European Cinema in an Age of Studio-Building: Some Artistic and Industrial Tendencies in Studiocanal's Output, 2006-Present (original) (raw)
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Studiocanal and the Changing Industrial Landscape of European Cinema and Television
This article analyzes the recent growth of Studiocanal, which in recent years has expanded from being the French-language production arm of Canal Plus to the preeminent European distributor and producer of fictional film and television. The focus here is on the company's corporate development, with particular emphasis on Studiocanal's acquisition of sales and distribution interests across Europe and beyond, and with its subsequent move into television production. A study of Studiocanal reveals a great deal about the current state of the European film and television industries and allows us to rethink traditional ideas about the relationship between Hollywood and Europe.
Instead of the real thing: Six ways to talk about what Hollywood does to European films
Communications, 2019
This essay reviews five different ways in which commentators have described what Hollywood does in remaking European films which audiences frequently regard as having a uniquely intimate connection with their European subjects: Hollywoodizing, Americanizing, Europeanizing, appropriating, and reframing them. After considering the relations among these terms, the problems raised by each of them, and their respective limitations, it proposes a sixth term, scripting, which it argues is less parochial, invidious, or value-laden than any of the others, and more likely to invite further productive dialogue on the subject of remakes that cross cultural borders.
Academic and populist attempts at defining European cinema encounter such similar problems to political economists and politicians when delineating the extent and remit of the European Union that the application of social, economic and political theory to European film studies might be worth a go. Basing itself upon a suggestive correlation between the European Union as a community of sentiment and the region coding of its DVDs, this article assesses the impact of new screen technologies and the rebranding of the European Union on European film-makers and audiences. Building on links with recent events in Europe and the USA and the dislocation and disempowerment of protagonists in recent European and American cinema, this article develops an idea of the pan-European stratification of persons based on economic criteria and access to technology that has consequences for the future of European film.
The Circulation of European Films Within Europe
Comunicazioni Sociali, 2018
While more than a thousand films are made in Europe each year, only around 20 actually circulate in any meaningful way outside their own national market but within Europe. Despite the processes of globalisation and digitisation, we are clearly still some way from a film industry that knows no borders. This paper analyses the sorts of European productions that do travel successfully within Europe, and why. It draws on research undertaken for the MeCETES project (Mediating Cultural Encounters Through European Screens, 2013-2016), and especially the extensive database of films released in Europe between 2005 and 2015 put together by Huw D. Jones. The key factors affecting the ability of European films to travel successfully in nonnational European markets include the size of the budget, whether one of the major American studios was involved as producer or distributor, whether the lead producing nation was one of the Western European big five, the language in which the film was shot, critical acclaim, and the way in which the film tells its story. Five categories of European films, their production circumstances and their market performance, emerge from this analysis. First there are large-scale, big-budget blockbusters, many of them inward investment films backed by the Hollywood majors, which tend to travel well within Europe and enjoy equivalent success online. Secondly, there are small-scale, director-led, art-house films that command significant critical attention and travel to cosmopolitan audiences across Europe. Thirdly, there are feel-good, middlebrow films that occupy the middle-ground between these two extremes: modestly budgeted films that occasionally achieve crossover success and travel well within Europe. The other two categories describe films that travel very little, if at all, outside their domestic market. The fourth category is modest to low budget films with a strong national appeal, which may be successful in their own domestic market but rarely travel well beyond that market, whether theatrically or online. Fifthly, there are a great many European productions that fail to secure significant national admissions, let alone admissions in non-national markets. In many cases, this is indeed about failure. The dominance of the European film market by a small number of powerful American, British and French companies, and to a lesser extent, German, Spanish and Italian companies, indicates a lack of diversity within the films that circulate. And while some European films do circulate successfully outside their main producing nation, the vast majority do not. National film cultures within Europe are also surprisingly resilient in this era of globalised, digital storytelling and a surprising amount of national film-making is still enjoyed by national audiences. The challenge to policy-makers thus remains to find more effective ways of enabling a greater degree of cultural exchange, openness and inclusivity, within and beyond Europe.
Deadline for abstracts: December 30, 2016 Twenty-first century quality European feature film has added social and political weight to its aesthetic project and has increasingly framed its questions in a European context. This phenomenon is especially visible among young European filmmakers. Quality cinematic production has emphasized the demand for an active understanding of European identity and for the defense of Project Europe's quest for democracy and cosmopolitanism. European cinema theaters, film festivals and quality television programming have more and more turned into sites of civic concern and cultural resistance. The consumption of these films has stimulated sensitivity to a variety of challenges that face the continent— including the hegemony of economic neoliberalism and the disintegration the European Union as a structure of transnational governance. This Special Issue invites contributors to reflect on how recent quality cinema aims to address a variety of European challenges such as: 1. the responsibilities of European citizenship in the twenty-first century globalized world 2. the reassertion of Europe as a transformative political project that can react to new forms of human disenfranchisement and exploitation 3. particular issues that face the unity, security, well-being, and happiness of all Europeans, such as: ○ containing the rise of present nationalist populism ○ evening out economic discrepancies ○ democratic access to education and information ○ fighting the marketization of social life ○ inspiring cosmopolitan self-perception ○ presenting a comprehensive picture of global migration in the postcolonial context ○ high-level corruption ○ understanding the causes of terrorism ○ participating in offshore and proxy wars ○ raising awareness of ecological catastrophe ○ dismantling gender inequality
Production studies has developed into an interdisciplinary field of inquiry of film and television "production cultures," going beyond traditional examinations of authorship and industry structure. Studying production as culture involves gathering empirical data about the lived realities of people involved in media production - about collaboration and conflicts, routines and rituals, lay theories and performative actions. This volume broadens the scope of production studies by analyzing geographic and historical alternatives to contemporary Hollywood. At the same time, it invites disciplines such as ethnography, aesthetics, or sociology of art to reconsider established concepts of film and media studies like creative agency, genesis of a film work, or transnational production.