Untitled - Memorial University of Newfoundland

must try to understand the groupoess ofthat cinematic experience.
Lester Friedman noted that ethnic identity, or gendered., racial. sexually oriented.
or the national identity of the filmmaker would, in part, determine the cultural text in
question.
Although 1would not contend that the ethnic component ofan artist's
identity represents the only determining factor in his or her work. 1would
argue that such elements have been insufficiently acknowledged and
understood by film scholars. historians. and critics.... As a female director
does not stop being a woman even when her film is not about overtly
feminist issues. so one's ethnic identity and sensibility do not disappear
when he or she malc.es a film about non-ethn.ic issues (Friedman, 1991:
31).
Scholars like Friedman recognized the need to approach popular cinema by understanding
the cultural aspects which created the filmmaker. Bya precess oftextual analysis. the
scholar would deconstruct the images ofa film (or any culturaileXI) and then discuss
them in terms of the filmmaker's own ethnic background l1 . Within me following case
slUdy on Jewish cinema. this was me assumption I went in with: that any Jewish
filinmaker would make a "Jewish" movie. II was the job of the culnual scholar to
deconstruct the texts in order to find the "Jewishness" ofany film made by a Jewish
filmmaker. This is a posilion which film scholars. like Friedman. would support. but
which ultimately proved untenable.
1'- Such an approach is problematic in that it privileges the film's director as "author" of
the film. and ignores the contribution ofproducers. actors and writer.; - in film studies
this is known as "the auteur theory."
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