Third Cinema

During lecture I found myself asking if Third Cinema is inherently propagandistic.  Third Cinema as outlined by Solanas and Getino is clearly political by nature.  Similarly, Gabriel argues that Third Cinema filmmakers seek to "redefine and to redeem what the official versions of history have overlooked" (Gabriel, 57).  Control of history is central to politics as well as to propaganda for history is central in defining national identity and in creating opinions and ways of thinking.  Both Solanas and Gabriel discuss how the films of Third Cinema are made with particular aims, seeking particular results, either by mobilizing revolutionary action or constructing a new way of looking at the past.  The conscious, blatantly subjective aims of these films would seem to relate them to propagandistic films.  In light of this I wonder whether Third Cinema is inherently propagandistic.  A definition of propaganda would be helpful in determining this.  The film historian Taylor defines propaganda as "concerned with the transmission of ideas and/or values from one persons, or group of persons to another" (Taylor, 15).  From this I would consider these films to be propagandistic for they attempt, with purpose, to transmit the values of revolutionaries, of anticolonialists to their fellow formerly colonized peoples.

However, propaganda can carry extremely negative connotations whereas the revolutionary aspect of these films carries the more positive connotation of liberation.  I would not be surprised if there was an aversion to referring to THird Cinema as propagandistic cinema and I am a little reluctant myself.  if we focus solely on the aesthetics of Third cinema and the aim of creating a new filmic language, the degree of propaganda in these movies decreases.  However, the initial political intent that stimulated the call for Third Cinema still looms in the background and makes me wonder if we can ever detach these films from their political contexts; this even furthers the similarities between Third Cinema and propagandistic cinema.  For example, critics have long debated whether "Triumph of the WIll" can be appreciated solely for its artistic merit, whether it an be removed form its political context.

Furthermore, Taylor quotes Alduous Huxley to illustrate the difference between propaganda and education: "propaganda gives force and direction to an existing system or sentiment" (Taylor, 45).  I was reminded of this quote by Solanas and Getino's analogy to the teaching and handling of guns which "can be revolutionary where there are potentially or explicitly viable layers ready to throw themselves into the struggle to take power, but [which] ceases to be revolutionary where the masses still lack sufficient awareness of their situation" (Solanas, 70).  Both of these quotes express the similar sentiment that cinema cannot be the starting point on a blank slate, but can be a catalyst for action in an appropriate context.

Perhaps in considering whether these films are inherently propagandistic, one should examine them on a case by case basis.  Alternatively, one could distinguish genres within propaganda or degrees of propaganda.  In the end, though, I find I can draw more similarities than differences, at least on a theoretical level, between Third Cinema and cinema that has been accepted as propagandistic.