Transnational cinema is a developing concept within film studies that encompasses a range of theories relating to the effects of globalization upon the cultural and economic aspects of film. It incorporates the debates and influences of postnationalism, postcolonialism, consumerism and Third cinema, amongst many other topics.
Criteria
Transnational cinema debates consider the development and subsequent effect of films, cinemas and directors which span national boundaries.
The concept of transnational flows and connection in cinema is not a new term – judging by film history and the increasing number of book titles that now bear its name – but the recent theoretical and paradigmatic shift raises new attention and questions.
Transnational cinema urges a certain shift away from films with a national focus. Ezra and Rowden argue that Transnational cinema “comprises both globalization […] and the counter hegemonic responses of filmmakers from former colonial and third world countries”, and further that the transnational can link people or institutions across the nations. The transnational works like a partnership which is joined together through several mediums, such as cinema. In connection to this, Sheldon Lu has identified what she calls ‘an era of transnational postmodern cultural production’ in which borders between nations have been blurred by new telecommunications technologies as a means of explaining the shift from national to transnational cinema.
As to this, the telecommunications technologies threatens the concept of a national cinema, as especially the connection powers of the internet links people and institutions and thereby converts national cinema to a transnational cinema. Ezra and Rowden states: "the vast increase in the circulation of films enabled by technologies such as video, DVD and new digital media heightens the accessibility of such technology for both film-makers and spectators".
Transnational cinema’ appears to be used and applied with increasing frequency and as Higbee and Song Hwee argues, as a shorthand for an international mode of film production whose impact and reach lies beyond the bounds of the national. The term is occasionally used in a simplified way to indicate international coproduction or partnership between e.g. the cast, crew and location without any real consideration of what the aesthetic, political or economic implications of such transnational collaboration might mean. Based on this proliferation of the term, Higbee and Song Hwee mention that it has led some scholars to questions whether the term is profitable to use or not. In fact, a panel on transnational cinema took place at the 2009 Screen Studies Conference in Glasgow where members questioned the term ‘transnational’ and its critical purpose in film theory.
Key debates
A key argument of transnational cinema is the necessity for a redefinition, or even refutation, of the concept of a national cinema. National identity has been posited as an 'imaginary community' that in reality is formed of many separate and fragmented communities defined more by social class, economic class, sexuality, gender, generation, religion, ethnicity, political belief and fashion, than nationality.
The increasingly transnational practices in film funding, production, and distribution combined with the 'imagined community' thus provide the basis for an argued shift towards a greater use of transnational, rather than national, perspectives within film studies. Global communication through the internet has also resulted in changes within culture and has further resulted in film transcending perceived national boundaries.
Ongoing definition
The broad scope of topics relating to Transnational cinema has raised some criticisms over its exact definition, as Mette Hjort notes:
(...) to date the discourse of cinematic transnationalism has been characterized less by competing theories and approaches than by a tendency to use the term ‘transnational’ as a largely self-evident qualifier requiring only minimal conceptual clarification.
Subsequently, Hjort, John Hess, and Patricia R. Zimmermann, amongst others, have attempted to clearly define the utilization and implementation of Transnational cinema theories.
The concept of ‘transnational cinema’ has been highly debated for decades and scholars have yet to agree on a single definition. In fact, in many cases, the various definitions of ‘transnational cinema’ presented by different scholars have been very much in contradiction to one another. Scholars have taken to breaking down the term into distinct categories, in an attempt to allow a generally broad idea to become more clearly defined.