Arab
cinematic production started in Egypt with the first news film in 1909, and
silent movies in the 1920s. However, the foundations of the Arab film industry
were not laid until 1935 when Misr Bank established Studio Misr in Egypt.
The following decade witnessed the rapid development of the Egyptian film
industry. By 1948, six further studios had been built and a total of 345 full-length
features produced. In the years after World-War-II, cinema was the most profitable
industrial sector in Egypt after the textile industry.
Egyptian
cinema, in all its popular genres, seeks to entertain. Musicals are a dominant
genre together with melodrama. This is followed by farce, and to a certain
extent, adventure. Egypt’s film industry is star led and is watched across
the Arab world.
Over
10% of films produced in Egypt between 1930 and 1993 were literary adaptations.
Realist literature played a decisive role in establishing realist cinema in
Egypt, and owes a great deal to the influence of the Egyptian novelist Naguib
Mahfouz. In particular, Mahfouz co-operated with the Egyptian director Salah
Abu-Seif, resulting in nine scripts in 1948 alone. Two adaptations of Mahfouz
novels directed by Abu-Seif count among the most important films of Egyptian
Realism: Cairo 30, and Beginning and End.
Egyptian
Realism used the melodrama aspects of the commercial genre. The "bad
guys" were generally old-moneyed land owners, and the films emphasised
the evils of poverty. The change brought by New Realism is mainly in its use
of the action and police genre, and the identification of new enemies: unscrupulous
businessmen, the corrupt nouveaux riches, and uncontrolled materialism. New
Realism offers the possibility of social mobility, making the determinism
of Realism outdated. The new heroes take the initiative, defend themselves,
and are not afraid to use violence against the crooks. Their moral struggle
is against materialism, egotism, and corruption. As such, they are guardians
of the family and of traditional social norms. The Bus Driver (1982)
by Atef El-Tayeb is a typical example of New Realism.
The
roots of much Arab cinema outside Egypt lay in the use of the medium as part
of resistance to colonialism. In Algeria, the provisional Algerian government
residing in Tunis formed the Service de Cinema National in 1958. After
the land reforms of 1971, a so-called New Cinema in Algeria began gradually
to open up to subjects other than the war of liberation. Among the subjects
that it was concerned with are the social injustices of post-colonial society,
emigration to France, bureaucracy, and female emancipation, and since the
1990s, Islamic fundamentalism. By contrast to the studio-based and star led
Egyptian cinema, Algerian cinema is mostly in outside settings and uses amateur
actors.
Like
Algerian revolutionary cinema, Syrian cinema has also been highly politicised.
In 1972, the Alternative Cinema in Syria articulated its orientations. It
consciously opposed commercial Egyptian cinema, and its focus was pan-Arab
nationalism and social justice. At the heart of this is the Palestinian question.
The Alternative Syrian Cinema movement included Palestinian and Lebanese film
makers, as well as certain Egyptian directors such as Taufik Salih. He produced
The Duped (1972) based on the realist novel Men Under the Sun
by the Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani.
Following
the Arab defeat in the six day war in 1967, there was a shift away from official
ideologies and political discourses, as can be seen in films such as Omar
Gatlato (1976) and Adventures of a Hero (1976) by the Algerian
Merzak Allouache, and Stars in Broad Daylight (1988) by the Syrian
Usama Mohammad. The genre of Satirical Realism, with its ironic distortions,
questions the realist representation and subverts its idealistic and propagandistic
contents, particularly in relation to social liberation, progress, and modernity.
This includes the use of anti-heroes such as Hassan Terro, the reluctant resistance
fighter in the film of the Algerian Mohammad Lakhdar Hammina; and the Syrian
film The Nights of the Jackal (1989) by Abdel-Latif Abdel-Hamid. The
theme of empty patriarchy (in the family, and at the levels of society and
state politics) became prominent in films such as Wedding in Galilee
(1989) by the Palestinian Michel Khleifi, and The Half-Meter Incident
(1981) by the Syrian Samir Zikra. In particular, the works of Khleifi mark
a new, more critical and stylistically lyrical, treatment.
Arab
film-makers are increasingly attracting critical acclaim, such as Cannes Film
Festival awards for the Lebanese Ziad Douairi, and the Palestinians Rashid
Mashrawi, Michel Khleifi, and Elia Suleiman. However, Arab film industries
(as with many film industries worldwide) have been persistently undermined
by little or no national funding, censorship, the advent of satellite television,
piracy, and an under-developed system for intellectual property exploitation.
This has lead Arab film-makers to increasing dependence on co-productions
(particularly with Europe). While co-productions create the possibility of
artistic dialogue, there is still no long-term substitute to having a nationally-based
infrastructure of support. Such backing is essential if Arab cinema is to
step-up its international visibility and its engagement with contemporary
issues and concerns.