"Foreign" as a genre

[fiddlesticks]

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 more like saying "all films from the United States are Spaghetti Westerns", when you consider that kung fu is Chinese.

But I'm sure your friend wouldn't care about the difference. "Chinese, Japanese, they're all just furriners."

[zedz]

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."

Actually, I think it's more like the equivalent of refusing to see any Canadian films on the grounds that you don't like Westerns.

[PillowRock]

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."

Yes, but in the case of brick and mortar stores ......

Let's say that you looking for more French New Wave, or Post-War Japanese, or whatever. In my experience, the entire "Foreign Language" section is usually far, far smaller than (say, for example) the "Drama" section. In that environment it is much easier to find what you are interested in (that is in stock) by searching through "Foreign Language" section than by sifting through their other (mostly extremely broad and vague) categories to see what might be there.

Unlike one other previous poster, I've always found that the stores around here place silents from non-English speaking countries in the "Foreign Language" section. If they have a copy of Nosferatu or Battleship Potemkin or Pandora's Box, then it will be in the Foreign Language section.

I have noticed, though, that "Musical" seems consistently to trump "Foreign Language". If there is a Threepenney Opera or Flamenco Trilogy set in stock, it will be filed under "Musicals" (which is an even smaller section than "Foreign Language").