consider the term National Cinema(film text and industry product) in relation to one film(eg. ladri di biciclette-bicycle theives by Vittorio De Sica,1948 or A Bout de souffle-breathless).

National Cinema

The term 'national cinema ' is a curious one . The conventional grammar of film criticism uses it to describe a kind of film that can be attributed to one nation and /or its culture . Yet that criterion makes implications that have eroded in the face of an exponentially more globalized world one where culturally exclusive or nationally bound notions of cinematic style are becoming less and less definite

Thus the term 'national cinema ' is actually rather problematic . Stephen Teo observes likewise in commenting on how Hong Kong cinema was so long

br identified with martial arts fare that to its overseas audience , it appeared to produce nothing else

This is because the critic 's notion of 'national cinema ' is contingent on criteria that is not only subjective from an individual perspective but from a cultural one as well . Jimmy Choi further expands on this thread by noting that 'national cinema ' depends on points of generalization which critics choose to agree on in defining it

The most conventional generalization lies in locating the origin of a film 's capital , regardless of locale or the nationality of the talents involved . This is best illustrated by the fact that almost all Hollywood films are designated as 'American cinema , regardless of the fact that Hollywood studios are remarkably unhesitant to recruit talent from overseas and shoot at a variety of on-location spots in far-off countries

The uncertainty of this definition further applies to many examples in European cinema , such as Le Mepris , a film by Jean-Luc Godard that is referred to as part of the French Nouvelle Vague ( New Wave movement , was produced with Italian funding while Italian modernist Michelangelo Antonioni is most famous for his disconcertingly uncertain thriller Blow-Up , which also happens to have been filmed with a mostly British cast and British money

The second generalization is a film 's cultural attributes . Choi borrows the term 'aura ' from Walter Benjamin , and specifies it as : [an] aura that bespeaks a national identity . it embodies the language spoken the nationalities of the protagonists , the dress , the setting , the locale , the music , and many different elements which I call cultural icons . To give the 'aura , many of these elements have to act together

Choi further includes the notion of 'homeland /historic territory ' as fundamentally defined by Anthony Smith in relation to national identity This definition posits it as a 'repository of historic memories and associations . A respository in which lies . the history , the myth the norms , and common beliefs of a nation that constitute the themes or the cultural context for the film stories

Many histories of the Italian neorealist movement observe an emphasis on a cinema of fact ' that features directors taking to the streets to film performers that have not been screen-tested , all in the service of depicting an Italian life without embellishment and without artifice ' In addition , they frequently turn their attention towards issues that are largely relevant towards disparities between various social classes

Yet Choi notes that the increasingly transnational...