Third Cinema: The Way Forward

Third Cinema: The Way Forward

The term �Third Cinema’ is accredited to Argentine Filmmakers, Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, who introduced new ways of categorising cinema traditions in their 1969 manifesto Hacia un tercer cine – Towards a third cinema. They discussed the films and industries within recently decolonised countries and proposed a new framework.

This new movement opposes the notion of Cinema as a consumer good, as with so-called �First Cinema’- perpetuated by, but not limited to, the Hollywood system. Under this {mass entertainment} Production model, Cinema has been established as a predominantly commercial enterprise. Filmmakers conceive films for entertainment, �projecting bourgeois values to a passive audience through escapist spectacle and individual characters.’ (Leach) They do so using studio controlled modes of production, distribution and exhibition, generic genre placing and the star-system.

�Second cinema’ is often referred to as Art or Alternative Cinema. In my view it is a reformist movement that reacts to the generic structure of the Hollywood system norms - tackling censored subject manner; genre swapping; genre dropping; experimenting with form and style. It comprises of several European new waves, but also American Indie cinema. A key element of this is Cinema d’auteur, which centres on the individual expression of the director; valuing their creative input above others. This movement aimed to be radical but failed to bring about any substantial reform. It simply became a different system, started to produce its own structures (of both filmmaking practice and of narrative) and its own conventions and norms. And with the means of exhibition and channels of distribution heavily guarded by the �owners of the film industry’- the studios, many filmmakers out to revolutionise have wound up, as Godard put it; “trapped inside the fortress”. (Sharpiro, p45) �Third Cinema’ rejects the view of cinema as personal expression or as economy and aims to truly revolutionise the medium of film.

�Third Cinema’