Page 16 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945

clear. European cinema cannot be pinned down to a small number of production strategies, or reduced
to a limited series of intentions or ideological perspectives; it does not even fit barriers of language
or nations. It cannot be defined through audience and reception practices, nor through its range of
textual meanings. There are no straightforward genres to hold on to, no uncontested canon, not even
an undisputed series of countries (Flemish cinema? Yiddish cinema? Turkish cinema? Yugoslavian
cinema?), people (Alfred Hitchcock, Luc Besson, Paul Verhoeven?) or texts {Stranger Than Paradise!
Buena Vista Social Club!). As a result, pitching this vague concept against other, often more clearly
delineated, subjects of cinema studies, such as Hollywood, or perspectives like feminism (European
cinema is too masculine), postcolonialism (European cinema is too Eurocentric - favouring the 'Old
World') or liberalism (European cinema is economically protectionist) only allows for a negative
definition of European film; it is what others are not.
This book aims to blow some of that vagueness away by analysing European cinema through two
main perspectives: a cultural and an aesthetic one. None are new in the study of European cinema; in
fact they are perhaps the most often used perspectives for analysing it. But we would like to challenge
their use. First, and importantly, we want to make clear that this book sees both perspectives as
intrinsically connected. We believe the relation between research into how a film works culturally,
and analyses of its aesthetic nature and status cannot be separated. This does not necessarily mean
we believe that good films (aesthetically) have a specific (high?) cultural impact, a view which is,
still, all too common in public debates about film. As the works of Pierre Bourdieu have made clear,
the cultural position of a product is always linked to (elements of) the aesthetic, but different taste
perceptions and preferences can lead to different celebrations, without the one taking precedence over
the other.' For cinema, and perhaps on a somewhat more political and ideological level, the work of
Pierre Sorlin has demonstrated a similar pattern: a film's place in a culture is linked to its aesthetics,
and vice-versa, without implying that 'quality' equals cultural value. 2
Second, and following from the above, this book aims to tread outside the usual uses of cultural
and aesthetic perspectives, in fact turn their use upside down. It is the theoretical brief of this volume
to investigate European cinemas' capacity to reconstruct cultural frameworks, and its resistance to canons
of film aesthetics. As will be made clear below, certain views and practices of employing these two
perspectives, although useful at times, hinder a lot of research into parts of European cinema, and
here we wish to address and challenge these. The words 'reconstructing' and 'resistance' are of crucial
importance because they constitute an alternative to the mainstream. It is always difficult to pinpoint
exactly what 'an alternative' is, but in this case we see it as the kind of films which, consciously or
unwillingly, are (i) ignored inside the politically and ideologically accepted cultural frame of reference
yet still (try to) construct meanings on that frame of reference; and (ii) resist, by (lack of) effort or
attitude, a place within accepted canons of the popular, the artistic or the morally acceptable. Through
this focus on alternative, resisting, reconstructing European cinema we hope to revive the debate on
what European cinema is, how its history is written and what its role in society is. Ideologically
and politically, this includes the investigation of and intervention in public discourses around 'the
acceptable versus the deviant', challenging presumptions about what might (and what might not) be
attempted in film, theatre, internet, performance, television, video and their academic study, thus
questioning climates of inclusiveness and objectification in culture and its discourses.

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