Film, as a medium, has reached near universal status as a part of contemporary life.  Throughout the world, unbounded by culture, language or geography, cinema has become a large part of life.  And, increasingly, film is no longer restricted in terms of access or scope by national boundaries.  The most obvious example of this is the Hollywood blockbuster, which is expected to be distributed to a global audience, and made to fit this task.  Indeed, the value of transnational appeal of these films is becoming increasingly more apparent.  In the past few years, major Hollywood films are being distributed first internationally, often in China and other parts of Asia, before being released in the United States, and are making far more money abroad than domestically.  But it is not just the blockbuster that follows transnational patterns.  Even in the United States, which typically gives less regard to international media, foreign films and films made in collaboration with foreign participants are gaining more visibility.  Hollywood action films take inspiration from Hong Kong martial arts cinema, and foreign directors like Guillermo del Toro are picked to direct movies with budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and earn back several hundred million more.  Transnational movement of film is making it harder to define a purely national style of cinema, and with the lower cost of the technology required to create films combined with the increasing ease of distribution, it is likely this trend will continue.  In their introduction to Transnational Cinema, Ezra and Rowden note that “Today, the transnationalization of cinema extends beyond European and Euro-American coproductions to include international production centers in, most notably, south and East Asia.  In an increasingly interconnected world, these hybridizing tendencies have become predominant (2).”  This hybridization, as they term it, does not, I believe, lead to a bland and homogenous global cinema.  The hybridizing tendencies should serve instead to further promote transnational collaboration and shared ideas and techniques to allow filmmakers to better realize their vision.

As Higson highlights in his examination of transnational cinema, “The cinemas established in specific nation-states are rarely autonomous cultural industries and the film business has long operated on a regional, national and transnational basis (19).”  The influences that affect filmmakers have not been restrained to their local contexts, nor have their works been similarly restrained.  To appreciate the collaborative, transnational processes that affect filmmakers, I think it is fruitful to consider African cinema.  There are two films in particular I would like to reference, Quartier Mozart and Karmen Gei.

Quartier Mozart by Cameroonian director Jean-Pierre Bekolo, released in the early 90s, shows a clear influence from Spike Lee’s 1989 film Do the Right Thing.  As with Lee’s film, Quartier Mozart explores the socio-economic dynamics amongst a group of exaggerated, stereotypical characters in a limited, local context.  The majority of characters in Lee’s film are known only by nicknames, such as “Buggin’ Out” and “Radio Raheem.”  Similarly, Quartier Mozart largely features characters with names such as “Chien Mechant (Mad Dog)” and “Montype (My Guy).”  However, the influences of Lee’s film are mixed into a plot that is specific to the Cameroonian context.  The central story of the film follows the story of a young girl who, wishing to experience life as a man, is transformed by a witch into the young man Montype.  Mixing the aesthetic of Lee’s Do the Right Thing with supernatural elements that are unique to the African context, it shows how filmmakers are using the transnational nature of cinema to expand the ways in which they can present their stories.

Karmen Gei also shows the influence of transnational works in the creation of national cinema.  The film, released in 2001 by Senegalese director Joseph Gaï Ramaka, reimagines the story of Georges Bizet’s 19^th century opera Carmen, which was itself inspired by a novella by Prosper Mérimée.  The film recasts the characters of the opera into a contemporary Senegalese setting, taking place in the capital of Dakar.  The musical aspect of Bizet’s work is retained, as the film is a musical, but the music has been translated to match the local context.  The titular character Karmen repeatedly sings lines from Carmen’s famous Habanera, but the lyrics are in Wolof, and the rhythm and accompaniment are taken from popular Senegalese music.  The transnational nature of the film is further highlighted by the large scope of the film, clearly inspired by Hollywood musicals.  This process of appropriating themes, aesthetics and material from abroad serves to enhance the final product.  I believe these two films exemplify what Higson states about the impact of foreign films on indigenous cultures: “…the introduction of exotic elements may well have a liberating or democratizing effect on the local culture, expanding the cultural repertoire (19).”

I would like to end with a short personal anecdote.  During the past year, between finishing my graduate program at Virginia Tech and beginning my studies in Maryland, I worked in a daycare.  During this time the Disney film Frozen was released, and became incredibly popular with the young children I worked with.  Shortly after the film was released, Disney uploaded to Youtube a video, currently with more than 41 million views, of the song “Let It Go” sung in many different languages.  I remember the kids at the daycare being very excited as they found this video, trying their best to imitate the languages and asking me to teach them the rest of the lyrics in French.  I think there’s something inherently appealing and humanizing in the realization that, throughout the world, people are captivated by the same films.