The Exclusionary Nature of “Classic” Cinema
By Imara Ikhumen
image source : https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/g18753561/best-classic-movies/
While I do not always understand why certain movies are considered classic and others which are just as great hold a less acclaimed status, I can accept that more often than not, the choice to call a film “classic” is as much reflective of the perceived quality of the film as it is of the values and needs of the generation of viewers that chose it. As a result, the term “classic movie” is quite subjective, and could call to mind a vast variety of different images depending on who you ask. Still, from everyday film enthusiasts to film professors, the term is generally shorthand to refer to a selection of hundreds of films which seem to have one main commonality.
Firstly, the word “classic” itself implies romanticization of a particular era or moment in time. It has many definitions, but Merriam-Webster describes some of its adjectorial functions quite simply: “serving as a standard of excellence : of recognized value” , “historically memorable”, and “authentic/ authoritative”. Technically, when talking about film, the classic era means the Golden Age of Hollywood (old Hollywood from the earliest films of the Silent Era through the 60s). If we acknowledge that films are the remains of the zeitgeist of a time period, and that the “classic era”– the “golden age” of film as an artistic medium overlaps with peak times for violence and racism against black and brown people, then how can the “classic” era of cinema not be a relic of a period of time in which black and brown people were excluded from telling their own stories or being shown in a positive light? The era of film in which black women could only play mammy caricatures, all black men were entertainers or criminals, and all brown people were scapegoats of some sort––that is the standard for excellence in film?
It’s not just Hollywood though, even when we branch outside of the US, the most regarded cinema movements are usually European. In film school, the most famously known and regularly studied movements are the French New Wave, Italian Neorealism, German Expressionism, and Dogme 95 (Danish). Everyone I know who studied film in school (including myself) was exposed to these four in particular as the foundation of international cinema studies. Admittedly, most of us also had a unit on Senegalese Cinema as well, but Africa is a huge continent and Senegal is certainly not the only country in it that has released films worth studying.
Distributors such as The Criterion Collection say in their mission statement that they are “dedicated to publishing important classic and contemporary films from around the world”, yet the collection as currently shown on their website which features almost 1500 pictures leans heavily into the previously mentioned European cinema movements and includes ~460 from North America, ~20 from South America, ~680 from Europe, ~270 from Asia, 4 from Australia, and a wapping 3 from Africa. Three films from the second largest continent in the world. To be fair, this list of 1500 films is not the complete Collection, but it is what the curators have chosen to represent the bulk of their selections. This is not to say that the curators of the Criterion Collection don’t make wonderful selections. They do. That is undeniable. But it is still impossible to overlook the bias toward European and white cinema within one of the most well-respected film distribution companies of our time. Going one step further: it is also impossible not to consider why this bias exists. Is it because there really are only three movies from Africa that are worthy of being considered international classics? Or is it because there are films that deserve to be recognized but are being ignored?
It all goes back to the importance of representation on screen. Black and brown people have been taught that it is normal and right not to see ourselves on the big screen, that we aren’t worthy of having our stories told, that we aren’t classic, and that we do not set the standard for excellence. It only takes a small amount of research to see that not only have POC been telling our stories around the world through cinema since the invention of film, but that even if these films are not being called classic in institutions and by critics, we have so much material to look to to set our own standard for excellence. It doesn’t have to be just Hitchcock and Hepburn.
