Some magazines fly their writers to Cannes to get interviews with stars. Other magazines send them invites to screenings of strange and exotic films with free T-shirts and Zippo lighters. Film West sends its hacks to cover such delights as a three day conference on film theory in the IFI entitled 'Projecting the Nation: National Cinema in an International Frame'. Boy, I can't wait to see the T-shirts - "Choose Deleuze" "Barthesman Forever"..

So, before I get down to the conference itself, whither Film Theory in the post modernist 90's Ireland ? I think it's fair to say that in much the same way as the notion of an indigenous Irish film industry was slow to take hold so too there was a reluctance on behalf of the universities and RTC's to incorporate the study of film as a serious option. Film study had gained respectability in American colleges in the early 60's, with English, Philosophy and language professors incorporating film modules into their courses in order to increase enrolments. These courses were primarily concerned with adaptation, film as drama or the study of established auteurs. European notions of semiotics, structuralism and ideological analysis were considered too high-falutin'‚ and structuralists such as Barthes and Todorov were left to investigate rhetorical figures and speech/act dimensions in the film experience in their own European ivory towers.

It was the publication of Jean Mitry's 'Esthetique et Psychologie du Cinema' in 1964 which helped bring the two traditions together. The book was an overview of virtually every film theorist who had worked in the field up to that point, and introduced the work of Christian Metz. Metz advanced the notion of isolating particular theoretical issues and analysing them without recourse to the overall principles of 'the body cinema'. Thus film could be discussed in terms of linguistics or psychoanalysis, ideology or philosophy, without reference to the study of the 'film phenomenon'â an approach which had taken root in the American universities of the time. As Dudley Andrews put it in his critically acclaimed work, 'Concepts in Film Theory', "Film theory to-day consists primarily in thinking through, elaborating and critiquing the key metaphors by which we seek to understand and control the cinema complex."

The proliferation of Film Study MA's and BA's in Ireland in the last six years adapt this approach; picking a particular key issue and following Andrew's instructions. I felt it safe to assume therefore, that the IFI conference would revolve around the key question of nationalist cinema and its place in the modern world. What is nationalist cinema ? What are its effects ? Against what 'other' cinema does it define itself ? How can it function in a globalised society ? Does a nationalist cinema lose its flavour on the bedpost overnight ? etc etc. So without further ado, I sharpened my head in a pencil parer and made my way down to Temple Bar to hear Fredric Jameson's keynote opening address; "Is National Cinema Possible ?"...

Jameson first addressed the question of whether national cinema automatically presupposes an adversarial other against which it defines itself. Deleuze has described the classic French and German cinema's of the 20's and 30's as being a reaction against the cinematic techniques of the Russians and Americans. Where the Russians and Americans offer absolutes, the French and Germans make no value judgements. They used their own symbols and icons; water, automatons, zombies, sleepwalkers etc. in an attempt to resist the symbols and icons being forced on them by film-makers alien to their culture. Yet Deleuze concluded that this didn't constitute cinema in its own right; the French and Germans were merely parasites that drew their influences by opposing the mainstream.

Other countries attempted to address the national cinema question by adopting the main pre-requisites of the Hollywood model; the narrative form and montage traditions, and decorated these models with their own national emblems and emphases. Yet in so doing, Jameson argued, they were merely glossing over their subjugation. Each national cinema must invent its own images/allegories to make it unique in form and technique, not necessarily in plot. National cinema must draw on a home base of national actors; this is the fundamental precondition of nationalist cinema. But is national cinema possible anymore ? Imperfect studios, dodgy equipment and lack of facilities gave a hand-crafted individual look to the national cinema of old. But assembly line production now brings a common denominator look to all cinema, no matter where it originates from. As information technology brings us to a point where the autonomy of individual societies weakens them on a global scale, why should there be a need for national cinema ? Because, argues Jameson, the national is essential for late 20th century capitalism to flourish. Unions must co-operate to keep their nations viable economically. Without that sense of the national, be it the stiff upper lip or the craic agus ceol, capitalism would collapse. And finally, what about post-modern cinema ? What becomes of a nation when its national identity becomes based on Michael Collins-style constructed images of its past ?

Will the best film-makers dictate the definition of true nationalism in terms of their own countries ? Jameson concluded by arguing that the search for the past in the present requires new forms which can incorporate the new information technologies in a simultaneous/instantaneous brand new world!

I resisted the temptation to ask him who he thought had shot Mr.Pink and exited sagely muttering "That would be a structuralist matter" to any queries along the "What did you make of that?" line.

My next leap into the land of the 'cinnn bioraithe' came the following day when Dudley Andrews, the Cliff Richard of Film Theorists, was to address the vexing question of "Cinema and the Passing of the Passion for the National".

"Cinema is a transitional medium which lies between novels and CD Roms..." OK Dudley, you have my attention.... Andrews main contention was that the classical age of national cinema had ended. Independence Day was the first example of a film gearing itself for a global audience, a global nation, and the first to try and dissolve the national cinema. Movies, like nations, are diplomatic creatures in their origins and attempt to evolve to their optimum state by practical negotiation within the conditions in which they find themselves. Thus, argues Andrews, cinema can be seen to have evolved along very definite lines.

The remainder of this article can be found in Film West 27.