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Post by lune7000 on Aug 18, 2021 21:52:21 GMT
I have been watching European classic cinema 1930 to 1980 based on internet lists of the "best films" by critics and IMBD ratings by the public and have noticed that:
* @75% of all highly ranked films come from just four nations: England, France, Italy and Sweden
* @ 15% come from Germany, Russia and Spain
* the final 10% come from Portugal, Greece, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Ireland, etc. combined
I was wondering why this was the case.
I can understand that Iron Curtain nations had censorship that may have reduced the artistic value of their work, but that still doesn't explain why so few other Western European nations account for the highest ranked work. Do these other nations not have much of a film industry? Do they just produce bad films? Is their favoritism by the public and critics?
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Post by marshamae on Aug 19, 2021 0:07:30 GMT
My thoughts backed up by nothing
1- the top named nations have wide distribution in the US, so they make money. They have charismatic directors and actors who come here, who speak English, . They had big national support when it mattered, after WWII. politics probably plays some role.
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Post by Seto on Aug 19, 2021 12:39:09 GMT
I honestly don't know, but at a guess I'd say it has everything to do with funding. Those top nations saw it fitting to invest in good film makers, and viola.
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Aug 19, 2021 18:59:33 GMT
During the Silent Era, the biggest producers of quality films were Germany, France, Sweden. Russia toward the end (the country did have issues in the late teens early 20's). German and French cinema rivaled Hollywood. And foreign language movies were more accessible to American audiences. Just a matter of translating and making new intertitles. But Hollywood had more money and adapted to sound quicker. German film was wrecked by the Nazis, forced to make propaganda films. Ironically, Britain never mad a lot of quality silents.
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Post by london777 on Aug 19, 2021 20:49:14 GMT
My response to the OP's question is "It would be strange if they did not." There are 44 nations in Europe (according to the UN, though it depends what you call Europe - soccer, for example counts Israel and Kazakhstan in Europe).
Out of that 44, the same handful dominate in almost every walk of life, cultural, industrial, commercial, military, scientific, etc. Largely through size of population, natural resources, and historically accumulated wealth.
The top 8 by population are:
1 Russia 145,934,462
2 Germany 83,783,942
3 United Kingdom 67,886,011
4 France 65,273,511
5 Italy 60,461,826
6 Spain 46,754,778
7 Ukraine 43,733,762
8 Poland 37,846,611
and these are the main movie producers (though not in the same order). Apart, that is, from Ukraine, which is a recently concocted nation and has a lot of catching up to do, culturally and economically.
I would guess the same nations dominate Europe in most other walks of life.
The only smaller country that punched above its weight cinematically was Sweden. I imagine its avoidance of the two world wars during the Cinema Age has something to do with it. Maybe teleadmin has a better explanation?
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Post by london777 on Aug 19, 2021 21:00:08 GMT
I can understand that Iron Curtain nations had censorship that may have reduced the artistic value of their work That may not be true. Art thrives on constraints. Indeed, they may be essential. Look at the many great US films that successfully ran rings round the Hays Code.
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Post by lune7000 on Aug 19, 2021 21:00:30 GMT
Film industries can rebuild at lighting speed after a war. France was occupied yet put out films almost immediately after liberation. Japanese directors were making films in the rubble of bombed out cities. Film doesn't require much as far as start up costs. Germany should have been up on their feet soon after the war- they got lots of Marshal Plan money and had a lively industry in the 20's. German is one of the most common languages on the continent and I can't believe they didn't want to watch films in their own tongue.
The lack of highly rated Spanish films is another puzzler. Given the large worldwide Spanish language diaspora, Spanish films would be second only to English in popularity. India has that massive Bollywood industry that serves the second largest national population in the world but it's films are almost never on a "must see' list.
I don't believe talent is only in France and Italy- I don't understand this.
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Post by london777 on Aug 19, 2021 21:22:53 GMT
Film industries can rebuild at lighting speed after a war. France was occupied yet put out films almost immediately after liberation. Japanese directors were making films in the rubble of bombed out cities. Film doesn't require much as far as start up costs. Germany should have been up on their feet soon after the war- they got lots of Marshal Plan money and had a lively industry in the 20's. German is one of the most common languages on the continent and I can't believe they didn't want to watch films in their own tongue. The lack of highly rated Spanish films is another puzzler. Given the large worldwide Spanish language diaspora, Spanish films would be second only to English in popularity. India has that massive Bollywood industry that serves the second largest national population in the world but it's films are almost never on a "must see' list. I don't believe talent is only in France and Italy- I don't understand this. France was making some great movies during the German occupation, some of them examples of what I wrote above about utilizing constraints. Until joining the EU, Spain had been, in modern times, a very poor and illiterate country. I do not think it had much of a film industry before WWII. Its only world-class director fled to Mexico and other creative and technical personnel to Latin America. But Spanish cinema flowered once Franco started to lose his grip and it has made more than its share of fine fims since. Germany had unique problems tip-toeing around issues of ideology and national identity for the first decade after WWII. It was a nation "on probation", so people were nervous about making or watching "serious" movies. But with the Wirtschaftswunder came a flowering of talent, most of it critiquing current social developments (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Alexander Kluge, Wolfgang Petersen, Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta, Wim Wenders, etc)
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Post by marshamae on Aug 19, 2021 21:44:56 GMT
Germany had unique problems tip-toeing around issues of ideology and national identity for the first decade after WWII. It was a nation "on probation", so people were nervous about making or watching "serious" movies. But with the Wirtschaftswunder came a flowering of talent, most of it critiquing current social developments (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Alexander Kluge, Wolfgang Petersen, Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta, Wim Wenders, etc)
Absolutely. Even non language art , symphonic music , was iffy.
The point with government start up was that England France and Italy threw Government money at their film industry because they understood its vital role in selling a revitalized nation to the world, even when showing bombed buildings. As allies they had a mechanism to sell to the US and stockpile American dollars. It was a product they could sell internationally.
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Post by lune7000 on Aug 20, 2021 1:28:57 GMT
It makes sense that if US film goers and critics could only access the films of certain nations easily then that is all they had to rate the films by. Unfortunately, this creates a problem for me as these ratings are all I have to go by and they are heavily weighted in favor of only a few nationalities. There is a chicken and egg problem that a lack of exposure in the US leads to lack of demand and the films never make it here. Most of the films of any nationality are of lower quality (the old 80/20 rule) and I can't simply go rummaging through a nation's film collection blindly.
It's an unfortunate state of affairs
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Post by Fox in the Snow on Aug 20, 2021 12:55:44 GMT
The French invented cinema and Sweden had Bergman.
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