Third Cinema

3 Pages 836 Words

THIRD CINEMA


First cinema, according to Solanas’s definition, “expresses imperialist, capitalist [or] bourgeois ideas. … Any cinematographic expression [likely] to respond to the aspirations of big capital [is] first cinema” (Karpenko). Hollywood and commercial type films fit into this definition. Individualistic characters leads into the star system. The film language in first cinema is basic, structured, and understandable. Second cinema “expresses aspirations of the middle stratum, the petite bourgeoisie. Second cinema is often nihilistic, mystifactory. It runs in circles. It is cut off from reality” (Karpenko). Independent films in America are usually referred to as second cinema. “It is made outside the Hollywood system, but many times, it is outside looking in” (Karpenko). There is more experimentation and not such a regular film structure.
Third Cinema films are films that the system can not be incorporated as visual pleasure. They are the most radical and extreme. They focus on causes, not effects, and embraces imperfection while being politically engaged. It is a repository of popular memory. In Espinosa’s For an Imperfect Cinema he says “Nowadays perfect cinema—technically and artistically masterful – is almost always reactionary cinema.” Third Cinema is meant to be revolutionary cinematic. It has to be something cinema can’t break. Espinosa discusses a huge emphasis on the artistic culture of films. “No doubt it is easier to define art by what it is not than by what it is, assuming that one can talk about closed definitions not just for art but for any of life’s activities” (Stam & Miller 288). He goes into questioning artist’s desires and needs. “How ca we trust the perspectives and possibilities of art simply to the education of the people of a mass of spectators?” ( Stam & Miller 290). We as viewers have to understand the art form in the film ourselves. O...