Table Of ContentIngrid Lewis
Laura Canning
EUROPEAN CINEMA
IN THE TWENTY-FIRST
CENTURY
Discourses,
Directions and
Genres
European Cinema in the Twenty-First Century
“Two decades into the twenty-first century, it is time to take a look at the recent cinema
of Europe, and bring it into the curriculum. And this is what the book does: it presents
and analyses the cinema of the new Europe, from riveting migrant documentaries set in
the Mediterranean (Francesco Rossi’s Fire at Sea) to contemplative woman’s cinema
from small peripheral countries (Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Attenberg). A true constella-
tion of riveting topics and essays written by authors who represent Europe’s true diver-
sity: East and West, North and South.”
—Dina Iordanova, Professor of Global Cinema and Creative Cultures,
University of St Andrews, Scotland
“This broad-ranging edited volume provides a much needed resource for film students
as it deftly approaches the way conventional Western filmic traditions connect with
emerging Eastern and Central European traditions. The well-structured chapters paint
a rich tapestry of an evolving European cinema and speak to new modes of national
identity. Drawing on a rich tradition of film scholarship, this book provides a timely
geographical and critical historical map for decoding European cinema.”
—Pat Brereton, Professor of Film Studies, Dublin City University, Ireland
“European Cinema in the Twenty-First Century: Discourses, Directions and Genres
uniquely places Eastern European cinema in co-equal dialogue with Western European
cinema, addressing a gap in current studies. The chapters assembled by Lewis and
Canning broach highly contemporary concerns in scholarship of Europe and its cine-
mas, including migration, ecocriticism, disability studies, biopolitics, as well as auteur-
ship and genre. This is a comprehensive and accessible collection.”
—Maria Flood, Lecturer in Film Studies, Keele University, UK
“Contemporary European cinema is extremely diverse and engages with some of the
most relevant issues of modern day life, not least the future of the continent. Responding
to intensified scholarly research activity of the past few years, European Cinema in the
Twenty-First Century sums up state of the art recent discourses while delivering new
insights. Clearly structured and directly addressing lecturers’ needs, this book is a wel-
come and helpful contribution.”
—Claus Tieber, Lecturer in Theatre, Film and Media Studies,
University of Vienna, Austria
“This is a timely volume that makes two interventions: it brings together a range of
international scholars who cover film cultures from Central and Eastern Europe, and it
offers a refreshing take on art and popular cinema that attests to the heterogeneity of
European film in the twenty-first century. Merging the close reading of recent films with
industry analysis, among other methods, the volume engages with topical debates in
European film studies as it addresses questions of gender, migration, and eco-cinema
while also furthering our understanding of transnational authorship, small-nation film-
making, peripheral cultural production, and genre cinema in a pan-European context.
This collection will therefore be a useful resource for scholars and students alike.”
—Jaap Verheul, Lecturer in Film Studies Education, King’s College London, UK
Ingrid Lewis • Laura Canning
Editors
European Cinema
in the Twenty-First
Century
Discourses, Directions and Genres
Editors
Ingrid Lewis Laura Canning
Department of Creative Arts, Media School of Film & Television
and Music Falmouth University
Dundalk Institute of Technology Penryn, Cornwall, UK
Dundalk, Ireland
ISBN 978-3-030-33435-2 ISBN 978-3-030-33436-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33436-9
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To Padraig, my wonderful husband, soulmate and friend.
To Cristina, the best sister I could ever wish for.
Ingrid Lewis
In memory of my beautiful boy Eric. I treasure every too-brief moment we had.
For Ruan, light and joy of my life.
Laura Canning
A
cknowledgements
This book was inspired by our students and written for them. Being a teacher
is a wonderful calling and a great responsibility at the same time. We would
thus like to thank all our students for inspiring both our research and work in
the classroom, for helping us to become, day by day, better teachers. Moreover,
we feel privileged to belong to two fantastic departments at Dundalk Institute
of Technology and Falmouth University. Our gratitude goes towards our
employers and colleagues, all marvellous people with whom we are lucky
enough to share the daily joys and challenges of our professional journeys.
Huge thanks to the fantastic staff and students of the Department of Creative
Arts, Media and Music, DkIT, especially Dr. Gerard (Bob) McKiernan and Dr.
Adèle Commins. Major thanks to all students and staff at the unique and inspir-
ing School of Film & Television (SoFT) at Falmouth University and, in par-
ticular, to Dr. Kingsley Marshall and Dr. Neil Fox.
We are very grateful to our editors at Palgrave Macmillan, Lina Aboujieb
and Emily Wood, for their continuous enthusiasm for and support towards this
edited collection. Special thanks to our contributors who patiently and promptly
engaged with our many sets of reviews and comments to their chapters.
Finally, our deepest gratitude goes towards our families.
Ingrid would like to thank her beloved mom, sister and niece: nothing of all
this would be possible without your steadfast love and support. Va˘ iubesc mult.
To my dad in heaven: miss you so much every day. I hope you are proud of me.
To my amazing husband and extended Irish family, I am extremely grateful for
your wholehearted love and affection. Grá agus gean ó chroí daoibh.
Laura thanks, above all, those who have shown so much love and solidarity
in the waning months of 2019. The sudden death of Eric Starr—my beloved
partner, fiancé, best friend and devoted father of our son Ruan as well as his
daughter Aoife—in the final days of editing this collection, just months before
our wedding, has been a heartbreaking and terrible blow which I could not
have survived without you. My family, friends in Ireland and Cornwall, Eric’s
family, colleagues, publishers and the incredibly supportive and compassionate
Ingrid: thank you all, from my heart.
vii
c
ontents
1 Introduction: The Identity of European Cinema 1
Ingrid Lewis and Laura Canning
Part I Discourses 13
2 Documenting Difference: Migration and Identity in European
Documentaries 15
Adam Vaughan
3 Scotland’s Onscreen Identities: Otherness and Hybridity in
Scottish Cinema 33
Emily Torricelli
4 Questioning the ‘Normality Drama’: The Representation of
Disability in Contemporary European Films 51
Eleanor Andrews
5 Ecocritical Perspectives on Nordic Cinema: From Nature
Appreciation to Social Conformism 69
Pietari Kääpä
6 The Trauma of (Post)Memory: Women’s Memories in
Holocaust Cinema 87
Ingrid Lewis
7 An Ordinary Warrior and His Inevitable Defeat:
Representation in Post-Yugoslav Cinema 109
Dino Murtic
ix
x CONTENTS
Part II D irections 127
8 The New/Old Patriarchal Auteurism: Manoel de Oliveira,
the Male Gaze and Women’s Representation 129
Ingrid Lewis and Irena Sever Globan
9 The Latest European New Wave: Cinematic Realism and
Everyday Aesthetics in Romanian Cinema 149
Doru Pop
10 Between Transnational and Local in European Cinema:
Regional Resemblances in Hungarian and Romanian Films 167
Andrea Virginás
11 Crossing Borders: Investigating the International Appeal of
European Films 187
Huw D. Jones
12 Technology, Decentralisation and the Periphery of European
Filmmaking: Greece and Scandinavia in Focus 207
Olga Kolokytha
13 Brooklyn and the Other Side of the Ocean: The International
and Transnational in Irish Cinema 227
Maria O’Brien and Laura Canning
Part III Genres 247
14 On the Eve of the Journey: The New European Road Movie 249
Laura Rascaroli
15 German Film Comedy in the ‘Berlin Republic’: Wildly
Successful and a Lot Funnier than You Think 263
Jill E. Twark
16 On the Ambiguous Charm of Film Noir: Elle and the New
Type of Woman 281
Begoña Gutiérrez-Martínez and Josep Pedro
CONTENTS xi
17 Dystopia Redux: Science Fiction Cinema and Biopolitics 299
Mariano Paz
18 Spanish Horror Film: Genre, Television and a New Model of
Production 317
Vicente Rodríguez Ortega and Rubén Romero Santos
Index 335
n c
otes on ontributors
Eleanor Andrews is retired Senior Lecturer in Italian and Film Studies from
the University of Wolverhampton, UK. She specialised in Italian Cinema, in
particular the works of directors Bernardo Bertolucci, Federico Fellini and
Nanni Moretti, as well as Neo-Realism and the Spaghetti Western. She also
taught French cinema, including poetic realism and the Nouvelle Vague.
Her book on Moretti’s use of narrative space (Place, Setting, Perspective)
was published in 2014. She is co-editor of Spaces of the Cinematic Home:
Behind the Screen Door (2015). Her research interests include the Holocaust
as well as myth and the fairy tale.
Laura Canning is Senior Lecturer in Film and Course Leader on the BA
(Hons) Film at the School of Film & Television, Falmouth University, UK. She
holds a PhD from the School of Communications, Dublin City University
(2013) and primarily writes on Irish cinema, women filmmakers and genre.
Her most recent work includes contributions on ‘Smart’ teen film in Rethinking
Genre in Contemporary Global Cinema, eds. Silvia Dibeltulo and Ciara
Barrett (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) and on Irish women filmmakers in
Women in Irish Film: Stories and Storytellers, ed. Susan Liddy (Cork University
Press, 2020).
Begoña Gutiérrez-Martínez holds a PhD in Theory, Analysis and
Cinematographic Documentation (Universidad Complutense de Madrid,
UCM, Spain). She collaborates with the research group Analysis of Audiovisual
Texts (ATAD, UCM), and has been a visiting scholar at the University of Texas
at Austin (Radio-Television-Film Department). Her articles about television,
cinema and culture have been published in Investigaciones Feministas, Trama
& Fondo, EU-topías, Jazz Research Journal, and in the volumes Creaciones
Audiovisuales Actuales, ¿Qué es el cine? and Entender el Artivismo. She has
taught Narrative Cinema and Film Analysis (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos), as
well as Political Communication (CES Next, Universitat de Lleida).
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