World Cinema

Marketing and distribution ensure that Hollywood films have a global reach. However, what the film industries of other countries may lack in commercial potential, they make up for in artistic innovation. The technology of film was invented in Europe, and English and French narrative techniques influenced early American film-makers. Italian epics, Russian montage editing, and the European avant-garde were the crowning achievements of the silent era. Later, Italian cinema in the 1940s instigated one of the most radical stylistic transformations in film history, and French cinema in the 1960s inspired new waves throughout Eastern Europe and South America.

Ingmar Bergman (Sweden) and Akira Kurosawa (Japan) gained reputations equal to those of American directors such as Stanley Kubrick and Orson Welles. Indeed, Kubrick lived and worked in the UK, and Welles made films independently in Europe, with both directors achieving autonomy outside the Hollywood system. Another director in the Hollywood pantheon, Alfred Hitchcock, was a British expatriate in America; furthermore, directors such as Hitchcock were first recognised as great artists by French film critics.

Soviet theories of editing and acting continue to influence all film-makers, and Hollywood adopted many of the stylistic conventions of German silent cinema when numerous German directors emigrated to America after the Weimar era. More recently, the films of the New Hollywood directors were self-consciously European in style and theme.

1930s

Jean Vigo's Zero De Conduite (1933) and L'Atalante (1934), Jacques Feyder's Le Grand Jeu (1934), and Julien Duvivier's Pepe Le Moko (1936; a Polar, or police thriller), were the first films of France's stylised, atmospheric Realisme Poetique (Poetic Realism) movement. Vigo completed only a handful of films before dying of tuberculosis. Poetic Realism's most significant director was Marcel Carne, whose greatest films are Le Quai Des Brumes (1938), Le Jour Se Leve (1939), and Les Enfants Du Paradis (1945). The dream-like theatricality of this latter film would be equalled the following year in Jean Cocteau's fantasy La Belle Et La Bete. Jean Gabin, the star of Pepe Le Moko and Quai Des Brumes (and Jean Renoir's La Bete Humaine, 1938), became the movements's greatest icon, and appeared with Eric von Stroheim in Jean Renoir's masterpiece La Grande Illusion (1937).

Renoir's deep-focus photography, constantly moving camera, long takes, and tragi-comic narratives were all used to greatest effect in La Regle Du Jeu (1939), and the film is still acclaimed as European cinema's greatest achievement. European cinema's most questionable achievement is perhaps the Nazi documentary Triumph Des Willens (Leni Riefenstahl, 1934): an outstanding technical accomplishment, though also a lionisation of Adolf Hitler.

Riefenstahl had previously starred in several of the popular mountainside films (known as Bergfilme) by Arnold Fanck, including Der Heilige Berg (1926), though she did not appear in Fanck's first example of the genre, Das Wunder Des Schneeschuhs (1921). Alongside the Bergfilme during the 1920s was a series of educational documentaries, made primarily by the UFA studio, known as Kulturfilme; the first significant example was Wege Zu Kraft Und Schonheit (1925), directed by Nicholas Kaufmann and Wilhelm Prager.

Western-style Rancheras films were hugely popular in Mexico, with the most successful being Fernando de Fuentes's Alla En El Rancho Grande (1936). Another Mexican genre from the period, Cabaretera, involved innocent women venturing into sleazy nightclubs and being seduced into lives of wanton debauchery, with Alberto Gout's Aventurera (1949) being the acknowledged classic of this cult exploitation genre.

1940s

In Carol Reed's British classic The Third Man (1949), the anticipation of Welles's character Harry Lime rivals that of Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. Also in Britain, Ealing perfected their niche for delightful and satirical comedies with Kind Hearts And Coronets (Robert Hamer, 1948) and The Ladykillers (Alexander Mackendrick, 1955), both starring Alec Guinness.

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger co-directed a series of British masterpieces in the 1940s, including the celestial fantasy A Matter Of Life And Death (1946; an influence on the 1987 Wim Wenders film Der Himmel Uber Berlin), the sexual frustration of Black Narcissus (1947), and the balletic The Red Shoes (1948), produced by their company The Archers, launched in 1943 with a five-point (unpublished) manifesto.

Powell and Pressburger's films were far superior to the standard British films of the period, cheap 'quota quickies' churned out following a 1927 Act requiring a proportion of all exhibited films to be dosmestically produced.

Neo-Realism

Throughout the Fascist regime in Italy, one method of avoiding political censorship was simply to concentrate on producing escapist, non-political cinema. These opulent, glamorous films, such as Il Signor Max (Mario Camerini, 1937) starring future director Vittorio de Sica, were known as Telefoni Bianchi. After the collapse of Fascism and Italy's defeat in World War II, and the resultant lack of funds for its national film industry, the opulent escapism of the past was impossible. Instead, Luchino Visconti's Ossessione (1943) and La Terra Trema: Episodio Del Mare (1947) took Italian cinema in a new direction: Neo-Realismo (Neo-Realism). In 1935, Visconti worked as an uncredited assistant to Jean Renoir on Toni, a film whose style can be seen as a prototype of Neo-Realism. Dmitri Kirsanoff's short film Menilmontant (1926) is another of the movement's precursors.

Ossessione was filmed on location, bypassing the need for expensive studio sets. It also used non-professional actors and relied upon donated film-stock. Neo-Realism came to international attention with the release of Roberto Rossellini's Roma: Citta Aperta in 1945 and Paisa in 1946. Equally significant are the films of Vittorio de Sica, especially Sciuscia (1946), Ladri Di Biciclette (1948), and Umberto D (1952). Ossessione is also regarded as the first Giallo film, a genre later dominated by superior exploitation director Mario Bava (La Ragazza Che Sapeva Troppo, 1963; Sei Donne Per L'Assassino, 1964) and Dario Argento (Suspiria, 1977).

In the early 1950s, the Italian government funded film production only selectively, denying funds to overtly political films. Thus, elements of escapist comedy were introduced into Neo-Realist films, to make them more politically acceptable. This new style was known as Neo-Realismo Rosa (Pink Neo-Realism), and is typified by films such as Due Soldi Di Speranza (Renato Castellani, 1952). The comic element soon eclipsed the Neo-Realist components altogether, and a distinctive Italian comedy style, Comedia All'Italiana, was born with the films of Mario Monicelli, notably his I Soliti Ignoti (1958).

1950s

During the 1950s, directors such as Satyajit Ray, Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, and Ingmar Bergman all established international reputations for the cinema industries of their respective countries. In Sweden, Smultronstallet (1957), the masterful religious allegory Det Sjunde Inseglet (1957), and, later, Persona (1966) and Viskningar Och Rop (1972), marked director Ingmar Bergman as one of world cinema's greatest artists. Japan's master director Akira Kurosawa, who was inspired by the American John Ford, was the most significant example of this internationalisation. His Rashomon (1950) and his epic Ken-Geki film Schinin No Samurai (1954), both starring Toshiro Mifune, brought the Japanese film industry to the forefront of international attention. His other siginificant films of the period include Yoidore Tenshi (1948), Ikiru (1952), and Yojimbo (1961).

Japan's other greatest film-makers, Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujiro Ozu, had, unlike Kurosawa, been directing ever since the silent era, though their greatest films were also made in the 1950s. Mizoguchi's work - Ugetsu Monogatari (1953) and Sansho Dayu (1954) - has been compared to that of French director Jean Renoir, as he shares Renoir's use of deep-focus photography, constantly moving camera, and tragi-comic narrative. By contrast, Ozu's Noriko trilogy (Banshun from 1949, Bakushu from 1951, and Tokyo Monogatari from 1953) contains virtually no camera movement at all. (A nostalgic trend for Meiji-Mono films, set in the historical Meiji period, was revived in the 1950s, the greatest example being Toyoda Shirou's Gan from 1953.)

Mizoguchi's Ugetsu Monogatari is an example of Japan's Kaidan Eiga, films featuring ghost stories (an early example of which is Mizoguchi's own Kyoren No Onna Shisho, 1926). The dramatic realism of Ugetsu Monogatari is atypical of the genre, however, as most examples are supernatural horror stories. Nobuo Nakagawa, the greatest of all Japanese horror directors, made an Obaneneko-Mono film about a ghostly cat (Borei Kaibyo Yashiki, 1958). In 1964, Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan was the first Kaidan film to gain international recognition. The genre's real breakthrough came decades later, in 1998, when Hideo Nakata's J-Horror Ringu - following in the wake of Korea's K-Horror ghost film Yeogo Goedam (Park Ki-Hyung, 1998) - became the first worldwide Kaidan blockbuster.

Like the 1920s, the '50s represent a golden age for Japanese cinema. In the 1930s, a series of literary adaptions (Bungei Eiga) was produced, including Izu No Odoriko (Heinosuke Gosho, 1933) and Wakai Hito (Shiro Toyoda, 1937); in the 1940s, there were jingoistic war dramas (Kokusaku Eiga) such as Hawaii-Mare Oki Kaisen (Kajiro Yamamoto, 1942); however, in terms of variety and quantity, the 1920s and, especially, the '50s, remain unmatched in Japan.

The short-lived Keiko Eiga films of the 1920s inspired a new genre of social-realist Japanese cinema, known as Shakai-Mono. The director who dominated this genre was Tadashi Imai, who was well-known for the unsentimental nature of his films (called 'nakanai') such as Himeyuri No To (1953). By contrast, most Japanese films were highly melodramatic ('namida chodai'), typified by Kinoyu Tanaka's Chibusa Yo Ein Nare (1955).

Another 1920s Japanese genre, Shomin-Geki, was also revived in the 1950s, branching into several new sub-genres. Mikio Naruse's Meshi (1951), for instance, was an example of the Tsuma-Mono sub-genre (films about wives). Keisuke Kinoshita's Nihon No Higeki (1953) represents the Haha-Mono sub-genre (films about mothers). The most popular of these Neo-Shomin-Geki films was Heinosuke Gosho's Entotsu No Mieru Basho (1953).

In India, Satyajit Ray directed the 'Apu trilogy' (Pather Panchali in 1955, Aparajito in 1956, and Apur Sansar in 1959), in stark contrast to the musical decadence of Bollywood films such as Alam Ara (Ardeshir Irani, 1931). The Apu trilogy marked a temporary shift away from populist Bollywood fantasies, helping to foster an Indian culture of non-populist films known broadly as Parallel Cinema, including art films (Kalamatka) and experimental cinema (Prayogika). In the 1960s, New Indian Cinema was fully established as an alternative to formulaic mainstream populism, led by Bhuvan Shome (Mrinal Sen, 1969). With Arun Kaul, Mrinal Sen wrote a Manifesto Of The New Cinema Movement, criticising traditional Indian musical films, in 1968. Shyam Benegal's debut film Ankur (1974) has been described as an example of Middle Cinema, as it represented a balance between the artistic integrity of Parallel Cinema and the populism of the mainstream Indian film industry.

In Italy, Federico Fellini directed La Strada (1954), which was compared to French Realisme Poetique, in contrast to Italy's prevalent Neo-Realismo style. Italian cinema was gradually moving away from the social worthiness of Neo-Realismo, and populist genres such as the Spaghetti western, the Giallo, and the Peplum would all flourish in the 1960s. Peplum films began with Le Fatiche Di Ercole (Pietro Francisci, 1958).

In protest at the lack of social realism in British films, a Free Cinema group was established, with a short manifesto published in 1956. The group initially produced short documentaries which focused on working-class culture and recreation, including O Dreamland (Lyndsay Anderson, 1953) and Momma Don't Allow (Karel Reisz and Tony Richardson, 1955). The Free Cinema directors then progressed from documentaries to feature-films: 'kitchen sink' dramas about Northern 'angry young men', such as Room At The Top (Jack Clayton, 1959) and Look Back In Anger (Tony Richardson, 1959), true to the social realist origins of the movement.

Isidore Isou, founder of the French Lettriste avant-garde art movement, directed Traite De Bave Et d'Eternite in 1950. The film was deliberately asynchronous, a technique Isou called Cinema Discrepant. Other Lettriste films featured spoken soundtracks though no images (known as Cinechronic films), the first being Gil J Wolman's Atochrone (1950). Isou and Wolman both contributed to Guy Dubord's Cinechronic Hurlements En Faveur de Sade (1952).

1960s

Jean Rouche's Cinema-Verite documentary Chronique d'Un Ete (1961) moved away from Godard's Brechtian and alienating devices, in an attempt to achieve a more realistic vision. The political documentary Primary (Robert Drew, 1960) and 'rockumentary' ('rock documentary') Don't Look Back (DA Pennebaker, 1967) were part of a Cinema Direct movement, influenced by Cinema-Verite. (Rockumentaries were parodied by Rob Reiner's 'mockumentary' ('mock documentary') This Is Spinal Tap, in 1984.)

La Battaglia Di Algeri (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1965) was a Verite-style reconstruction of the Algerian Revolution, and Algerian director Mohamed Bouamari (El Faham, 1973) called for a Cinema Djidid (New Cinema) movement to respond to the problems facing the ordinary people of the country. New Cinema's greatest triumph was the epic Chronique Des Annees De Braise (Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, 1975). New Cinema followed the politically radical Algerian Cinema Mudjahad (Freedom-Fighter Cinema) movement, which included films such as L'Aube Des Damnes (Ahmed Rachedi, 1965) and Rih Al Awras (Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, 1966).

British cinema continued its realist aesthetic with films such as Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (Karel Reisz, 1960) and Ken Loach's Kes (1969). Their polar opposite was Lawrence Of Arabia (1962), one of David Lean's most spectacular British epics.

In Italy, Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960) began with a technically perfect sequence in which a statue of Christ is carried by helicopter over the streets of Rome. The decadent lifestyles of the characters in Fellini's La Dolce Vita and 8½ (1963), and in Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura (1960), effectively mark the end of Neo-Realism. A new kind of stylish, violent (and often exploitative) Italian cinema, which lasted throughout the 1970s, can be traced back to Mario Bava's Giallo thrillers La Ragazza Che Sapeva Troppo (1963) and Sei Donne Per L'Assassino (1964).

The 'man with no name' trilogy of Spaghetti westerns (Per Un Pugno Di Dollari in 1964, Per Qualche Dollaro In Piu in 1965, and Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo in 1966) was made in Italy by Sergio Leone, influenced by Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo and later eclipsed by Leone's epic C'Era Una Volta Il West (1969). Spaghetti westerns (known in their native Italy as Macaroni westerns) were preceded by German Spatzle westerns (or Sauerkraut westerns) such as Der Schatz Im Silbersee (Harald Reinl, 1962) and later satirised by the Japanese comedy Tampopo (Juzo Itami, 1985), a self-styled Noodle western. The Curry western Sholay (Ramesh Shippy, 1975) is India's most successful Bollywood film. The South Korean film Joheunnom, Nabbeunnom, Isanghannom (Ji-Woon Kim, 2008) was marketed as a Kimchi western. In Japan, Takashi Miike directed a Sukiyaki western, Sukiyaki Western Django (2007). Inspired by Spaghetti westerns, Israeli director Boaz Davidson dubbed films such as Menahem Golan's Fortuna (1966) and his own Hagiga B'Snuker (1975) Bourekas, after a pastry dish. (The Bourekas comedies existed alongside the more politicised works of the Kayitz (Young Israeli Cinema) movement, with Ephraim Kishon's Sallah Shabbati from 1964 acting as a bridge between the two styles.) Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia called his film 800 Balas (2002) a Marmitako western. Predating Italy's Spaghetti westerns, production of Eastern European and Russian revisionist westerns (Osterns) was thriving thanks to the success of Samson Samsonov's Ognenni Versti (1957); even earlier was a cycle of Russian Borsch westerns in the 1920s. In Denmark, films such as Praeriens Skrappe Drenge (Carl Ottosen, 1970) were known as Kartoffelwesterns. There are also variants from Spain (Paella westerns) and France (Camembert westerns).

A 'porno chic' trend in Japan was initiated by Tetsuji Takechi's taboo-breaking Hakujitsumu from 1964 - which launched the Pinku Eiga genre - and the Roman Porno films produced by the Nikkatsu studio such as Shogoro Nishimura's Danchizuma Hirusagari No Joji (1971) and Tatsumi Kumashiro's Akai Kami No Onna (1979). Pinku Eiga was later sub-divided into films classed as sensational (Shigeki Rosen), abnormal (Ijoseiai Rosen), and shameless (Harenchi Rosen). Japan also produced soft-core sexploitation films known as Jitsuro.

New Waves

In a break away from the prevalent French Poetic Realism, film critics writing for Cahiers Du Cinema magazine (edited by Andre Bazin) began making their own films, in a movement that became known as the Nouvelle Vague (French New Wave). Cahiers writers such as Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut recognised the individualism of directors such as Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock, and this realisation led to the 'politique des auteurs' - the notion, popularised by Alexandre Astruc, that a director has artistic control over a film in the same way as an author has over a novel. They key text in the formation of the New Wave was Francois Truffaut's Une Certaine Tendance Du Cinema Francais, published in Cahiers in 1954 and decrying what he saw as the retrogressive state of French cinema (he dismissed the popular 'cinema de qualite' as 'cinema du papa').

Godard's A Bout De Souffle (1959), with its hand-held camerawork, location-shooting, and jump-cut editing, signalled a reinvigoration of French cinema. The movement's other early masterpieces are the enigmatic collage-film Hiroshima Mon Amour (Alain Resnais, 1959) and Truffaut's Les 400 Coups. Truffaut's film caused a sensation when it opened in 1959, though Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob Le Flambeur (1955), Agnes Varda's La Pointe Courte (1956), and Claude Chabrol's Le Beau Serge (1958) are regarded as key progenitors of the movement.

The New Wave expanded significantly in the 1960s, one of its most popular films being Francois Truffaut's Jules Et Jim (1962). Alain Resnais directed L'Annee Derniere A Marienbad (1961), which challenged the formal conventions of the cinema like almost no other film. The New Wave was still dominated, however, by Jean-Luc Godard, whose films of the period include Pierrot Le Fou (1965) and Week End (1967). In the apocalyptic Week End, the jump-cuts and hand-held cameras of A Bout De Souffle gave way to increasingly alienating devices, such as inter-titles and direct-to-camera monologues, which broke away from the illusion of realism.

Aside from the New Wave, French cinema of the period is remembered for its suspenseful and atmospheric horror films. Specifically, Henri-Georges Clouzot's Les Diaboliques (1954) was a significant influence on Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.

Inspired by the French New Wave, there were new wave movements in several Eastern European countries throughout the 1960s, most famously in Czechoslovakia. The Czech new wave was led by Milos Forman (Konkurs, 1963; Cerny Petr, 1963; Lasky Jedne Plavovlasky, 1965) and Jiri Menzel (Ostre Sledovane Vlaky, 1966). Forman would later work in Hollywood, directing One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest in 1975. Other key films of the Czech new wave include Slnko V Sieti (Stefan Uher, 1962), Krik (Jaromil Jires, 1963), Obchod Na Korze (Jan Kadar and Elmar Klos, 1965), and Sedmikrasky (Vera Chytilova, 1966). Many directors of the Czech new wave were graduates of the Prague Filme and Television Faculty of the Academy of Dramatic Arts.

In Yugoslavia, Aleksandar Petrovic, Zivojin Pavlovic, and Dusan Makavejev initiated a Novi Film (New Film) movement that came to be known as the Crni Talas (Black Wave), its milestone films being Petrovic's Dvoje, (1961), Tri (1965), and Skupljaci Perja (1967). Pavlovic directed Kada Budem Mrtav I Beo and Makavejev directed the sexually radical Ljubavni Slucaj Ili Tragedija Sluzbenice PTT, both in 1967.

A Hungarian new wave was initiated by Miklos Janeso's Oldas Es Kotes (1962); two years later, he developed his signature long takes and tracking shots in Igy Jottem (1964). Hungarian directors also developed an improvisational, semi-documentary style known as Filmregeny (Cine Romans), as in Istvan Darday's Jutalomutazas (1974) and Filmregeny: Harom Nover (1979).

In 1962, a new wave of young directors in Brazil collaborated on the portmanteau film Cinco Vezes Favela. The film was divided into five sections, each with a different director: Ze Da Cachorra by Miguel Borges, Escola De Samba Alegria De Viver by Carlos Diegues, Um Favelado by Marcos Farias, Pedreira De Sao Diego by Leon Hirszman, and Couro De Gato by Joaquim Pedro DeAndrade. Though Cinco Vezes Favela introduced a new generation of Brazil's young directors, it was the Cinema Novo (New Cinema) movement that drew international attention to the country's most impoverished people and to its most accomplished director, Glauber Rocha.

Rocha directed the mythological Deus E O Diablo Na Terra Do Sol (1964) and the frenetic Terra Em Transe (1967). His manifesto La Estetica Del Hambre (1965) defined the New Cinema movement, though it was anticipated by Nelson Pereira Dos Santos with Rio 40 Graus (1955, inspired by Neo-Realism) and Vidas Secas (1963). While direct political content was suppressed in Brazilian cinema, censorship of sexual imagery was relaxed in the 1970s, leading to a series of soft-core sexploitation Cinema de Boca (Films of the Mouth) comedies known as Pornochanchades (as seen in the 1978 compilation film Os Melhores Momentos Da Pornochanchada, by Victor di Mello and Lenine Otoni).

In 1968, Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino formed a group called Cine Liberacion (Liberation Flm), with a manifesto (Hacia Un Tercer Cine, 1969) calling for a new Tercer Cine (Third Cinema) linking the emerging cinemas of South America and Africa. They also co-directed a film of their own in 1968: La Hora De Los Hornos. Elsewhere in Latin America, a group of Mexican critics formed Nuevo Cine (New Cinema) in 1961, published a journal of the same name, and endorsed Jomi Garcia Ascot's En El Balcon Vacio (1961) as a new beginning for Mexican cinema.

In Japan, Oshima Nagisa's early films, such as Ai To Kibo No Machi (1959), marked him out as the most radical of that country's Nuberu Bagu (Japanese New Wave) of young directors. He later formed his own production company after his films became too political for Shochiku.

In 1955, a conference had been held in the Spanish town of Salamanca. The Conversaciones Sobre La Cinematografia conference, which praised Italian Neo-Realism, called for contemporary Spanish cinema to openly defy the political censorship of the Francoist regime. Juan Antonio Bardem co-wrote Luis Garcia Berlanga's Bienvenido Mr Marshall (a Neo-Realismo parody of Espanolada exoticism, 1951) and directed the bitterly anti-Franco Muerta De Un Ciclista (1955). With Berlanga, he came to symbolise a new generation of radical film-makers whose work constituted a Nuevo Cine Espanol (New Spanish Cinema). The group's international figurehead was Carlos Saura, who directed La Caza (1966). Spaniard Luis Bunuel returned to his Surrealist roots (though not to his homeland) with the sexual fantasy Belle De Jour (1967).

A large group of young German directors signed a manifesto at Oberhausen in 1962, calling for a revival in German cinema. They formed the Junger Deutscher Film (Young German Film) group, and the central focus of their manifesto was to replace the nostalgic, nationalistic, and escapist Heimatfilme ('Heimat films') popular in Germany throughout the 1950s (a style they dismissively labelled 'Papa's Kino'). Heimat films had served to boost German national feeling following World War II, and can be compared to the Technicolor escapism of Hollywood during the American Depression, and they represent the antithesis of the Trummerfilme ('rubble films' set in the ruins of Germany's bombed cities, such as Wolfgang Staudte's Die Morder Sind Unter Uns from 1946 and Roberto Rossellini's Italian film Germania Anno Zero from 1948). 1956 was the high point of the style, with Ulrich Erfurth's Drei Birken Auf Der Heide being a typical film from that year: a man returning to the village of his birth realises the importance of his idyllic rural homeland.

In 1966, the Junger Deutscher group released two important anti-Heimat films: Volker Schlondorff's Der Junge Torless and Alexander Kluger's Abschied Von Gestern. They were, however, eclipsed by an internationally-acclaimed group known as Neue Kino (New Cinema), led by Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Wenders was fascinated by open spaces, as his 'road movie' Im Lauf Der Zeit (1976) demonstrates. Specifically, he was fascinated by the wide open spaces of the American outback, as seen in Paris, Texas (1984). Herzog's extravagant, mythological epics Aguirre Der Zorn Gottes (1972) and Fitzcarraldo (1982) both star the manic Klaus Kinski, whom an exasperated Herzog tried to kill on one occasion. Fassbinder's death by suicide marked the end-point of New Cinema; arguably his greatest film was Angst Essen Seele Auf (1974), and his most successful was Die Ehe Der Maria Braun (1979).

1970s

Government subsidy of the Film Development Corporation in Australia financed such films as Picnic At Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975) and My Brilliant Career (Gillian Armstrong, 1979), though the revival of Australia's film industry is credited to a more unlikely source - crude yet popular 'Ozploitation' (Australian exploitation) films such as Stork (Tim Burstall, 1971).

A new generation of Polish directors, led by Krysztof Zanussi (Constans, 1980), made films with a strongly social-reformist agenda (highlighting the moral bankruptcy of contemporary society), a style which they called Kino Moralnego Niepokoju (Cinema of Moral Anxiety). In Turkey, actor and director Yilmaz Guney led a Young Turkish Cinema movement with Umut (1970), inspired by Italian Neo-Realism.

Greek cinema had revolved around populist Farsocomedies and patriotic, traditionalist Foustanelles films until Theodoros Angelopoulos inspired a New Greek Cinema movement with his politically radical debut film Anaparastassi (1970).

1980s

The Chinese government's restrictions on access to western films were finally lifted in the early 1980s, and the first Chinese film-makers to benefit from this were the Fifth Generation group, graduates of the reopened Beijing Film Academy. Fifth Generation films, such as Huang Tudi (Kaige Chen, 1984) focussed on the history of rural China. Arguably the first film of the Fifth Generation, Yige He Bage (Zheng Junzhao, 1984) was not released until 1987, after its anti-Communist implications had been toned down.

Similarly, a new generation of film-makers in Taiwan was concerned at the increasing urbanisation of their society, and the Taiwanese Central Motion-Picture Corporation received government funding which supported their work. The leading figures of this Hsin-Jui (Taiwanese New Wave) movement were Hou Hsiao-Hsien, who directed the autobiographical Tong Nien Wang Shi (1985) and the historical epic Beiqing Chengshi (1989), and Yang Dechang (also known as Edward Yang), whose Guling Jie Shaonian Sha Ren Shijian (1991) is an epic evocation of 1960s street life. The movement was launched with two portmanteau films: Guangyinde Gushi (Yi Chang, I-Chen Ko, Te-Chen Tao, and Yang Dechang; 1982) and Erzi De Dawan'Ou (Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Wan Jen, and Zhuang Xiang Zeng; 1983). The Taiwanese New Wave was revitalised in the 1990s, with the films of Tsai Ming-Liang (whose work, such as Aiqing Wansui from 1994, is a cold study of urban alienation) and Ang Lee (who followed Hsi Yen in 1993 with a series of commercial Hollywood genre films).

Following the Soviet Union's newfound tolerance of freedom of speech ('glasnost'), its films ('otechestvennye filmy'/'fatherland films') were predominantly bleak examinations of life's harsh realities. These somewhat depressing films were known as 'chernukha' ('black films'), the dominant aesthetic of 1980s Soviet cinema as seen in films such as Vzlomshchik (Valeri Ogorodnikov, 1986), Malenkaya Vera (Vasily Pichul, 1988), and Taksi-Blyuz (Pavel Lounguine, 1990). A related style, 'bytovoy' ('realism'), presented a degree of social criticism and satire, as in Georgi Danelia's Osenniy Marafon (1979 and Vladimir Menshov's Moskva Slezam Ne Verit (1980). (There were also a number of blockbuster films (Boeviki), such as Alla Surikova's Chelovek S Bulvara Kaputsinov from 1987.)

A small group of Kazakh directors, given the opportunity to study at the VGIK film insititute in Moscow, sought to counteract the predominant grim realism of Russian cinema with a Kazakh new wave beginning with Yermek Shinarbayev's Sestra Moya Lyusya (1985) and Rachid Nugmanov's Igla (1988). The movement's leading director, Serik Aprimov, is best known for Konechnaya Ostanovka (1990).

In Japan, Anime films (also known as 'Japanimation') such as Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo, 1987) and Kokaku Kidotai (Mamoru Oshii, 1995) were adapted from the country's popular comic magazines. (The Akira Manga comic was drawn by Katsuhiro Otomo himself.) Arguably the most important animation artist since Walt Disney, Hayao Miyazaki directed many enchanting Anime films, released by Ghibli, the studio he co-founded in 1985. Miyazaki's first critical success came with Kaze No Tani No Naushika (1984, based on his own Manga) and Tonari No Totoro (1988), and his Sen To Chihiro No Kamikakushi (2001) features a magical lyricism comparable to The Wizard Of Oz.

The Anime industry in Japan has existed since the 1960s, producing countless animated series and serials aimed at children, with specific genres catering for boys (Shonen) and girls (Shojo). There are also Anime genres for young women (Josei) and adolescents (Seinen). Cartoons featuring attractive boys are known as Bishonen, while those featuring pretty girls are called Bishojo. Cartoons featuring superheroes are known as Sentai. Maho Shojo is a genre featuring girls with magical powers. Anime with especially cute characters are known as Moe. The Mecha genre features giant robots. Japan also has an extensive market for bawdy (Ecchi) and pornographic (Hentai) Anime, which can be sub-divided into several specific genres. For example, Yaoi cartoons feature gay characters (though are aimed at a female audience), Shonen-Ai are gay cartoons aimed at a male audience, Yuri and Shojo-Ai feature lesbian characters, Shota are erotic cartoons featuring young boys, and Lolicon are similarly erotic Anime featuring young girls.

Kung-fu films, and softcore Fengyue exploitation such as Fengyue Qitan (Li Hanxiang, 1972), had dominated Hong Kong cinema in the 1970s. However, in 1979, director Tsui Hark made his debut with the dazzling and hallucinatory Die Bian, leading a new wave of commercial Hong Kong cinema. Tsui, who was criticised for the increasing populism of his films, was also a successful producer, working with fellow Hong Kong director Wu Yusen (also known as John Woo). The Heroic Bloodshed gangster films Yingxiong Bense (1986) and Die Xue Shuang Xiong (1989) were instant blockbusters, produced by Tsui Hark, directed by Wu Yusen, and starring Chow Yun-Fat. Du Sheng, starring Chow Sing Chi (also known as Stephen Chow) in a parody of Chow Yun-Fat, introduced a new Hong Kong comedy style known as 'mo lei tau' ('nonsense'), and was directed by Chun-Wai Lau (also known as Jeffrey Lau) and Corey Yuen in 1990.

Video

Domestic video players created a new market for classic old films and unpromising new ones: distribution companies could now release films DTV ('direct-to-video') if they felt that a theatrical release would be uncommercial.

Video was also, initially, less strictly regulated than the cinema, and numerous violent horror films released on video in the UK were eventually banned. These 'video nasties' were condemned as 'splatter', 'slice-and-dicers', and 'stalk-and-slashers'.

[Also in the UK, off-air broadcasts were recorded and remixed to create satirical video collages in a movement known as Scratch Video; a Scratch Video compilation, The Greatest Hits Of Scratch Video, was issued by George Barber in 1984.

In Japan, direct-to-video films were known as V-Cinema. Many Anime series deemed too short for television transmission were instead released direct-to-video as OVAs ('original video animations'), the first example being Darossu (Mamoru Oshii, 1983). Once DVDs replaced videos as the domestic medium of choice, DTVs became DVDPs ('DVD premieres').]

1990s

With the collapse of the military dictatorship in South Korea in the early 1990s, restrictions on foreign media were lifted. This led to an influx of Hollywood films, with which the country's national film industry could not compete. After securing corporate sponsorship, a new wave of South Korean films achieved increasing domestic and international success. The instant and unprecedented box-office popularity of Seopyeonje (Im Kwon-Taek, 1993) and Swiri (Kang Je-Gyu, 1999) heralded a New Korean Cinema movement and reasserted the dominance of South Korea's film industry within Asia, a trend known as Hallyu (Korean Wave). (A short-lived Korean new wave movement, known as Yongsang Sedae, had existed in the 1970s, initiated in 1974 by Yi Chang-Ho's Pyoldul Ui Kohyang.)

Fifth Generation film-maker Yimou Zhang (whose debut was Hong Gao Liang in 1987) directed his masterpiece, Dahong Denglong Gaogao Gua (1991), a film whose sumptuous cinematography is contrasted with its themes of repression and jealousy. His fellow Fifth Generation director, Kaige Chen, made the lavish Ba Wang Bie Ji in 1993. In contrast to the increasingly spectacular Fifth Generation films, a more realistic, urban, and independent Sixth Generation was led by Beijing Zazhong (Zhang Yuan, 1993). Emerging simultaneously with the documentary-style Sixth Generation films was a New Documentary Movement of low-budget Chinese documentaries such as Liulang Beijing: Zuihou De Mengxiangzhe (Wu Wenguang, 1990).

1997 was a breakthrough year for the cinema of Iran. The country's long history of exploitative 'filmfarsi' productions was broken by the international acclaim garnered by the films of Abbas Kiarostami (Nema-Ye Nazdik, 1990; Ta'm E Guilass, 1997). Kiarostami had previously written Jafar Panahi's Badkonake Sefid (1995); his Bad Ma Ra Khahad Bord (1999) and Mohsen Makhmalbaf's later Safar E Ghandehar (2001) took Iranian cinema, by now at the forefront of international appreciation, into the next century. Safar E Ghandehar, which follows a woman travelling in the Afghan desert, was released at the same time as Afghanistan's Taliban regime was overthrown. Bahman Ghobadi's Zamani Baraye Masti Asbha (2000) and Lakposhtha Ham Parvaz Mikonand (2004) present a Kurdish perpective on the conflict in the Middle East. One of the few precursors of the 1990s Cinema Motefavet (Iranian New Wave) was Dariush Mehrjui's Gaav (1969).

A group of Danish directors formed Dogme '95, and agreed to a Vow Of Chastity manifesto (1995) pledging never to use artificial lighting, post-synchronised sound, camera tripods, or studio sets. In an anti-auteurist gesture, they also refused to allow themselves directorial credits. Each Dogme '95 film was prefaced with a title-card certifying its accordance with the Dogme code. The first such film was Thomas Vinterberg's Festen (1998).

In France, La Haine (Matieu Kassovitz, 1995) was arguably the film of the decade, highlighting the racial tension in 'banlieu' ghettos. A similar theme is explored from an Arab perspective in French Cinema Beur films such as Karim Dridi's Bye-Bye from 1995.

A series of provocative French films, known collectively as the New French Extreme movement and led by Gaspar Noe's Seul Contre Tous (1997), introduced transgressive sex and violence into arthouse cinema. In Michael Haneke's equally shocking Austrian film Funny Games (1997), an exercise in 'epater le bourgeois', two young murderers invade a family's holiday home.

The last masterpiece of the century was Todo Sobre Mi Madre (1999) by Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, who later directed the emotionally devastating Hable Con Ella (2002). (Almodovar's uninhibited earlier films, such as Pepi, Luci, Bom, Y Otras Chicas Del Monton (1980), signified his association with La Movida Madrilena (The Madrilenian Groove), a hedonistic youth subculture in 1980s Madrid.)

The most promising new director in world cinema at the turn of the 21st century was perhaps Hong Kong's Wong Kar-Wai. His A Fei Zheng Chuan (1991) and Chong Qing Sen Lin (1994) developed cult followings, and his epic 2046 (2004) was an international arthouse success.

2000s

Latin American cinema overcame its region's economic instability with a Buena Onda of internationally successful films from Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. The revival arguably began with the emergence of a Nuevo Cine Argentino (New Argentine Cinema) led by Martin Rejtman's Silvia Prieto (1999) though is better represented by Fabian Bielinsky's kinetic Nueve Reinas (2000). Alfonso Cuaron's Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001) and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Amores Perros (2000), both from Mexico, were simultaneous Nueva Ola (Mexican New Wave) successes. Also from Latin America, Cidade De Deus (2002), by Katia Lund and Fernando Meirelles, is the most commercially successful Brazilian film ever made. Its casual violence was influenced by Scorsese and Tarantino, and with its theme of poverty in the favelas of Rio it echoes Brazil's New Cinema movement from the 1960s. The film's co-producer, Walter Salles, directed one of the earliest Buena Onda (Good Wave) films: Central Do Brasil (1998), in a period known as a 'retomada' ('renaissance'), with state funding affording directors more creative freedom.

A renaissance in Thai cinema was, like that of Latin America, concurrent with a financial crisis in the region. The New Thai Cinema movement was instigated almost single-handedly in the late 1990s by Nonzee Nimibutr with two domestic blockbusters: gangster film 2499 Antapan Krong Muang (1997) and horror story Nang Nak (1999). Nonzee went on to produce Wisit Sasanatieng's Fah Talai Jone in 2000. Wisit (who wrote Nonzee's 2499 and Nang Nak, and comes from a television advertising background) has a uniquely 'retro' style evoking the melodramas of 1950s Thai cinema. In Fah Talai Jone, he digitally transforms the environment he films with un-naturally bright colours, so that each frame resembles an Andy Warhol screen-print. The country's peak cinema period was during the 1970s, when films would be screened outdoors at night ('nang klang plaeng'), sometimes accompanied by vendors selling unlicensed medication ('nang khai ya').

New Thai Cinema's other key figure is Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, who worked with Wisit in the Thai TV advertising industry before becoming a film-maker. Several of his films, including Ruang Rak Noi Nid Mahasan (2003), have an international dimension, as he often works with actors and crews from other Asian countries. Finally, Apichatpong Weerasethakul is Thailand's most prominent avant-garde director; his films (including Sud Pralad, 2004) are enigmatic, allegorical, and contemplative.

A Chinese martial-arts film revival was instigated by the worldwide arthouse success of Wo Hu Cang Long (Ang Lee, 2000). It was followed by the balletic, graceful Ying Xiong (2002) directed by Yimou Zhang, and his lavish tragedy Man Cheng Jin Dai Huang Jin Jia (2006). The epic scale of the latter film made it China's most extravagant 'dapian' ('blockbuster').

The minimalist, naturalistic Moartea Domnului Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, 2005), with its long takes and static camera, signalled a new wave in Romanian cinema. A central funding system, the National Centre of Cinematography, was established at the start of the decade, and the new wave achieved its greatest success when Cristian Mungiu's Patru Luni, Trei Saptamini, Si Doi Zile won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2007.