Name: Lieneke Groll Student number: 3668681 National, Transnational, Global: Nordic Cinemas in Transition

Paul Willemen Fantasy in action Paul Willemen was a film theoriest and scholar coming from Belgium. He have written many publications and was manly focused on globalization and transnational cinema, beginning around the 1970s. Asian cinema was something he was also interested about. By the suggestion of comparative film studies, he connects the economic, social and the society within the studies of cinema.1 Since in the chapter Fantasy in action Willemen explores so many different aspects and digs deeper into many different theories, it is impossible to take in account everything he tries to explain. During the whole chapter about fantasies of labor power he raises multiple questions and many streams of thoughts are being addressed. The structure of his writing is therefore a bit incomprehensible. It seems sometimes he put all of his thoughts on the paper without looking back. Because of this I will mainly focus on the part I found most interesting, the part about action cinema, labor power and the male body. However, first I will be looking at the quote Paul Willemen starts off with: In thought and political analysis we have still not cut off the head of the king Michel Foucault, 1976. A rather explicit metaphor, interpreting the head of the king as the main discourse, the authority that is present this day. This quote explains the point of view from Willemen quite well. Thought and political analysis is still done from the current discourse even though we need to go beyond this. The consensus is that a film relates closely to the economic, social, political and cultural circumstances that presided over its making.2 A film in a certain period of time involves more history and according to Willemen the historicity of the theoretical discourse that tries to construct the intelligibility systems of those films is rarely taken equally seriously. Willemen explains that when theoretical constructs about the historicity of
1

Chris Berry. In Memory: Paul Willemen (1944-2012). Cinemas of Asia. http://cinemasofasia.netpacasia.org/?p=887 (accessed March 8, 2014).
2

Paul Willemen, Fantasy in Action In World Cinemas, Transnational Perspectives (New York/London: Routledge, 2010), 247.

cinema is discussed, academics try to come up with one theoretical paradigms after another, in the end only talking in their own logic.3 The history of cinema can be seen from many different theories and cinema theoretics have been trying to find this general theory, only being described from their point of view. Cultural production is readily understood as historically specific, but the theory of cultural production as the elaboration of how that production actually works and produces meanings, tends to be either exempted from history or to be so thoroughly determined by history that the theory loses any explanatory value whatsoever, sinking instead into a morass of relativism that ends up declaring any mode of understanding as equally valid as any other.4 In the second part of the chapter Paul Willemen tries to connect action films with labor of power. Paul Willemen makes a comparison between economic historians and action films, because they both address questions of the value of labor of power. Economic historians do this in an analytically manner, whereas action films do this fantasmatically.5 Labor power is a crucial concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of capitalist political economy. Labor power can be simply defined as work-capacity and labor power exists in any kind of society, but on what terms it is traded or combined with means of production to produce goods and services has historically varied greatly.

Looking a bit more into action films, Willemen says that he would like to look at the different fantasy layers at work in these action film action film being a marketing category, often called a genre in film studies, that emerged in the early 1980s as a result of the emergence of a new retail sector: video rental and sales. The reason for looking at action films is that hidden beneath this marketing category called action films, there is a kind of cinematic discourse that speaks to us of labor power, and, through this conceptualization, of the fundamental dynamics of capitalism in general.6 Capitalism and labor power are aspects being looked at as positive in these kinds of action films. His argument is not that all action films are characterized as a genre by a economic discourse centered on the interests of, say,
3 4

Paul Willemen, 248. Ibidem, 248. 5 Ibidem, 272. 6 Ibidem, 272.

finance capital, or that the difference between the films in different countries equals the difference between the finance capitals dreams of these countries. What he do wishes to argue is that in the kinds of films currently lumped together under the label action cinema one may find more readily a way of reading the operations of the labor theory of value as it works in the shaping of socio-economic fantasies and that that the modalities in which labor power is inscribed into the films allow us to conclude that it is finance capital which is the discursive hegemon in Hollywoods cinema since the late 1970s and early 1980s.7

He raises the question: what if aspects of a film did not relate to a contemporary configuration but to determining dynamics that operate on a much longer time scale?8 Films are products which can be seen over a much longer time scale and Willemen tries to explain this with looking at the male bodies. Different male bodies seen in different periods of time, can help support this theory of cinema working on a longer time scale. In Hollywood the male body has been the product of many films and genres and are, according to Willemen, implemented in three particular time periods: the Italian peplums in the 1950s, James Bond films in the 1960s and cyborg films around the 1980s. Hercules, James Bond and Robocop relate to each other in a way that suggests the elaboration of a fantasy. A fantasy about the value and uses of labor power as the dreams of industrial capital gradually give way to those of finance capital. The title of the paragraph fantasies of labor power can be linked to this explanation. In action films the fantasy of labor power is addressed, labor power is positively promoted and the male body is part of this labor power.

As the title of this chapter is fantasy in action, it got me thinking about the meaning behind this title. It seems that it only covers a small part of the whole chapter and that is the second part about fantasies of labor power. In this case fantasy is not defined as the film genre, what my first thought was when I read the title. Fantasy in action can be described as the dream world when it comes to capitalism. When digging a bit deeper into the chapter, I found out that this part of the chapter actually is also a part of the book Hong Kong Connections: Transnational Imagination in Action Cinema. In this book the title differs, and is actually: Action cinema, labor power and the Video Market, which explains the content of
7 8

Ibidem, 273. Ibidem, 248.

this part of the chapter in a much better way.

Throughout the whole chapter of Fantasy in Action the structure is a bit lost on me. Many theories Willemen talks about, the reader has to know about all these different aspects of theories before fully understanding his point of view. He does however make an interesting point concerning transnationality. Willemen explains that the Bond-body is part of transnational monopoly capitalisms dream-world, a decidedly post-World War II configuration. In that world, the combination of labor power with corporate technology deployed on an international scale animates fantasies that go beyond the simple accumulation of wealth and power through which national bourgeoisies sought to acquire dominance at the level of the nationstate9 (279). The Bond-body speaks to us on a transnational level, connecting the male body and labor power to capitalism. The emphasis on the male body is highly noticeable, making me wonder how come there is no example of the female body. Having gender roles in mind, the theory Willemen comes up with is not fully complete as it does not take the female body into account. The female body can also speak to us on the level of labor power. While it was originally the male body connected to labor power, in the present time the female body can be seen in this manner more and more. In this capitalistic time it can be said that the female body can speak to the fantasy of labor power as well.

When thinking about transnationality when it comes to the reading of this text, it takes an original path. Looking at the representation of the male body in cinema as transnational, as it crosses national borders and speaks to the imagination of domination of the nationstate. When talking about male bodies and labor power I wanted to take a closer look at the movie When the Raven Flies. This movie is directed by Hrafn Gunnlaugsson in 1984 and is part of the Raven trilogy. It is set in Iceland during the Viking time. When the Raven Flies is about a boy living in Ireland. When the Vikings come to their land and kill his parents, they take the boys sister with them to Iceland. The boy is spared and many years later he comes to Iceland to get revenge on the Vikings and save his sister. Throughout the movie there are many battles and weapons from the Viking era are being used. The emphasis on the body is one of the preindustrial phase, making the male body a part of the labor power.
9

Ibidem, 279.

Willemen implements the concept of transnationalism to labor power and the male body of Bond, Hercules and Robocop which is interesting. Action cinema travels beyond languages and borders. In a way Bjorn Sorensson looks at action in the same way. We find scenes in which the hero caught, beaten and helpless, still manages to escape. These texts share a common feature, a defining character of the genre: action orientation. Thus, we find it quite natural to compare the sagas to the samurai and western movie.10 In his article Sorensson review some of the traits shared by the sagas, the Italo-western and the samurai film tradition. The action cinema can be find in many countries wrapped in a different form, but filled with the same content.

Overall Willemen makes some really interesting suggestions, looking at transnationality in a different light and from another perspective than usual. The male body as seen in action films goes beyond borders and can be find in different countries in different periods of times. Willemen tries to connect the theory of labor power, as introduced by Karl Marx, to the world of cinema. By doing so he finds a theory that combines the economical discourse with the cultural. This in itself is interesting, as labor power previously only connected with the economic sphere, find its meaning beyond this. Willemen comes to the conclusion that not all elements in action films speak of labor power, and neither is the reference to labor power limited to action films.11 Labor power can not only be found in action films, but also in other cinema. Willemen goes on to suggest: It now falls to the new discipline of comparative film studies to begin to explore, more systematically, how social-historical dynamics impact upon and can be read from films. Such a reading has to proceed with forensic care, paying attention to the ways in which, in different geocultural regions, film orchestrate their modes of address, the relations between the indexical, iconic and symbolic dimensions of substances and forms of content and expression, paying due attention to the co-

10

Bjrn Srenssen, Hrafn Gunnlaugsson The Viking Who Came in from the Cold In Transnational Cinema in a Global North. Nordic Cinema in Transition (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2005), 242.
11

Paul Willemen, 283.

presence of a dual fantasy structure vehiculated by the network of signifying relations.12 In conclusion Willemen explains that not all elements in action films speak of labor power, and neither is the reference to labor power limited to action films. But paying attention to its figuration, film texts can lead us to become aware of the need for different protocols of reading than the ones currently dominating film studies. He suggests a different kind of reading and that a new discipline of comparative film studies has to explore how socialhistorical dynamics impact upon and can be read from films. This comparative film studies has to be done more transnational, looking at how in different geocultural regions films are arranged in their modes of address.13 According to Willemen we have to look at how films are products of a longer historical path and we need to look further in how this have an effect on these films. The time in which a film is produced has effect on how it is made and how it is read.

12 13

Ibidem, 283. Ibidem, 283.

Bibliography
Srenssen, Bjrn. Hrafn Gunnlaugsson The Viking Who Came in from the Cold. In Transnational Cinema in a Global North. Nordic Cinema in Transition, edited by A. Nestingen and T.G. Elkington, 341-256. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2005.

Willemen, Paul. Fantasy in Action. In World Cinemas, Transnational Perspectives. New York/London: Routledge, 2010.