Third Cinema and Film in the Americas

Research Questions

The questions for the research kit are:

• What do the representations of urban poverty in both Third Cinema and Hollywood productions
  reveal about the political views of their creators and their audiences?
• In comparison to the films of Third Cinema, are American mainstream films capable of fitting into a progressive, radical, or anti-colonial framework?

Audience

This research kit is generally intended for students enrolled in undergraduate courses. This module could be used for research in courses dealing with American or Latin American history due to the significant historical and cultural content within. Furthermore, this module could also be used for film courses and questions of film theory, due to the coverage of Third Cinema in the research kit.

Introduction and Relevancy

What makes a film radical? Is it a political message contained within? Or is it the methodologies and production values used to make it? Such questions have provoked the imaginations of directors from both the United States and the Third World since the birth of Third Cinema in the 1960s. This research kit provides a comparative analysis of urban films from the United States and Third Cinema, examining the histories, theories, and individuals that shaped representations of poverty, racism, and colonialism in the theaters of the Western Hemisphere.

Overall, the value of this research kit is divided into two components. First, the research kit provides a comprehensive overview of the histories and theories that have shaped political urban film in the United States and Latin America. American students may be unfamiliar with the film industries of foreign countries, let alone films in those nations going against the dominant political culture. This research kit provides not only an introduction to many of the concepts of Third Cinema, but also how they could be applied to mainstream American films. By examining the vast differences in production and theory that guides United States and Third Cinema, students can gain a greater understanding of the economic underdevelopment of the global south, and responses to it. Second, this research kit containing an incredibly useful bibliography, carefully expanded over time. Not only are comprehensives secondary sources on Third Cinema and American political film contained, but also several primary sources, including the manifestos that coalesced into Third Cinema’s ideological basis. These sources will be useful for students who are conducting their own research into political films in the United States, Latin America, or the Third World as a whole. Furthermore, students who simply wish to learn more will have access to excellent introductory material for their pursuits. Altogether, the value of this research kit is to provide an introduction to political filmmaking in the United States and Third Cinema, and how the two differentiate from one another.

Special Terms

• Manifesto – A manifesto is a public declaration stating the motivations and goals of a particular person or movement. Often used in political or cultural settings, to outline a political or artistic program.
• First World – Designation given to the highly developed, capitalist nations aligned with the United States during the Cold War. Generally, includes the US, Canada, Western and Central Europe, and Japan. Often viewed as being wealthy due to their exploitation of the Third World.
• Third World – Name given to the underdeveloped, formerly colonized nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The Third World was not aligned with either the First or Second Worlds, but still involved with their politics and economies, particularly that of the First World.
• Global South – A more modern term for categorizing the world after the fall of the Soviet Union. The First and Third World were replaced by the global north and global south. The definition of global south is largely similar to that of the Third World, designating the politically marginalized and economically exploited former colonial nations.

Historical Context of the Films

         All five films covered within the module center around urban communities in the United States and Latin America, mainly in the second half of the twentieth century. To start with the two Third Cinema films Pixote and City of God, both are set in the urban slums of Brazil. While the critiques of each film will be covered later, it is important to understand the historical context of the favela and in general the underdevelopment of Latin American nations. Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, Latin America began to be viewed as part of the Third World, a tricontinental designation for the economically exploited and formerly colonized nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (Teshome 3). Indeed, most of Latin America’s history following the arrival of the Spanish and Portuguese has been overshadowed by European, and later, American imperial interests. With the end of the European empires and the dawn of American foreign policy initiatives such as the Monroe Doctrine, Latin America would be pulled into the United States’ sphere of influence, its politics beholden to US economic interests. As Simón Bolívar once prophesized: “The United States appear to be destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.” In many ways, his prediction came into reality. Throughout Latin America, the United States would continually intervene to prop up or support reactionary regimes who protected American economic interests. This interference would reach its climax during the Cold War, with coups and covert operations becoming increasingly common. Even moderate reform could be dealt with a severe and aggressive counterreaction, as was seen in Guatemala and Brazil in the 1950s and 1960s.

It was during this period of the Early Cold War that many Latin American nations such as Brazil experienced rapid urbanization, with entire new cities being constructed and new neighborhoods attaching themselves to preexisting urban centers. These hastily constructed neighborhoods, often appearing seemingly overnight with hardly any city services to support them, grew exponentially during the 1950s and 1960s. In many ways, the favela would become a symbol of Third World exploitation and underdevelopment in Latin America. The naked poverty of such neighborhoods invigorated the passions of radical Latin American filmmakers, who would seek to confront the causes of such ills.

In the United States, the historical context behind films such Do the Right Thing, In the Heights, and West Side Story tend to vary from their urban cinema counterparts in Latin America. All three films take place in New York City, and there are several threads that binds the history of these films together. Mainly, all three films attempt to address social issues that affect not only NYC but almost every city and many towns throughout America, mainly the issues of racism and immigrant struggles. The history of racism in the United States is long and deeply entrenched, with centuries of slavery profiteering off the work of imported African slaves. The conclusion of the Civil War may have ended slavery, but it only signaled a new phase in the fight for racial justice in the United States. It could even be argued, as some black radicals have, that the treatment of African-Americans in the United States is akin to colonialism, with their communities being segregated, underdeveloped, and exploited continuously throughout US history.

Immigrants in the United States have also faced tremendous adversity. On display in films such as In the Heights and West Side Story are the questions of identity and integration many immigrants must face. To stay in the US meant adapting to its culture and customs, and while immigrant communities certainly maintain distinct cultural aspects of their respective backgrounds, Immigrants struggled to synthesize their culture with that of the US. Alongside this, Immigrants have also had to contend with racism and exploitation throughout all of US history. Even today, migrant workers in the United States remain an issue of significant contention, with movements such as the United Farm Workers fighting for greater pay and treatment for immigrant agricultural workers. Overall, the historical context of cities in the modern United States and Latin America meet and divulge at very interesting points. There can be no doubt that the United States is far richer and more developed than every Latin American country and is in many ways responsible for the economic practices that leave Latin America and the Global South in a state of underdevelopment. Nevertheless, African-American and immigrant communities in the United States share many features of the Third World, their neighborhoods segregated, exploited, and abandoned to austerity largely on purpose. With these parallels in mind, the question of whether American political films can be truly radical in comparison to those of Third Cinema becomes much more relevant.

Film as Power

         For the intellectuals and directors behind the films of Third Cinema, “Film is power” is not merely a method of analysis that can be applied to their films, but instead the central thesis of their project. As has been discussed, the cities of Latin America and the Third World have largely been the victims of colonialism and neglect. For the filmmakers of Third Cinema, this colonialism extends not only to the politics and economics of their respective countries but also their cultures and film industries as well. For critics such as Fernando Birri and Glauber Rocha, the hunger gripping the poor in the city streets of Latin America made itself manifest in the popular films of the era (Birri 211-212). As the two would agree, the masses of Latin America needed a cinema that nourished them (Rocha 218). A cinema that tackled the real issues and fabrics of their societies, rather than Hollywood depictions of them. The colonial systems that deprived them of food and land had also infected their cultures, and it was the duty of Third Cinema to combat the films of colonial powers and native elites (Marzano).

Other creators took these ideas to more radical conclusions. Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino argue in their texts that Third Cinema must embrace the proletarian struggle against capitalism and neocolonialism and takes an explicitly Marxian analysis to the problems plaguing the Third World (Solanas and Getino 1-2). Indeed, Getino and Solanas see their films confronting not only colonialism but capitalism as well, and their analyses are rooted in the works of Karl Marx and Frantz Fanon (Wayne 18-19). Wearing their anticapitalistic credentials on their sleeve, films such as The Hour of the Furnaces would attempt to provoke anticapitalistic and anticolonial attitudes in the minds of the Third World proletariat.

How do Third Cinema directors convey the detrimental legacies of colonialism in their films? Their answers generally center around two points. First, Third Cinema must be an imperfect cinema. As intellectuals such as Julio García Espinosa would argue, “perfect cinema” is inherently reactionary (Espinosa 220). With large studios and a well-funded film infrastructure, perfect cinema serves the interests of the colonizer and the capitalist, not the worker. To remedy this, Third Cinema filmmakers must embrace the restraints put upon by them colonialism and neglect. Third Cinema is not about production or even quality but awakening the revolutionary potential of the Third World. As Espinosa best describes in his manifesto “For an Imperfect Cinema”: “Imperfect Cinema is no longer interested in quality or technique. It can be created equally well with a Mitchell or with an 8mm camera, in a studio or in a guerilla camp in the middle of the jungle. Imperfect cinema is no longer interested in predetermined taste, and much less in ‘good taste (Espinosa 229).’”For Third Cinema to be revolutionary and confrontational, it must abandon reactionary forms of film production and focus on more pragmatic, inexpensive design.

Second, if a Third Cinema film wishes to confront the ills of colonialism, it must display the naked horrors of the poverty and ruin created by colonial exploitation. To achieve this effect, Third Cinema creators often use violence as a means of confronting the oppressor, of making him see the destruction he has caused. As Rocha wrote in his manifesto “The Aesthetics of Hunger”: “Only when he is confronted with violence can the colonizer understand, through horror, the strength of the culture he exploits (Rocha 219).” Often, this violence is directly towards children in Third Cinema. Films examined within this unit, such as Pixote and City of God, are excellent examples of the violent, provocative nature of Third Cinema. Throughout both films, children and teenagers are gunned down by police and criminals, and in Pixote the titular character and those around him are subject to tremendous sexual and emotional abuse. Overall, Third Cinema seeks to confront colonialism and inspire revolutionary ideals, generally through a cinema of underdevelopment and imperfection, and through vicious displays of violence and misery.

In comparison to Third Cinema, mainstream US urban films tend to generate much more different discourses about the representation of power in film than their Latin American counterparts. While the films of Third Cinema are focused on crippling poverty and neglect, the politics of films such as In the Heights and West Side Story are generally focused on matters of casting and representation. For example, while 2021’s In the Heights was commended for its focus on a diverse immigrant community, its lack of African-American actors prompted critiques on the film’s authenticity and the challenges black actors continue to face in finding work in the US film industry. Altogether, the politics of power in US film is greatly centered on questions of representation and casting, with more diverse casts largely seen as a sign of positive, progressive change to many American film viewers.

While greater representation of non-white actors in the United States film industry has been applauded the past few decades, do newer mainstream films actually provide meaningful critiques, questions, and even answers to the problems of plaguing American cities, such as racism, austerity, and gentrification? 2021’s West Side Story received significant acclaim for its diverse cast and more modern take on the story, with Steven Spielberg supposedly “righting the wrongs” of the previous film in some respects. But is greater representation in film a good indicator or progress, or can it be problematic when compared to the existing state of urban communities and American colonies (Morales-Frenceschini). While West Side Story may be more acceptable to modern tastes, it still remains one of the most recognizable cultural representations of Puerto Rican identity (despite not being created by a Puerto Rican), and the American colony of Puerto Rico continues to suffer from tremendous poverty and austerity (Nadel 208). In many ways, these films could fit into Espinosa’s classification of “Perfect Cinema.” With impressive budgets and A-list actors movies such as West Side Story and In the Heights may be entertaining musicals that cover relevant topics in American society, but they generally fail to critique, provoke, or inspire radical action.

This is not to say all popular US urban films do not offer complex critiques of power relations in American society. Independent auteurs such as Spike Lee have generally operated outside of (and even in opposition to) large film studios in the United States, instead opting to tell more authentic stories of African-Americans through independent funding . In many ways, Lee and more recent directors such as Boots Riley and Shaka King can be seen as transitional creators, crossing the boundaries of First and Third Cinema. Their films do tend to offer more radical critiques of American society and its exploitation, oppression, and neglection of black communities, with movies such as Judas and the Black Messiah showcasing violent, anticapitalistic resistance to American authorities. The execution of Radio Raheem by police in Do the Right Thing is reminiscent of the provocative violence found in Third Cinema, and indeed, Radio Raheem’s gruesome death and the quotation of Malcom X at the end of the film are certainly meant to provoke whites and blacks alike in the US. And despite the radical views of these creators, their films still enjoyed many perks of the American film industry and the massive wealth contained in the US. Film equipment and infrastructure were certainly easier to come by, and both Shaka King and Spike Lee in his later career would have their films produced and distributed by incredibly large and influential studios, such as Warner Bros. or Focus Features. This is not to discount the radical message of these films and their critiques on American society, but to merely highlight the unique position they hold in between the revolutionary films of Third Cinema and the more moderate, big budget mainstream films of the United States.

Film Production: Location and Funding

         As previously discussed, the production methods between Third Cinema and United States’ film very greatly due to practical and ideological motivations. For Third Cinema directors, the ordeal of production was perhaps just as important to their political statement than the film itself. Third Cinema directors intended to use their cameras as guns, creating a “guerilla cinema” that eschewed preconceived notions of taste and quality for visceral critique of the status quo.[5] The films Pixote and City of God generally embody this Guerilla Cinema mentality, with non-traditional forms of production and casting used to make the films not only economically viable, but ideologically authentic as well. The directors of both films would even have most of their casts be comprised of non-professional actors, many of whom were from the favelas depicted on screen. Overall, the production of the two Third Cinema films stand in sharp contrast to the American popular films they were critiquing. They were more unrefined, experimental, and with the aid of their non-professional actors, more authentic.

In comparison, the mainstream American films covered within the research kit employ far different production methods. This is hardly surprising, since Third Cinema films are attempting to convoke poverty and violence through their rawer filmmaking, while movies such as In the Heights and West Side Story are Hollywood blockbusters with enormous budgets and star casts. West Side Story is perhaps the most extreme example, with a budget of nearly one hundred million dollars. It certainly comes through on screen, with enormous set designs and flashy, smooth editing that would appear completely alien in a Third Cinema film.

However, there is a middle ground between Third Cinema’s “Aesthetics of hunger” and the monumental production values of Hollywood films. As mentioned earlier, directors such as Spike Lee have crafted an independent ethos around their careers, working outside of the big film companies to produce their own projects. Lee himself founded “40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks,” which has produced all of his films. Still, even if Lee and others may be independents in the American film industry, they still have access far more production values than the films of Third Cinema. Independent filmmakers in the US have access to infrastructure, connections, equipment, and funding that Third World film studios struggle to contend with. While this does not undermine the political content of films such as Do the Right Thing, it is indicative of the massive disparities of wealth and development between the First and Third Worlds.

Power Relations in Film Production and Circulation

         As discussed previously, in many ways Third Cinema is a critique of the power relations between the global north and south, and how colonialism not only brings poverty and misery but also how it makes itself shown in popular culture, such as film. There are clear power relations between the film studios of the United States and the Third World, with the latter unable to compete with the wealth of Hollywood. Besides these broader power struggles, it can challenging to find stories about struggles on the sets of the films contained within this research kit. Pixote’s director, Hector Babenco, had dealt with Brazilian censors throughout his career, who at times forced almost comical additions on police virtues in his films (Levine 202). With his clearly political credentials established, Brazilian authorities were much less apt to deliver him funding for his films (Levine 203). Besides Babenco however, the productions of other films contained within this research kit appear to be relatively unmolested. While there are always small struggles and disagreements, it does not appear there any major forces acting to alter or inhibit the movie, such as Harvey Weinstein’s infamous interference into the creation of Frida.

When examining the relationship between power relations and the circulation of these five films, conclusions can be much harder to draw. While both Pixote and City of God are very explicit films, often condemning colonialism or its effects, they enjoyed very wide circulation and positive reception across the globe. Despite the reluctance of their home nations, poor production values, and their revolutionary ideology, the films of Third Cinema would gain international acclaim, and while not showed in many US theaters still received a very large release. Meanwhile, films such as In the Heights and West Side Story struggled to gain large theater audiences in the years of release. This is more than likely the effect of the Covid-19 Pandemic, in which many films have been released online and in theaters simultaneously. Regardless however, West Side Story and In the Heights were generally “box-office bombs,” failing to make a profit for their producers. While this could be indicative of prejudices in the US film industry, due to the seemingly botched release of two films centered around immigrant communities, it is probably more representative of the struggles film studios have had to contend with during the rise of streaming services and Covid-19.

Conclusion

         By examining the historical contexts of all five films and the subject matter contained within them, differences between the film industries of the First and Third Worlds become readily apparent. These differences are largely explained by the unequal power relations between the global north and global south.  As the intellectuals of Third Cinema would argue, colonialism deprived Third World nations of dignity, prosperity, and in the case of film, culture. To combat cinematic colonialism, cameras were to be used as weapons, dismissing any previous dogmas on film to create a truly revolutionary cinema. Meanwhile, in the United States, films are made with more ease, benefitting from decades of American hegemony in the moviemaking industry and the incredible wealth of the United States. This is not to say that American films are incapable of containing revolutionary or radical political messages. Instead, it is merely to say that the economic privileges of the United States alter its presentations of poverty in urban film. With the mass disparity in wealth between the United States and the Third World, even the social and economic issues of each respective poor will vary and be represented differently in political film.

Scene Analysis

This clip is from City of God, and occurs at the end of the movie. In the final showdown between Knockout Ned’s gang and Lil Z’s gang, we see that Otto has been wounded. This is the same kid that earlier joined Knockout Ned’s gang because he wanted to kill his father’s murderer. At the time Knockout Ned discouraged Otto from joining the gang, as he was just a child. Seeing Otto injured, Ned immediately expresses concern for his safety. Ned urges Otto to stay put and reassures him that he’ll come back to care for him once the fighting is over. As Ned turns his back we see Otto raise his gun and we enter a flashback. This flashback reveals that it was Ned that murdered Otto’s father. His dad was the bank security guard that Ned killed earlier in the movie. Back in the present Otto fires his gun and shoots Ned in the back, killing him. This scene shows us how City of God views violence. Gang violence is shown to be the product of poverty and a cycle of violence that is impossible to escape. The film had shown us earlier that the initial impetus for this petty violence was the poverty and deprivation faced by the children in the slums. This short scene caps off the cycle of violence that the film is largely about. Knockout Ned had no involvement with the gangs, but he was pulled into it by a random act of gang violence. In turn, Otto was dragged into the cycle of violence via a random act of gang violence. This depiction of urban violence being the result of poor material conditions is representative of how Third Cinema in general understands and depicts poverty.

Annotated Bibliography

Armes, Roy. Third World Film Making and the West. Berkeley, CA: University of California   Press, 1987.

         This book by Roy Armes is a secondary source that examines the economic, political, cultural, and philosophical context surrounding Third Cinema, and how it relates to the “Western World.”Armes’ work is a comprehensive overview of Third Cinema in its entirety, with parts decided to its history and theory (7,55). Furthermore, Armes’ dedicates entire chapters to leading Third World national industries and prominent directors (105,229). Overall, this book serves to introduce Western readers to the concepts, nations, and figures associated with Third Cinema. As Armes argues, this overview serves to illuminate western audiences on what he perceives as a woefully underexamined area of film.

The objective of this book is largely successful, providing a significant amount of information on Third Cinema. Parts one and two, discussing the history and theory of Third Cinema, are particularly useful for discussions surrounding political film and their greater historical context. The later parts, while providing an exhaustive amount of information on the film industries of Third World nations and their directors, are generally less relevant to modern discussions of political or urban film. Still, Arme’s book is a very helpful monograph for introducing Third Cinema to Western audiences.

Birri, Fernando, and Scott MacKenzie. “Cinema and Underdevelopment (Argentina,             1962).” In Film Manifestos and Global Cinema Cultures: A Critical Anthology, 1st ed.,     211–17. University of California Press, 2014.       http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt5vk01n.72.

         This manifesto, published by Fernando Birri in Argentina in 1962, is a primary document and one of the most significant in the Third Cinema movement. Birri’s manifesto is a critique of Argentinian cinema as a whole. Within his text, Birri states that film conveys the “cultural and economic values of a society’s superstructure (212).” Argentina is a semicolonial, undeveloped society, and he believes its film industry displays this. Instead, a radical, anti-colonial, anti-Hollywood stance must be taken by the filmmakers of the colonized world. As Birri states in the opening paragraphs, Argentinians are in need of a cinema that sustains them, that develops them (211). His solution is a cinema that is documentarian in style, graphic and uncompromising in its depiction in the poverty and underdevelopment of the colonized world (217).

As a primary source, and perhaps the founding document of Third Cinema, Birri’s manifesto is indispensable for relating the politics of underdevelopment and colonialism to the cinema of the First and Third World. Birri’s philosophy is inherent in films such as City of God and Pixote, and provides an interesting point of comparison for more recent political films of the First World. Birri’s analysis of a need for gritty, documentarian cinema that confronts colonialism and serves the working class is fairly radical when compared to films such as Do the Right Thing, West Side Story, and In the Heights, which are generally more positive and colorful depictions of urban life and poverty. Altogether, Birri’s text is useful not only for understanding Third Cinema, but the political cinema of the First World as well.

Fabe, Marilyn. “Political Cinema: Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing.” In Closely Watched Films,   191–206. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2020.     https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520937291-014.

         This article is a secondary source which describes the political motivations behind Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing and their expressions within the film. Fabe’s analysis is divided into three parts. First, she provides background on the political concerns of Spike Lee, which are largely centered around racism in American history and society. Second, Fabe explores how Lee’s political beliefs are conveyed through Do the Right Thing, mainly through the use of a dialectical form that constantly heightens and highlights tensions (194). Finally, Fabe continues this analysis by focusing on Spike Lee’s “rejection of Melodrama,” in which characters such as Radio Raheem provide an even greater dialectical juxtaposition for viewers to contend with (204).

Fabe’s article provides much insight into the politics and film theory behind Spike Lee and Do the Right Thing. By doing so, a greater understanding can be obtained of one of the United State’s leading directors of urban and political film. This is especially pertinent for questions pertaining to the political nature of urban film in the United States, and how it relates to political and urban films in the colonized, or “Third World.”        

Espinosa, Julio García, and Scott MacKenzie. “For an Imperfect Cinema (Cuba, 1969).” In Film Manifestos and Global Cinema Cultures: A Critical Anthology, 1st ed., 220–30.                   University of California Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt5vk01n.74.

This manifesto by Julio Garcia Espinosa is a primary source that is one of the central documents of the Third Cinema movement. Espinosa’s manifesto is generally divided into parts. First, Espinosa details his critiques of contemporary popular film in both the United States and Latin America, decrying the trends of impartiality and lack of direction he sees as capitalist spectacle (Espinosa 225). Finally, Espinosa concludes with his concept of imperfect cinema in comparison to perfect cinema, which he argues must be more authentic, experimental, and confrontational. The drive towards an imperfect cinema is the drive towards revolutionary and intellectual advancement.

Espinosa’s work is necessary for any overview of Third Cinema and the primary thinkers and documents that created its ideology. The concept of the perfect and imperfect cinemas translates incredibly well to all five films discussed in the research kit, outlining points of analysis for not only Third World but First World films as well. Overall, Espinosa’s work is incredibly useful for understanding the development of Third Cinema thought, and for a comparative analysis of the five films covered in the research kit.

Gabriel, Teshome H. Third Cinema in the Third World: The Aesthetics of Liberation. Ann Arbor,        MI: UMI Research Press, 1982.

         This short book by Gabriel H. Teshome is a secondary source attempting to cover the history of Third Cinema throughout the entire Third World. Teshome’s brief work is generally divided into two categories. First, Teshome outlines the historical and social context behind Third Cinema. This includes the struggles, theories, themes, and styles employed in the creation of Third Cinema, generally providing a comprehensive overview of many of the concept’s components. Next, Teshome analyzes Third Cinema through the film industries of Cuba, China, and the African continent, providing a tricontinental examination of anti-colonial films. Altogether, Teshome’s work serves to introduce the reader to the concepts and history that drives Third Cinema, and existing Third Cinema projects from the era of the book’s publication.

Teshome’s work is incredibly helpful for gaining a basic understanding of the theories and politics behind Third Cinema. Perhaps most important, Teshome’s book provides two excellent case studies outside of Latin America on Third World film industries, which could be an immensely helpful tool for any student hoping to learn about Third Cinema across the global south. Overall, Teshome’s work serves as a brief introduction and overview of Third Cinema in the early 1980s.

Levine, Robert. “Pixote: Fiction and Reality in Brazilian Life.” In Based on a True Story.

         This book chapter by Robert Levine is a secondary source detailing the history of the production and circulation of the film Pixote. Levine covers many factors surrounding the film, such as its cast, funding, relationship with the Brazilian government, circulation, and its reception. Overall, Levine provides an excellent overview less on Pixote, and more on the people and policies behind it.

         Of course, this source is incredibly useful for analyzing Pixote, and learning about both its historical context and any power relations at play during its production. Hector Babenco had had trouble with the Brazilian authorities in the past, and the government was hardly pleased to fund provocative political art, as the chapter details. Altogether, the chapter is excellent for gaining a greater understanding of the creation of Pixote.

Marzano, Nicola. “Third Cinema Today.” Offscreen, June 2009. https://offscreen.com/view/third         _cinema_today.

         This article by Nicola Marzano is a secondary source that examines the recent history of Third Cinema. Marzano’s article provides background on the philosophical and political motivations of Third Cinema, before delving into Third Cinema in modern Africa, Argentina, and even black independents in Europe. Overall, Marzano seeks to provide information on local innovations to Third Cinema, and the alterations to its politics and the struggle to maintain its radical ethos.

This article is helpful for providing a more modern history of Third Cinema, whose history has been somewhat neglected in recent decades. Furthermore, Marzano’s text is useful for comparing global radical film to political and urban film in the United States and First World, and whether progressive American films are capable of fitting into a radical, anti-colonial framework.

Morales-Franceschini , Éric. “West Side Story and the Tragedy of Progressive Hollywood.”     Boston Review, March 7, 2022. https://bostonreview.net/articles/west-side-story-and-the- tragedy-of-progressive-hollywood/.

         This article is a secondary source in which the author Éric Morales-Frenceschini provides an at times damning critique of the West Side Story remake. Morales-Frenceschini briefly touches on the issues surrounding West Side Story, including its problematic past, questions of representation, and even if it should have been made at all? But Morales-Frenceschini transcends these questions, and instead asks even more critical questions of the film and the controversies surrounding it posed by Puerto Ricans themselves. Overall, Morales-Frenceschini discusses the frustration many Puerto Ricans have with liberal Hollywood’s issues of casting and representation (in a work that already has major colonial attitudes) compared to the far more pressing economic and social issues gripping Porto Rican. Essentially, the tragedy of progressive Hollywood is its willingness to address racism and representation, but not economic inequality and colonialism or imperialism. As Third Cinema proponents would argue, it is an obsession with effects and not causes.

This work is immensely useful for connecting Third Cinema concepts to more recent controversies surrounding political and urban film in the United States. Many of progressive, even “radical” American films focus almost exclusively on race and representation, and the controversies that surround them do as well. This article reveals an unexamined layer of frustration that is reminiscent of Third Cinema, and Puorto Ricans struggle for economic, cultural, and even political liberation.

Nadel, Alan. “‘I Want to Be in America’: Urban Integration, Pan-American Friendship, and     West Side Story.” In Demographic Angst: Cultural Narratives and American Films of the 1950s, 207–24. Rutgers University Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1tm7jnh.13.

         This article by Alan Nadel is a secondary source that traces the colonial overtones of the original West Side Story. Throughout the text, Nadel argues that West Side Story is intertwined with the politics of the Cold War and Latin America’s relationship to it and the United States. Themes within West Side Story convey the United State’s colonial subjugation of the Western Hemisphere, including its history of blocking land reform, imposing underdevelopment, and propping up dictators in Latin America (210). Nadel also dedicates a significant amount of the text to exploring the colonial relationship between the United States and Porto Rico, exploring issues of race, gentrification, and overall and “other”ing of Porto Ricans that can be observed in West Side Story. Overall, Nadel’s article is a comprehensive overview of how colonial attitudes are conveyed in the original West Side Story.

Because of this, the article is very useful for understanding the colonial nature of West Side Story and Porto Rico, which is an area of analysis in American political and urban films that is often neglected. Nadel’s article has immense potential for its use in synthesizing Porto Rican critiques of West Side Story with Third Cinema critiques of the greater United States film industry.

Rocha, Glauber, and Scott MacKenzie. “The Aesthetics of Hunger (Brazil, 1965).” In Film      Manifestos and Global Cinema Cultures: A Critical Anthology, 1st ed., 218–20.       University of California Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt5vk01n.73.

         This manifesto by Glauber Rocha is a primary source and an early document of the Third Cinema movement. In it, he primarily lays out the fundamental principles of the Cinema Novo movement in Brazil. Latin America is a colony, and its cinema reflects that (218). To confront this colonialism, to make genuine, revolutionary art, Rocha argues that filmmakers must confront the colonizer through the only language they understand: violence (219).

Rocha’s document is useful for understanding methods of anti-colonial confrontation in political films, largely through his advocation for explicit violence. This mindset is useful for analyzing how films display their politics and what those politics are. Not only could City of God be fall under Rocha’s Cinema Novo, but even Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, with its graphic depiction of police violence. Overall, Rocha’s manifesto is helpful for analyzing the use of violence in political film.

Solanas, Fernando, and Octavio Getino. “Toward a Third Cinema.” Cinéaste 4, no. 3 (1970): 1–  10. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41685716.

         This manifesto by Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino is a primary document, and perhaps the one most responsible for the Third Cinema movement. In their text Solanas and Getino lambast mainstream cinema and its bourgeois properties, arguing that it, like so much other media, it is a tool of neocolonialism (3) In this manifesto, the radical nature of Third Cinema is laid bare, with Solanas and Getino taking an explicitly Marxist interpretation of the colonized world and its film industries. They provide a brief description of bourgeois First and Second Cinema, before delving into their solutions for the decolonization of film. As they argue, films must be a force for collective liberation, and the cameraman must wield his camera like a gun (1,10). Altogether, Solanas and Getino’s text is far more than just a manifesto on how Third Cinema should be made. It is an active call to use film for the liberation of the Third World, on explicitly anti-capitalist lines.

Because of this text’s political connotations, it is very useful for discussions on political cinema in the First and Third World. Solanas and Getino represent a political extreme in political filmmaking, but their important contributions to anti-colonial cinema are worth carrying over into American political and urban film. Solanas and Getino would almost certainly be critical of In the Heights, West Side Story, and even Do the Right Thing, which provides an interesting method of analysis for films that can be considered very progressive and even radical in the United States.

Wayne, Mike. Political Film: The Dialectics of Third Cinema. London: Pluto Press, 2001.

         This book by Mike Wayne is a secondary source that examines the philosophical definitions behind First, Second, and Third Cinema. Perhaps Wayne’s greatest contribution to the concept of Third Cinema is to clearly define it as opposed to First and Second Cinema (6). However, as Wayne’s work makes clear through a case study of The Battle of Algiers, the lines between these world cinemas can be very blurred, with the philosophical and economic doctrines behind each category at times mingling with (and conflicting with) one another (8). These philosophical and economic motivations are the greatest indicators between First, Second, and Third cinema, Wayne implies, and Third Cinema cannot be constrained to a purely geographic space. Furthermore, Wayne rigidly defines what separates First and Second Cinema from Third Cinema. Generally, First and Second Cinema are “bourgeois” and “petite bourgeois,” comprised of big studios that produce unradical films that do nothing to engage the viewers.

Overall, Wayne’s book is very useful for developing the concept of Third Cinema, mainly through his expansion on First and Second Cinema. These concepts could be especially useful when comparing political urban films of the Third World with their counterparts in the First World. The differences in the political or radical nature between films like Pixote and In the Heights can be expressed more efficiently through Wayne’s ideas, largely through his analysis of class and dialectics in film.

Featured Image by Peteris, November 5 2017, used under Creative Commons