?
Precisely because this question is asked in the first place (and it is not limited to one rock music video), Gabriel’s definition is implicitly and inherently problematic in relation to the media it defines. This paper will demonstrate that because the media itself is explored in all too many works of Middle Eastern, North African, and/or ‘Third Cinema,’ the explicit parameters of the definition limits its ability to provide a lens for dialog and/or discourse.
To reference literature inside a work of literature for the purpose of promulgating a dialog in society is nothing new at least in the Western Hemisphere. Of course one of the most widely cited example is in Shakespeare’s Hamlet where the title character states “The play is the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king” (Act 2 scene 2). This has obvious ramifications for a geographical entity that has been never been so littered in the conflict b/w appearance and reality with political and communication systems in constant flux.
Cinema of the Middle East and North Africa has thus been presented with a historic opportunity to explore the conscience of these ‘kings’. In Unthinking Eurocentrism, Ella Shohat and Robert Stam explore the implications of this opportunity: “many of the Third World films conduct a struggle on two fronts, at once aesthetic and political, synthesizing revisionist historiography with formal innovation.” By commenting on the medium itself and how in the past the medium has presented a revisionist history, many films of the ‘Third World’ have explained how this operates.
In West Beyrouth, there is an exchange between the protagonist of the story and his father about the efforts of unveiling these misconceptions. It should be noted that the protagonist of the film has a penchant for documentation and is willing to across a ‘no man’s land’ in order to simply get film. This exchange and the entire crux of the film elucidated the frustration experienced by film makers. Lizbet Malkmus and Roy Armes remark on this in Arab and African Film Making: “ In much of Africa and the Arab world there is quite literally no system to work outside. Film-makers operate in a context where there is no pre-existing tradition of film-making, no standard procedure for organizing production or conventional source of film finance, no pool of experienced technical or acting talent, and virtually no appropriate models for a film’s dramaturgy or visual style” (61).
The confusion in narrative that arises as a result is most blatant in Chronicle of a Disappearance, a film that could be interpreted as deliberately confusing. The film is littered with irony on so many levels that is quite unclear as to what is going on. Perhaps remarking on the absence of the art form itself, the post-modern film presents a deliberately unclear objective. Motifs seem to exist in the vacuum of the media itself and every sort of observed dialog seems to be quite literally lost in translation. In the article “Palestine: The Presence of the Absence,” Hamid Dabashi remarks on this…
Making a case for the cause and consequences of Palestinian cinema as one of the most promising national cinemas cannot stop at the doorsteps of simply proposing that its local perils and possibilities are now transformed into a global event. The proposition itself is paradoxical and it is through this paradox that it needs to be articulated and theorized. How exactly is it that a stateless nation generates a national cinema – and once it does, what kind of national cinema is it?
The irony in this film isn’t magical realism however, it is painfully just real. Lacking a linear narrative, lacking conventional dialog, and implicitly versed in exile, the film demonstrates the frustration at documenting misconceptions. All it can do and does is present things that are all too real… examples include a failing religious icon shop, a very westernized Palestinian machismo, and French presumed academics remarking on the bloodshed while they experience the security of a Jerusalem luncheon hour.
A group of people that are familiar with this film-maker’s expatriation are the Kurds, a cross-sectioned group of individuals depicted as such in the film Turtles Can Fly. This movie makes very potent references to the work of literature Lord of the Flies. The similarities are all too blatant- they exist explicitly in the title, a young male protagonist that is successful in the manipulation of his peers, and the hubris that leads to tragic consequences. The Kurds, a nation long without an official state, are a very appropriate group to depict in this context.
The aptly titled protagonist ‘satellite’ is a male longing for the free flow of information and possessing the needs of any Citizen Kane protégé. In the same way it is unclear as to what “Third World,” really want, it is unclear as to what the boy wants. Is it an American life or is the cessation of ignorance? Either way, it is quite apparent that he has an unambiguous obsession with media in general and stops at nothing to gain it. In this sense he is an articulation of widely held stereotype that has characterized Jews in recent history. This stereotype is that the “Jews control the media.” While this stereotype is no mystery, linking this obsession for media draws some clear similarities between the Kurds and Jews: they have long people a nation without a state.
In “Rock the Casbah,” as military jets fly over head and as a Shareef and a Rabbi dance in concert, a longing for a message is apparent. The historic opportunity presented by cinema has made it difficult to catch the conscience of kings, but at least the message exists. The Shareef may not ‘like it’ and may not think that is ‘kosher,’ but surely it is a challenge to the status quo. In a decade so defined by Western involvement in the Middle East, the new era of scholarship and understanding presented by film is relatively unprecedented. While exploring media inside media is nothing new, the mode is different and time, by definition, is as well. Thus the definition of the medium limits those who promulgate and disseminate its message. Not so coincidentally, this frustration has manifested itself in Middle Eastern films as of late. To ask whether or not a work such as “Rock the Casbah” is Third Cinema only proves to beside the point. It was of course filmed in Texas.
Works Cited
Chronicle of a Dissapearance.
Dreams of a Nation On Palestinian Cinema. New York: Verso, 2006.
Malkmus, Lizbeth. Arab and African film making. London: Zed Books, 1991.
Song Meanings at Songfacts. 14 Apr. 2009
Turtles Can Fly.
West Beyrouth.
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