Juan Monroy — History of Film: Latin American Third Cinema

First World
- capitalist nations
- Western Europe, US, Australia, Japan
Second World
- socialist nations
- USSR, Eastern Europe, China
Bandung Conference, 1949
- Birth of “Third World” movement
  - nations not aligned with “First” or “Second” world
  - mostly (post) colonial nations
  - concentrated in Asia, Africa, and Latin America
Third World tropes
- Colonialism
  - colonized
  - neocolonized
  - decolonized
- “Minorities”
  - political
  - economic
- Descriptive Vocabulary
  - backward
  - primitive
  - underdeveloped
Third World Revolutionary Discourse
- United in Revolution against Western imperialism and neocolonialism
- Franz Fanon: “Colonial minds structured by Western Imperialism”
- Mao: “People of the world unite and defeat the US aggressors and all their running dogs!”
- Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa and Latin America, Havana, 1966
Third World revolutions
- Cuban Revolution, 1959
- Red China split with USSR, 1960
- Algerian independence, 1962
- Palestinian Liberation Organization, 1964
- Ho Chi Minh National Liberation Front, 1960s
Cuban Revolution 1959
- expropriated land
- executed Batista government officials
- nationalized economy
- became a Soviet satellite/client state
ICAIC: Cuban Institute of Film Art and Industry
- center of Cuban film culture
- film archive
- film journal: Cine cubano
- vertical integrated: production, distribution, exhibition
- cine móviles: trucks screening films
Revolutionary Cuban Cinema
- peaked 1966–1971
- documentaries
- rejected Socialist Realism
Cuban Cinema Modernist influences
- flashbacks
- flashforwards
- elliptical editing
- collage forms
Age of “Three” Cinemas
- First Cinema
  - narrative
  - Hollywood
- Second Cinema
  - non-narrative, avant-garde
  - European modernist “new wave” movements
Emergence of Third Cinema
- all art is deeply political
- domination of Hollywood in the Third World became a target
- reject the politics that masqueraded as entertainment
- offer the viewer a politically liberating film experience
Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino
- wrote essay calling for a move “Towards a Third Cinema”
- cinema is part of a collective
- portrays truth and inspires action
- exist outside of state and commercial censorship
Third Cinema Themes
- mass struggles against imperialism
- subjects in exile
- documented indigenous cultures
Third Cinema Style
- rejected the gloss of Hollywood spectacle
  - films imported during Good Neighbor Years
  - trafficked in stereotypes of Latin Americans
- rawness was itself a political statement
Third Cinema Influences
- Direct Cinema
  - fast and inexpensive
  - mobile camera
  - using available light
- Soviet Montage
  - Cuba
  - Argentina’s Cine Liberation
  - New Chilean Cinema
  - Hora de los Hornas http://youtu.be/RLvLjnMvpME?t=1m30s
- Neorealism
  - non-professional actors
  - location shooting
Theory
- Solanas and Getino “Towards a Third Cinema” (1969)
- Julio Garcia Espinosa “For an Imperfect Cinema” (1969)
Argentina
- filmmaker Fernando Birrí
  - called for critical and realistic “cinema of discovery”
- fall of Juan Perón
- military coup 1966
  - shut down legislature
  - disbanded political parties
  - suppressed labor movement
- film industry
  - attempted to impose quota on US films
  - commissioned sanctioned works
    - folklore
    - official histories
Hora de los Hornos (1968)
- collage form
  - Direct Cinema
  - staged scenes
  - dense soundtrack
  - revolutionary quotes in titles
- three parts
  - Neocolonialism and Violence
  - An Act for Liberation
  - Violence and Liberation
Cine Liberation
- sympathetic towards Perón
- Peron’s return in 1973
- Getino became head of film censorship board