Third Cinema Research Paper

‘Third Cinema is not a Geographically defined entity it is a cinema of social and cultural emancipation, defined by its politics.’ Comment with reference to at least two films of your choice.

Third Cinema was meant as an alternative to Hollywood. It aspires to be the social realistic portrayals of life. Although Third Cinema is defined as exploring social and cultural emancipation defined by its politics how can it be classified as an alternative to Hollywood, if certain Hollywood movies explore these situations. Throughout this paper, I will be commenting on the way Third Cinema is defined, I will comment with reference to several films to give a clear thought on this style of cinema. There will be two movies that I will be referencing,

Julio Garcia Espinosa was a key figure in the establishment of Third Cinema and establishing a firm connection of Third Cinema starting from The Cuban Revolution with his films, The Battle of Chile which was created into 2 parts. Part 1 examines the escalation of the rightest opposition following the lefts victory at the congressional elections. Part 2 covers the attempted military coup of 1973. Each of these movies where created to explore a part of a political movement that caused the downfall of a community, a community that was ruined by a governments socialist policies. This consequently shows that depending on the topics being discussed within the narrative will depend on wither or not the film will fall into the category of Third Cinema. As seen with the topics discussed within The Battle of Chile the fact that it was created as a method of informing an audience to help them understand rather than to create it to a wider audience to generate money helps it fall into this category. Even more so that the films feature politics and social and cultural emancipation helps it establish itself as a Third Cinema movie. Having discussed previously the movie Ezra (2007) and the two-part movie The Battle of Chile these films successfully shows that Third Cinema is not geographically defined. It displays with success that even though these two movies are filmed and based around different political situations in separate locations they fall into the segment of Third Cinema with full effect as they feature all the necessary components to fall into that