"Foreign" as a genre

[cdnchris]

I especially like how the idiot appears to believe Netflix will actually stop sending him foreign/subtitled films because he asks so in his review.

[swo17]

Actually, fortunately for this user, Netflix considers "foreign" a genre, so, if one were so inclined, one could easily remove all of the "foreign" films from one's queue within a matter of minutes.

[exte]

Actually, fortunately for this user, Netflix considers "foreign" a genre, so, if one were so inclined, one could easily remove all of the "foreign" films from one's queue within a matter of minutes.

Uh, so does Borders and I think Barnes and Noble?

[swo17]

If "foreign" is a genre, then so is "English-speaking."

[tryavna]

You know, as silly as the idea of classifying "foreign-language" as a genre sounds to us, it makes perfect sense as a category or classification. Bookstores in American routinely separate Spanish-language books and set them aside in their own section, regardless of content -- just as bookstores I've been to in Sweden and the Netherlands do with English-language books. And to be honest, I think most people understand that it's more in the nature of, say, a "special interest" than a "genre" per se.

[Morbii]

Yes, but this does no service to foreign films. No one who watches foreign films would ever say "I'm in the mood for a foreign film tonight" or "I liked this one foreign film, what's another good foreign film?" whereas we know from this very thread that there are many who will actively avoid a film if it's in another language.

I disagree more in the opposite case, but still disagree nonetheless. I have been in plenty of situations where it becomes "I don't want to watch a foreign film because I'm not in the mood for subtitles". Additionally, you can often get foreign films that are simply different because of where they were made and it makes sense to start looking there a second time (not that you can't find it elsewhere).

* edit: how the hell did that happen?? swo posted before me but my post shows before his (and I even quoted it!) - probably some database/timezone problem that will eventually get fixed and render this edit confusing to others, but still!

[swo17]

Yes, but this does no service to foreign films. No one who watches foreign films would ever say "I'm in the mood for a foreign film tonight" or "I liked this one foreign film, what's another good foreign film?" whereas we know from this very thread that there are many who will actively avoid a film if it's in another language.

Yes, but this does no service to foreign films. No one who watches foreign films would ever say "I'm in the mood for a foreign film tonight" or "I liked this one foreign film, what's another good foreign film?" whereas we know from this very thread that there are many who will actively avoid a film if it's in another language.

I disagree more in the opposite case, but still disagree nonetheless. I have been in plenty of situations where it becomes "I don't want to watch a foreign film because I'm not in the mood for subtitles". Additionally, you can often get foreign films that are simply different because of where they were made and it makes sense to start looking there a second time (not that you can't find it elsewhere).

I can see your point (that's the problem with making generalizations!) but I would still argue that there is a difference between not being in the mood for subtitles on a particular night and asking Netflix not to send you any more movies that aren't in English ever again.

As for your second point, I can see how one might be inclined to check out more films from, say, the French New Wave after watching Breathless, or several films from a particular region in order to get a sense for the culture of a particular country, but in each case, I think you are seeking out something a little more specific than just "another foreign film." And just because you like Children of Paradise does not mean you are going to like, say, Audition.

Whether or not a film is in a foreign language is about as relevant as the fact that it's in black & white, or over four hours long. For some people, these are obstacles. For the rest of us, these descriptors only go so far in describing what the film is about.

Of course, perhaps this is a problem of all genres. I'm a firm believer that any film that can be easily summed up in a single word is probably not worth watching in the first place.

[exte]

Yes, but this does no service to foreign films. No one who watches foreign films would ever say "I'm in the mood for a foreign film tonight" or "I liked this one foreign film, what's another good foreign film?" whereas we know from this very thread that there are many who will actively avoid a film if it's in another language.

I'm not sure what you're exactly saying, but nearly forty percent of my collection is foreign and I'm almost always in the mood for a foreign film rather than the latest Hollywood release. If I'm in the minority, fine, but it does happen and I'm one of them. If it's a complete unknown title to me, I'll double reference it against allmovie.com/imdb.com/amazon.com reviews or anything I might have read here. And that's how I've been able to swing from director to director, era to era, country to country... So maybe I missed the point entirely, but I know I enjoy pulling up a small bench at Borders and sitting in front of the foreign section. And I'm grateful I can sort through them that way, and not by noir or romance or action first, in this case.

[swo17]

OK, I've obviously chosen my words poorly. The issue isn't whether people gravitate towards foreign films, but whether "foreign" should be considered a genre. So here is a question: To generalize, a comedy is considered a success if it is funny. A horror film is considered successful if it is scary. So what makes a foreign film successful? Having good subtitles? By that measure, Nightwatch is the greatest foreign film of all time.

[Mr Sausage]

To generalize, a comedy is considered a success if it is funny. A horror film is considered successful if it is scary.

I find many horror films are successful when they are funny.

[domino harvey]

"Foreign" can not be a genre, it can only be a manner of classification-- and were that it were an unnecessary one, but we've all encountered the "I don't watch a movie to read" posse before

[exte]

Understood swo, but just wondering if you've ever been to Kims in NYC? They sort by country, then director.... Pretty much the best way to go. My personal collection isn't big enough to do that, nor do I think I would ever try, but it is fun as hell to browse that way...

[Murdoch]

I think a lot of people confuse foreign films as art films, and then they tend to be grouped together because many see them as a separate group. Many people don't regard something like Hot Fuzz as foreign in the US because it's in English and a broad comedy, while if it were a French film a large amount of the current audience would avoid it not only because of the subtitles, but also because of the generally negative stigma from the mainstream of being a foreign film, ergo an artsy movie. I think the grouping of foreign as a genre is largely a product of xenophobia since it gives the impression when foreign is represented as a genre that it is something unclassifiable and lying outside of the "normal" cinematic Hollywood parameters.

[swo17]

To generalize, a comedy is considered a success if it is funny. A horror film is considered successful if it is scary.

I find many horror films are successful when they are funny.

Yes, but you are a vampire.

Understood swo, but just wondering if you've ever been to Kims in NYC?

Nope. But I don't mind the idea of sorting by country and director. I would think that someone who is open-minded enough to watch a film from Japan would also be willing to watch a film from, say, the Czech Republic. Even just sorting by country treats the films with some sort of respect, as opposed to just lumping them all together as, let's face it, un-American. If it's an either/or thing, I would rather see categories like "movies starring Anthony Michael Hall" vs. "all other movies."

In any case, I may not have won the argument, but I have gotten my own thread now, so I appear to have won...something. We still have a few other Netflix genres to debate though: "independent," "classic," "Blu-ray," etc.

One more thought: 'Foreign' is an adjective. If adjectives can be genres, why can't 'good' be a genre? That would sure save me a lot of time.

[MichaelB]

Also, "foreign" should by rights read "foreign language".

To me, Casablanca, Gone With The Wind and Mad Max are foreign films, regardless of what language they happen to be in.

[Cinephrenic]

Do they place British, Australian, and Irish films as "foreign"?

[Jonathan S]

I find it interesting that silent films from "foreign language" countries are rarely categorised as such. Perhaps this is a positive thing, reflecting the belief - expressed by many silent era personnel and historians - that silents had a universal language.

But I suspect it has more to do with the fact that most English-speaking people expect the intertitles in silent films to be in English only, regardless of the country of origin. Or even that "silent" is even more off-putting to most people than "foreign" and thus overrides everything else!

[Saturnome]

Casablanca, Gone with the wind...All these are foreign language to me I've never seen a foreign section. Were I live, in all stores, anything that's "popular" (doesn't need to be a blockbuster at all) American, French or Canadian are mixed up (of course, they're all in French, and that includes sometimes films like Emir Kusturica's (no O.V.!). Anything subtitled or black&white goes into the repertoire section if there's one. More or less the same thing as "foreign" somehow, though if it's old it can be from anywhere.
I guess that work like that in most countries, you can't put all the American blockbusters in the foreign "eeew, foreign!" section in that dark corner of the store.

[Sanjuro]

I don't know how it is any more, but HMV's insistence at putting British films in the "World Cinema" section used to piss me off no end (that's HMV in the UK...).

That and trying to locate Takeshi Kitano's films in the Hong Kong section (or Chow Yun Fat in the 'Kung Fu' section etc, etc...)


My local Tsutaya has taken genre dividing way, way too far (Tsutaya is kind of like Blockbuster back home in that it's a big chain, but tends to have a fabulous section of movies). They now have so many different categories it's actually impossible to find anything.

I wish they would put "foreign" movies on one big alphabetically ordered "foreign" shelf. Instead I'm trying to work out if Made in USA is an action film, a gangster film, a 'hard boiled' gangster film or a love story. Then again perhaps it's in the 'mini-theatre' section. Or is it actually a drama? No wait, there it is on the Anna Karina shelf...

[MichaelB]

I still have very fond memories of trying to track down a recording of Harry Partch's music in the years before the Internet made this sort of thing easy.

I eventually found it in Tower Records 'Easy Listening' section.

And while we're on the subject of HMV, I laughed out loud when I saw a copy of Patrick Keiller's London nestling amongst all the other tourist-oriented travelogues in their own designated area. I'd like to think that some subversive (Keiller himself, anticipating Banksy?) was responsible, but I suspect it was just a categorising cock-up.

[colinr0380]

Do they place British, Australian, and Irish films as "foreign"?

There might be precedents for considering them 'foreign', since Mad Max, Patrick and Hellraiser are famous examples of English language films being dubbed into 'American' so the accents didn't disturb audiences too much!

[Jun-Dai]

So there are a few different ways in which one can think of a film as 'foreign':

* Most obviously, because the film is from another country
* More commonly, because a film is in another language and requires subtitles for those who only speak English.
* More subtly, because a film fits one of the first two categories and is similar in content/style/interest to films that people who don't mind reading subtitles are likely to watch.

When a store categorizes a film as foreign, it's usually because it belongs to one of the first two categories (more the second than the first, I'd wager), but when someone makes a generalization about foreign films, it's probably more the third category. It's this third category that tends to cause people to conflate foreign with art-house (which I think is more often associated with foreign than with independent).

Related to this point is the fact that stores that handle enough interest in Japanese animation will usually break it out into its own anime section, one that is often not even in the same part of the store. In this case, it belongs to the first and maybe the second category (likely to feature dubbing, however), but it's partly because it doesn't belong to the third category that it's not a connected section.

[MichaelB]

Mad Max, Patrick and Hellraiser are famous examples of English language films being dubbed into 'American' so the accents didn't disturb audiences too much!

Whereas Ken Loach's films are generally subtitled in the US, and I recall at least one American review regretting that Withnail & I wasn't given the same treatment.

[colinr0380]

Though I should add that Hellraiser and its sequel were not exactly dubbed in total, rather the film is a mix of American and British actors in the main roles and the minor characters being dubbed to varying extents. There has to be a philosophy behind the decisions to dub or not but it all becomes very confusing!

Whereas Ken Loach's films are generally subtitled in the US, and I recall at least one American review regretting that Withnail & I wasn't given the same treatment.

Didn't Ratcatcher get the same treatment? (though I should confess to being grateful at times for the subtitles on the Criterion disc myself!)

[bjeggert82]

When I was in college, I was talking to a girl about a class I was taking on Japanese film. She waved off any interest saying, "I don't like kung-fu movies," as if all Japanese cinema is reduced into one genre. That's the equivalent of saying "All films from the United States are Westerns."

It's people like this that demand any foreign film be lumped into a single "genre".