European Cinema More Complex Than American Cinema
Nicoară Cosmin – CFM RO – an 1
European cinema is more complex than American cinema.
The above statement does not entirely reflect the reality. At the level of creative expressions, the relationship between these two continents has always been, to say the very least, a two-way road. The exchanges concerning Hollywood and the international cinema scene are long-standing and deeply rooted. During the formation of classical Hollywood cinema, many of its key architects were in fact European emigrants – Lubitsch, Dieterle, Lang, Hitchcock, Sirk, to name but a few. More recently, many of Hollywood’s finest contemporary directors – Scorsese, Altman, Coppola and others – have often turned to Europe, to the French New Wave, Italian neo-realism and the New German Cinemas for a source of inspiration and influence. In the Bioscope of 8 January 1925, Joseph Schenck, then president of United Artist, commented brutally on British film productions: “You have no personalities to put on the screen. Your stage actors and actresses are no good on the screen. Your effects are no good, and you do not spend nearly so much money.” Similar remarks can be found about almost any European cinema in almost any decade. It is possible to question the aesthetic standards by which such complaints are made. It can be argued that slow rhythms, deliberate staginess, and lack of star presence or of visible production values are positive qualities which European film-makers have exploited in creative ways and which the Hollywood cinema is the poorer for not possessing. How Schenk would have hated La Regle du jeu, Ladri di Biciclette, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant or The Long Day Closes! And how wrong he would have been. But at the level of mass perception Schenk was right. European cinema has for too long been hung up on notions of quality – wrapped for preference in a national flag, like “Belgian” chocolates. Hollywood, partly for reasons of sheer scale, has not had this problem. It can
European cinema is more complex than American cinema.
The above statement does not entirely reflect the reality. At the level of creative expressions, the relationship between these two continents has always been, to say the very least, a two-way road. The exchanges concerning Hollywood and the international cinema scene are long-standing and deeply rooted. During the formation of classical Hollywood cinema, many of its key architects were in fact European emigrants – Lubitsch, Dieterle, Lang, Hitchcock, Sirk, to name but a few. More recently, many of Hollywood’s finest contemporary directors – Scorsese, Altman, Coppola and others – have often turned to Europe, to the French New Wave, Italian neo-realism and the New German Cinemas for a source of inspiration and influence. In the Bioscope of 8 January 1925, Joseph Schenck, then president of United Artist, commented brutally on British film productions: “You have no personalities to put on the screen. Your stage actors and actresses are no good on the screen. Your effects are no good, and you do not spend nearly so much money.” Similar remarks can be found about almost any European cinema in almost any decade. It is possible to question the aesthetic standards by which such complaints are made. It can be argued that slow rhythms, deliberate staginess, and lack of star presence or of visible production values are positive qualities which European film-makers have exploited in creative ways and which the Hollywood cinema is the poorer for not possessing. How Schenk would have hated La Regle du jeu, Ladri di Biciclette, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant or The Long Day Closes! And how wrong he would have been. But at the level of mass perception Schenk was right. European cinema has for too long been hung up on notions of quality – wrapped for preference in a national flag, like “Belgian” chocolates. Hollywood, partly for reasons of sheer scale, has not had this problem. It can