Introduction: World Cinema’s ‘Dialogues’ with Hollywood

Abstract

As a starting point for this collection of essays looking at the relationship between Hollywood and the rest of the world’s cinema, let us return to the Oscar ceremony of 1994 when host Whoopi Goldberg began proceedings by declaring the event to be a celebration of ‘the best of Hollywood cinema, which is the best of world cinema’. This was an especially provocative statement at the time, given the heated debates that had just occurred during the Uruguay round of the GATT talks (General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs), when the French argued that the exemption of film from the free-trade agreement was necessary in order to protect the world’s (or at least French) culture from American domination (Jeancolas 1998: 47–60). The statement remains contentious over a decade later, prompting consideration of what precisely is meant by ‘the best’, or indeed ‘Hollywood’ and ‘world cinema’. This introduction will examine the contested nature of these terms in order to open up the concept of cinematic ‘dialogue’ around which the volume is organised.