Contextualizing MENA cinema

Question 1

Filming the Modern Middle east (Khatib)

Answer 1

1. films do not constitute “representation” or “reflection” but are a part of the reality characterised by power relations
2. also encourages beyond Orientalism (not just how W represents E but how E reps E)

Question 2

Creative response to conflict (Gugler)

Answer 2

1. Fiction = immediacy of experience unmatched by docs.
2. factors that influence production
   Economic - reliance on government subsidies, local markets limited compared to western, language barriers
   Political - given funding, who says what
   Direction - dir. trained outside of ME

Question 3

Armes - new voices in arab cinema

Answer 3

independent filmmakers in ME rely on Euro/US training, funding, expat residences
- who is funding the film impacts what is said

Question 4

Cinema under colonialism - markmus & armes

Answer 4

factors needed for industry: industrial infrastructure, facilities for screening, audiences with money to spend, distribution system

Question 5

what is orientalism

Answer 5

the west uses the east, percieved in terms of inferiority, to form its superior identity

Question 6

problems of orientalism

Answer 6

the critique it offers still uses the binary. binaries are reductionist both ways

Question 7

modernity

Answer 7

the belief in the progress of science and technology. closely linked to capitalism & development

Question 8

how is modernity achieved

Answer 8

modernity is achieved through exploitation. In the ME, modernity is closely linked to neo/colonialism

Question 9

neocolonialism

Answer 9

former colonial powers exert influence over less developed nations through economic, political, and cultural means, perpetuating dependency and inequality

Question 10

how does cinema relate to the triad

Answer 10

cinema = highest form of modenity (close to real life). form of otherisation

Question 11

optical unconsciousness

Answer 11

like the coloniser the camera has the power to observe and exploit. the other side of the camera is who you want it to be in the film.
“The optical unconsciousness of early cinema is also the optical unconsciousness of colonialism, insofar as the gaze is a mechanism of dividing and conquering, of preserving and possessing”