Where are you from?

What makes a film peculiar to a nation? This was a question that engages my mind for a long time. First of all it is not the actor or actress that makes a film belong to a nation. If we look at the examples it could be observed clearly. Actor or actress is like a play dough. Director shapes them and they become what the director wants. They also put their acting intelligence but it is not something that affects the film’s direction. All they do is to use their acting intelligence according to the directions of the director. Secondly, it is not the director itself that makes a film national. There are Italian directors whose work are not called as Italian. For example “The Good, The Bad, The Ugly” was directed by Sergio Leone, a well known Italian director, but the film is known as a Hollywood film. There are also Ferzan Özpetek and Fatih Akın who are Turkish but their films can be discussed whether Turkish or not (For me they are definetly not.). Likewise, the producer is not the answer that I am searching either. The location, city or country, also does not designate the nation of the film. One answer that comes to me logical is the language of the film. Without knowing who is the director or producer, who are the actors, what it’s subject or where it takes place by simply looking it’s title we derive a conclusion about film’s nation.

This makes more sense when we think about it in real life. We immediately associate people with nations by only looking their languages or accents. However maybe this is not an enough critera to assign a notion to a film or other things. One thing in the article by Thomas Elseasser ImpersoNations can be count as an important point. When he talks about European cinema and gives examples like Remains of the Day or Pianist we can easily talk about their nationalities. This maybe bacouse of the use of the history in the films. In Remains of the Day we hear some diologues which belongs to England, and also the film is not about England we can say that the film is English. Similarly, in Pianist although the language of film is English, the film subjects the Germany and Poland and uses their history this film can be count as Polish or German but not English.

But one comes as a question how can we associate films when their subjects are not national. Maybe we should not question their nationalities at all. Films can be directed by different directors and played by different actors and actresses and they also be shot in different locations. I think categorizing films like, Hollywood, European or Asian is a political issue. As they are different continents and the competition between them force us to categorize them. There would be no problem at least for me as long as the film remains universal.