Synopsis Zoom In, Zoom Out by : Sandra Barriales-Bouche
In the context of the transformations that Europe is undergoing, Zoom in, Zoom out: Crossing Borders in Contemporary European Cinema attempts to serve as a testimony to the multiple ways in which European filmmakers are questioning the many borders of the continent. European films have become a vital cultural space where the relationship between borders and identity is being renegotiated. The films discussed here self-consciously address the question of European identity while overtly crossing geographic, cultural, linguistic and aesthetic borders. While all the articles explore the crossing of borders in Contemporary European films, the volume maintains diverse themes and perspectives as subtopics. It includes articles not only about films that deal thematically with border-crossings, but also articles that examine movies that cross borders in genres and techniques. The articles have different theoretical approaches (Film theory, Cultural Studies, History, Sociology, Philosophy, and Psychoanalysis) and cover films from well-known cinematic traditions (French, Spanish, German, and Italian) as well as lesser-known cinematic traditions (Yugoslavian, Greek, and Irish). As a whole, the essays frame the self-conscious gesture by European filmmakers to define European cinema as a work-in-progress, or at the very least, as a project that, like Europe itself, raises as many questions as it answers. "This volume is a welcome addition to the growing critical literature on the evolution of the conception and practice of national cinema in Europe over the last two decades. Sandra Barriales-Bouche and Marjorie Attignol Salvodon have chosen a solid selection of representative case studies that reflects different critical approaches to the problem of maintaining local or national cinema production in Europe during a period of intense globalization. Their insightful introduction formulates the theme of “unsettled borders” and “renegotiated identities” that will resonate in the nine essays that follow. With a focus on the critical concept of these unsettled borders, the various authors explore the ways that the traditional mark of national space has been transformed through political and economic realignments as well as new technologies and the emergence of a new generation of filmmakers for whom national cinema no longer means what it did even twenty years ago. The volume provides a good balance of critical approaches that includes auteur studies, descriptions of state policies and the particular practices of filmmakers and producers in different parts of the continent (Spain, Germany, Ireland, the Balkans) and, finally, useful appendices that provide a close-up view of the complex nature of international co-productions." —Marvin D’Lugo, Professor of Spanish, Clark University "This is an interesting collection of essays that has been well conceived and organised. The standard of writing is high and I recommend publication. I particularly commend the conceptual framework underpinning the volume. This marries a cultural studies approach, which still dominates the study of film in Area Studies and language departments across Europe and the US (where filmic texts are increasingly used as teaching tools), with the more industry-based focus one tends to find adopted by Media and Screen Studies departments. Thus this collection will appeal to a wide range of students and academics. The introduction sets out the volume’s overarching framework cogently and clearly, giving a nuanced exploration of the way that the notion of the border can be used as a dynamic prism to help define and explore the limits of our understanding of Europe, European identity and European culture, within which cinema has long played a key role. The editors give a good account, for example, of the way film has been employed as a space to explore the possibilities of European integration by EU politicians as well as highlighting the flaws inherent within this project. They do, however, perhaps suggest a certain Western European/North American-centric view in their suggestion that the cinema of Yugoslavia, Greece or Ireland is somehow less well known than other national and transnational cinemas explored here. Less well known to whom? ... However, from the broad range of cinemas explored in the rest of the volume clearly this is not the case. Particular high points for me are the chapters on the work of Fatih Akin by Janis Little Solomon and John Davidson’s discussion of Schulze gets the Blues, as well as Olivier Asselin’s fascinating account of Database Cinema. This will be a good addition to scholarship on European film and I look forward to receiving my copy." —Professor Paul Cooke (University of Leeds)
