Political Film: The Dialectics of Third Cinema, by Mike Wayne (TPB, 2001, $2.25)
Call me behind the times, but I had not heard of third cinema, nor that there was even a first or second cinema. Turns out, main stream commercial films are First Cinema, and art films are Second Cinema, so what is Third Cinema? It is not necessarily Third World Cinema, though sometimes a film may be both. Primarily it is "a cinema that awakens/clarifies and strengthens a revolutionary consciousness, a cinema that disturbs, shocks and weakens reactionary ideas; a cinema that is anti-bourgeois at a national level and anti-imperialist at an international level; and a cinema that intervenes in the process of creating new people, new societies, new histories, new art and new cinemas."- Birri
I can think of only two movies I have seen that might fall into this category, and Wayne disputes the idea that The Battle of Algiers is one. So I have only watched the one, whose title I don't remember, but whose point of endless and purposeless violence by child soldiers I will never forget. It would seem Third Cinema is not for the faint of heart.
I meant to only skim this book, but ended up reading most of it. I now have a list of films to rent, if only I can get the courage to watch them.
Look for this in the film section, avail. 1/25.
