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Lúcia Nagib, Chris Perriam and Rajinder Dudrah (eds.), Theorizing World Cinema, I.B. Tauris, London 2012, pp. XXXII-229
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Cinéma & Cie
Stefano Baschiera
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Queen’s University, Belfast
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Lúcia Nagib, Chris Perriam and Rajinder Dudrah (eds.), Theorizing World Cinema, I.B. Tauris, London 2012, pp. XXXII-229
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  ble Foundations of the Institution of Neorealism”, Alan O’Leary, Catherine O’Rawe, “Against Realism:
  in Italian Culture, vol. 31, no. 1, 2013, pp. 28-46. on a ‘Certain Tendency’ in Italian Film Criticism”,
Paolo Noto, Francesco Pitassio, Il cinema neorealista, in Journal of Modern Italian Studies, vol. 16, no.
  Archetipolibri, Bologna 2010.                        1, 2011, pp. 107-128.



Lúcia Nagib, Chris Perriam and Rajinder               a polycentric approach. Previously introduced
Dudrah (eds.),                                        by Lúcia Nagib (2006) as the filmic adaptation
Theorizing World Cinema,                              of the notion of “polycentric multiculturalism”
I.B. Tauris, London 2012, pp. XXXII-229               (Shohat and Stam 1994: 7), polycentric cinema
                                                      implies a “world made of interconnected cin-
   Against the background of the increasingly         emas” (2006: 34) as it focuses on the idea of
global nature of the film market and film indus-      circulation in order to think of world cinema
try and the emergence of questions of transna-        as a “positive, inclusive, democratic concept”
tionalism, globalisation, cosmopolitanism and         (2006: 35). This theoretical argumentation
world culture, the need undoubtedly arises to         against the binary system is effectively concep-
revisit the definition of world cinema and to         tualised in the introduction of the book written
reach a better grasp of how our understanding         by the three editors, Lúcia Nagib, Chris Perriam
of the term has developed within the context of       and Rajinder Dudrah. In fact, it successfully en-
film studies and film history.                        gages with the limits of the discipline, inviting
   This is the main aim of the recently published     to overcome the Hollywood-centric perspec-
edited collection Theorizing World Cinema: to         tive and to offer viable alternatives to the es-
problematise the collocation of world cinema          tablished understanding of world cinema. This
within the disciplines of film studies and film       reframing invites the adoption of “a positive
history. In doing so this work present itself as      and inclusive approach to film studies, which
a new addition to film studies’ re-engagement         defines world cinema as a polycentric phenom-
with the notion of world cinema, joining in this      enon with peaks of creation in different places
way a series of books published in the last de-       and periods” (p. xxii). In order to address these
cade which include Dennison and Lim’s edited          peaks of creation, from India to South Ameri-
collection Remapping World Cinema, Dina Ior-          ca, Theorizing World Cinema comprises twelve
danova’s Cinema of the Periphery, Ďurovičová          chapters – plus the introduction – organised
and Newman’s World Cinema: Transnational              in four “theoretical projects:” the national, the
Perspectives and (with a different focus) Karl        transnational, the diasporic and the realist. This
Schoonover and Rosalind Galt’s Global Art             structure is a consequence of the application of
Cinema.                                               the polycentric method to traditional attitudes
   As part of the recently launched I.B. Tauris       and new tendencies of film studies, from the
World Cinema book series, Theorizing World            theoretical models of transnational cinema to
Cinema offers a new theoretical discussion            the role played by the notion of realism in the
of the subject in order to relocate some of the       diachronic idea of world cinema. Featuring a
most established meanings of world cinema             series of exemplary case studies analysed by
by freeing the term from the negative binary          prominent scholars such as John Caughie, Is-
division between Hollywood and “non-Hol-              mail Xavier, Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and Lau-
lywood” cinema, in favour of the adoption of          ra Mulvey (to cite a few), the book ultimately

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offers a wide array of theoretical approaches         Diasporic theoretical project. In addition to the
surrounding the notion of world cinema. I am          two good chapters that comprise this section, I
thinking here, for instance, of the notion of ac-     felt that a contribution specifically dedicated to
cented cinema, re-evaluated by Song Hwee Lim          the concept of diaspora in film studies and to
in his analysis of Ang Lee’s career from a dias-      its relationship with those of national and trans-
poric perspective; or the concept of “minor cin-      national cinema would have provided a more
ema,” deterritorialisation and national identity      solid ground for further investigation and con-
discussed by Caughie in his account of Scottish       textualizing. This would have allowed the book
cinema and the film Morven Callar (2001).             to offer an important insight on a theoretical
Despite not all the contributions succeed in          approach, which undoubtedly is going to be in-
maintaining the excellent premises of the intro-      creasingly pertinent for the discipline.
duction, in particular in terms of methodologi-          Despite some minor limitations (mostly due
cal innovation, chapters such as Xaviers’ “On         to its nature of edited collection), with its range
Film and Cathedrals: Monumental Art, National         of chapters Theorizing World Cinema is a book
Allegories and Culture Walfare” and Dudrah’s          that will easily meet the interest of scholars
“Beyond World Cinema? The Dialectics of               working on different aspects of world and trans-
Black British Diasporic Cinema” present a re-         national cinema. However, its greatest achieve-
freshing and welcomed approach able to influ-         ment goes beyond the sum of its contributions:
ence future studies on the topic. Starting from       it consists in the invitation to problematise the
specific case studies such as Taviani’s brothers      term “world cinema” and the role it plays in
Good Morning, Babylon (Xaviers) and Bhaji             film studies. While doing so, it clearly shows
on the Beach (Dudrah), the two chapters open          a series of distinctive directions that the disci-
the discussion to the persistence of national ele-    pline can now decide to follow, while moving
ments in world cinema, and to the questions of        away from the predominant Hollywood/West-
community and identity. One of the most signif-       ern-centric perspective.
icant examples of the polycentric approach in                                       [Stefano Baschiera,
the book is Lùcia Nagib’s chapter on the corpo-                            Queen’s University, Belfast]
real realism of The Realm of the Senses (1976)
as part of the realistic theoretical project. Nagib
successfully shows the advantages of this ap-         Bibliography
proach “drawing on local context and traditions,      Stephanie Dennison, Song Hwee Lim (eds.), Remap-
over the arbitrary application of alien (usually        ping World Cinema: Identity, Culture and Politics
                                                        in Film, Wallflower, London-New York 2006.
Hollywood-based) paradigms to films produced
                                                      Nataša Ďurovičová, Kathleen Newman (eds.), World
across the globe” (p. 160). Engaging with the         Cinemas, Transnational Perspectives, Routledge,
European approaches to the film, in particular        London-New York 2010.
that of “anti-realism,” Nagib demonstrates how        Rosalind Galt, Karl Schoonover (eds.), Global Art
matter of ethics and boundaries related to the          Cinema: New Theories and Histories, Oxford Uni-
realistic representation of and the position of         versity Press, Oxford-New York 2010.
                                                      Dina Iordanova, David Martin-Jones, Villasur Vidal
the spectator change when moving away from
                                                        Belén (eds.), Cinema At the Periphery, Wayne
Western philosophy in favour of local cultural          State University Press, Detroit 2010.
context.                                              Ella Shohat, Robert Stam (eds.), Unthinking Euro-
  An aspect of the book that, arguably, would           centrism: Multiculturalism and the Media Rout-
have benefitted from further development is the         ledge, London-New York 1994.

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