Introduction
Films are
representations of life. To be realistic
and to portray human life, a few directors use the class politics in their
films. Robyn Wiegman uses the term “genderraceclass”,
a portmanteau term, to talk about the intricacies of a film. Robyn mixes 3 words because they are
interrelated. He believed that gender
based questions come after the questions of race and class. This coinage leads to a conclusion on which
comes first – gender or race or class?
The second question is the meaning these words given when they are
detached.
Class in Film Studies
Robyn
simply concluded his arguments by including another term in his portmanteau and
the term goes like this – “gendersexualityraceclass”. The study of class starts with Marx and
Engels’ work The Communist Manifesto, in which they say “the history of
all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles.” This work and words date long back in the history,
but till today there is no classless society.
Intellects in all fields have observed this and cinema is not exemption
of this philosophy of thought.
Class in
film studies does not stop with the screen presence of class based issues, but
it also voices out the class struggle behind the screen. For example, there is class struggle in the
production of a film. Inequality exists
in all parts of movie production. Movies
about the disadvantaged class are often produced by the people who are out of
social fraction. Movies representing
these disadvantaged classes in a low budget film will be driven away or they
will vanish by big budget movies.
Making a
class based movie is totally impossible even while using montage or
surrealism. Franz Kafka said about
movies, “sight does not master the picture; it is the picture which masters
one’s sight.” This is applicable to
class based movie making, which does not master one’s sight.
Louis
Althusser, a Russian director, attempts to represent the politics of class in
his films. According to him, capitalism
could not only be represented by a soldier’s gun or policeman’s baton but by
using Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA), such as church, media and arts.
Conclusion
It is hard
to represent class and its troubles in a cinema and even when someone attempts
to do that it would be a failure on his or her part. Critics conclude saying “Cameras are no more
impartial.”
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