Globalization of Cinematographic Communication

In: Meždunarodnye processy: žurnal teorii meždunarodnych otnošenij i mirovoj politiki = International trends : journal of theory of international relations and world politics, Band 20, Heft 3, S. 28-44

Abstract

The article examines the globalization – in its Americanization format – of the international cinematic communication within the perspective of the cultural diversity issue. The globalization process is comprehended as a result of the historical succession of market formations: from free competition in American cinema to an oligopoly and on to a national and an international monopoly. During the period of polipoly, the trail for globalization was blazed by the grande dame of the cinématographe: France. The United States, where in 1908 the market share of French films equaled 70%, mounted a resolute challenge. Under consideration are three factors – institutional, geopolitical, and creative – of the loss by the French of their domination over the American and, then, their own market. To the soft power of American cinema, the French state responded with the quota stimulation for the exhibition of national films, motivating it, among other things, by the necessity of providing for the external and internal security of the state, by the guardianship of customs and national traditions. To the quotas as a means of mitigating the soft power of the United States did recourse some other countries too: larger ones, for economic considerations; smaller ones, for cultural. The globalizational might of the American film industry is explained through the rational choice of the main line for its stylistic development and the filmmakers' masterfulness, as well as through the professionalism of managemental and marketing actors, investment from big capital, and through support from government in its push for the «cultural hegemony» of the United States. The major studios that emerged during the period of oligopoly (1909– 1929) competed with one another on the terms of a certain accord. With the means of competing by supercostly investments, far beyond the capabilities of smaller studios, the majors established for the domestic market a regime of national monopoly (1930–1946). On the world market the elected method of competition enabled the American film industry, in the second half of the 1940s, to gain the position of the international monopolist. An important role in the process was played by Motion Picture Export Association, established in 1945: a sort of «a diplomatic service» that functioned with permission from and under the support of the U.S. government. From its position of the global monopolist the American film industry strives not only to dominate in the intercultural cinematic communication, but, in this status and as a means of the popular geopolitics, to control it through lobbying and by exporting capital and goods. The transborder circulation of products by various national cinemas and cultural diversity of cinematography have largely fallen prey the globalization process. On the basis of vast factual research is recreated the state of the art for the imbalance in the intercultural film communication. When, in a social­functional respect, the importing of films mainly supplants their production in a certain country, the socium, by a large magnitude, is deprived of the chance to reproduce its culture and, accordingly, its identity with the means of depicting its own image and of mastering it. The making of national cinematic picture of the world and its integration into the communicative process becomes a topical task of providing for cultural diversity.