Pluralism and Cultural Imperialism in the Network Films Babel and Lantana

Journal of Postcolonial Writing ISSN: 1744-9855 (Print) 1744-9863 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjpw20 Pluralism and cultural imperialism in the network films Babel and Lantana Vivien Silvey To cite this article: Vivien Silvey (2013) Pluralism and cultural imperialism in the network films Babel and Lantana, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 49:5, 582-595, DOI: 10.1080/17449855.2013.842738 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2013.842738 Published online: 15 Oct 2013. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 462 View related articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rjpw20 Download by: [University of Washington Libraries] Date: 03 December 2016, At: 12:31 Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 2013 Vol. 49, No. 5, 582–595, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2013.842738 Pluralism and cultural imperialism in the network films Babel and Lantana Vivien Silvey* Australian National University, Canberra, Australia The multinational film Babel (2006) and the Australian film Lantana (2001) dwell on controversies surrounding international and multicultural relationships. They belong to a genre termed network cinema, which focuses on social problems and responds to the paradigm of network society. Babel and Lantana aim to represent cultural pluralism, yet their narrative politics compromise this aim. Although they seek to decolonize the marginalized and give equal voice to broad cross sections of society, these two films rely on narrative tactics which colonize, stereotype and essentialize cultural others. This paper argues that the ways in which the two texts reterritorialize multicultural and gendered relationships undermine their thematic con- cern with the need for cross cultural understanding and trust. In many ways these narrative tactics align with those popular in Hollywood films, which challenges the notion that world cinema consists of oppositional film industries. Nevertheless, the production and distribution of these two films reveal concretely asymmetrical power relationships. These findings suggest that the common notion of a clear divide between Hollywood and national art cinemas (implicit in the term “world cinema”) requires revision. Keywords: network films; Babel; Lantana; pluralism; imperialism; world cinema Babel (Iñárritu 2006) and Lantana (Lawrence 2001) belong to a genre described as network cinema that has flourished around the world since the early 1990s. Well known examples include Code Unknown (Haneke 2000), Crash (Haggis 2004), Magnolia (Anderson 1999) and The Edge of Heaven (Akin 2007). This genre belongs to a broader contemporary imaginary concerning social networks. For instance, David Mitchell’s novel Cloud Atlas (2004) and Sebastian Faulks’s A Week in December (2011) similarly depict networks of interconnecting strangers and acquaintances. While there is contention over how to label the film genre (see Quart 2005; Everett 2005, 159; del Mar Azcona 2010, 1; Pisters 2011), I take as my point of departure the point made by both David Bordwell and Paul Kerr that “network cinema” is the most appro- priate term (Bordwell 2007, 191; Kerr 2010, 40). It signals both the films’ social the- matics regarding the paradigm of network society (Castells 2000, 3) and industrial practices (since the films frequently rely on networked modes of production and distribution). As well as networked production technologies, home-viewing technologies have been instrumental in the genre’s popularity. DVDs and the Internet have provided both artistic and commercial incentives for film-makers to convey complex narratives which require multiple viewings to solve the narrative puzzles (Bordwell 2006, 74). *Email: [email protected] Ó 2013 Taylor & Francis Journal of Postcolonial Writing 583 Network films characteristically show multiple protagonists who occupy individual narrative threads. These characters share similar thematic and emotional concerns, although they are often strangers to one another. Frequently these central characters represent contrasting cultural identities, and the films concentrate on crossing borders, experiences of marginality and multiculturalism. The genre thematically represents the world as pluralistic, yet the viewer is also prompted to conceive of the characters as a cosmopolitan community. This conception of global and multicultural networked com- munities importantly contrasts with the common association of community with spatial, familial, cultural and racial bounds. Since network films have appeared around the world and are often products of international collaborations, they suggest that the term “world cinema”, with its implication of a dichotomy between popular Hollywood and other national cinemas, is outdated. World cinema commonly implies art cinema from nations outside of Holly- wood. Hollywood is typically defined as commercial entertainment cinema espousing Americentric patriarchal ideologies and is distributed widely and successfully through- out much of the world (Stam and Spence 1983, 6). In contrast, films from other nations which are distributed through international film festivals and art house cinemas are commonly venerated as art cinema. Art cinema’s attributes are said to include realism, open endings, ambiguity, intellectual rigour and a focus on characters who are culturally marginalised (Bordwell [1979] 2002, 95–99; Neale 1981, 13–14). Recently, major Hollywood studios have teamed up with independent studios to make commercially successful yet artistic films which screen at festivals, occupying a middle ground between the Hollywood versus art cinema dichotomy (Scott 2004, 35; Cooke 2007b, 3). To some, this represents an imperialistic exploitation on Hollywood’s part (Naficy 2008; Cooke 2007b, 3). Currently, the term world cinema is under academic revision. Lúcia Nagib proposes that world cinema be thought of as “a positive, inclusive, democratic concept [ … ] [that] allows all sorts of theoretical approaches, provided they are not based on the binary perspective” of Hollywood versus its others. This is an approach which takes into account how films circulate around the world as “a global process” (2006, 35). Nagib argues that comparative analyses of world cinema be attentive to cross-cultural, networked relationships and the power dynamics involved in these relationships. Paul Willemen also advocates comparative studies in world cinema in order “to find ways of overcoming the limits of any cultural relativism, any fetishization of geo-political boundaries, and to elaborate a cultural theory worthy of the name” (2005, 98). I admire these new takes on the term world cinema for their opposition to the implicitly elitist binary implications of the term. I believe that comparative analyses can reveal some of the ways in which this dichotomy is problematically simplistic. Babel and Lantana provide a comparative axis which cuts across the binary of Hollywood and national art cinemas. Babel and Lantana represent very different industrial and cultural backgrounds. The former is an international co-production that has major Hollywood financing and contrasts First World and Third World characters. The latter is an Australian film that focuses on the tensions of multiculturalism inherited from the country’s settler identity. As multinational and national examples of the network genre, the two films problematize the notion that world cinema consists of exclusive categories. For instance, Marina Hassapopoulou (2008) gives an exceptionally nuanced approach to the issue, attending to Babel’s use of conflicting art and main- stream cinematic styles. Yet Babel and Lantana are frequently classified in relation to this binary, which suggests that the categories of national cinema and Hollywood retain 584 V. Silvey their significance. In his illuminating essay “Babel’s Network Narrative: Packaging a Globalized Art Cinema”, Kerr (2010, 48–49) suggests that Babel’s production and distribution processes indicate a strong degree of Hollywood imperialism. Naficy also describes Babel as an example of “Hollywood [ … ] chang[ing] in order to remain the same” (qtd. in Silvey 2009, n. pag). Studies of Lantana such as those by Duncanson, Elder, and Murray (2004) focus on its tropes as national cinema. I contend that the films challenge the binary of the term “world cinema”, although they are simultaneously symptomatic of continuing asymmetry between Hollywood’s hegemony and the margin- alization of other cinemas. This article focuses on comparing the narrative and thematic aspects of the two texts before moving on to explore their production backgrounds. Written by Guillermo Arriaga and directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu, Babel follows four narrative threads. It tells the story of two boys, Ahmed and Yussef, in the mountains of Morocco. Their father Abdullah buys a gun from a man named Hassan and gives it to the boys to keep jackals away from their goats. They test its range by shooting at a bus in the distance, and Yussef’s bullet hits the target. Inside the bus, the American tourist Susan (Cate Blanchett) is hit in the shoulder. The Moroccan tour guide Anwar takes Susan and her husband Richard (Brad Pitt) to his village Tazzarine, where the local vet sews her wound without anaesthetic. Richard tries to get help from the American Embassy, where staff delay their assistance because they perceive the shooting as a terrorist act. Meanwhile, Richard and Susan’s two children, Mike

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