I.

Introduction

Art Cinema, adaptation of the American term “art house”, applied to films shown in cinemas that specialize in classic revivals and serious, consciously intellectual cinema. “Art cinema”, as a term, is closely associated with the development of media studies in universities; “films” are seen as distinct from “movies”, the latter being a marketable, commercial product with broad appeal, the former being less expensively made, having lower production values, and being more intellectually challenging.

Financial distinctions, however, are not absolute, and commercial films—such as The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), directed by Anthony Mann, and Hello Dolly! (1969), directed by Gene Kelly—can fail disastrously at the box office, while uncommercial subjects, Otto e Mezzo (1963; 8y), directed by Federico Fellini, and Land and Freedom (1995), directed by Ken Loach, may be commercially successful.

The distinction between commercial and art cinema is also one of scale. In the United Kingdom, for example, while there may be as many as 50 theatrical prints of a commercial film in distribution, there will be only a handful of prints for one intended for the specialist film theatres. The production costs for art films are seldom as high as for those in mainstream cinema and the profits rarely as great; on the other hand, the losses are consequently smaller and, over a period of time, an art film can enjoy a long run in a small cinema with good financial results. Even so, it may have difficulty in finding its audience. If an art film is launched, unceremoniously, in a grand commercial cinema, while it may attract a respectably sized audience, it may also play to a half-empty house and may be taken off within days or weeks. Such a misjudgement destroyed the possibilities for both Zabriskie Point (1969), directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, and Comrades (1987), directed by Bill Douglas. The former failed in the massive Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) cinemas; the latter attracted enthusiastic audiences, but only briefly. Had they been shown in smaller houses and received “favourable word of mouth”, a film’s strongest recommendation, they may well have become financially successful.

The commercial cinema of one country may produce the art house films of another; the films of the French New Wave directors—Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, and others—whose films opened in major cinemas in Paris, found respectable audiences abroad with films such as À Bout de Souffle (1960; Breathless), Jules et Jim (1961), and Le Boucher (1970), but only in specialist cinemas. The unfamiliarity of the subject material, the dislike of subtitles, and the freshness of style made them of minority interest. Schichinin no Samurai (1954; The Seven Samurai) directed by Akira Kurosawa, was a huge success in Japan—it was only a succès d’estime when shown with subtitles to audiences abroad. The same story, recast as the Western The Magnificent Seven (1960), directed by John Sturges, with an American cast, became a commercial, mainstream success.