Editor's Note

Abstract

Editor's Note Jeffrey R. Di Leo The focus of this issue is the interplay between borders and cinema. While the concept of borders (and borderlessness) has been a recurring topos of many articles published in this journal over the years, and a good number of our contributors have done fine work on cinema, this is our first issue decidedly devoted to these subjects. As we shaped the request for contributions to the issue, associate editor Ian Buchanan and I hoped that the topic would be a strong platform to bring together cutting-edge theoretical work on film while weighing in on the related issues that have been taken up in previous issues, such as "Globalism and Theory" (Vol. 9, Nos. 1-2 (2001)) and "Discouragement" (Vol. 14, Nos. 1-2 (2006)). Some time later, I asked Allyson Nadia Field to co-edit this issue with me. Allyson is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University, where she is pursuing a secondary field in Film and Visual Studies. She received her Masters in Film and Television Studies from the Universiteit van Amsterdam, and her BA in Art History from Stanford University. Her background and interests squared well with our intended focus. Allyson and I decided that rather than just doing an issue on borders and cinema—a relatively established topic—we would pursue a new direction: cinema without borders. The thought was that we would challenge potential contributors to ask how contemporary filmmakers are moving past notions of nation towards a borderless global order. The topic of this issue speaks to both a cinematic reality and a filmmaking ideal. The reality is that increasingly, the material conditions of cinema are multinational in nature. Many films are shot in multiple countries, have international casts and financing, and are literally shown all over the world. For example, the latest James Bond film, Casino Royale (2006), has been rated for viewing in over thirty countries including Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, the Philippines, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland—in addition to the US and UK. Combined with pirated DVD and Internet versions, access to this film is borderless. [End Page 5] However, the focus of these essays is less on the material conditions of a cinema without borders and more on the conceptual notions associated with a borderless cinematic ideal. While the films explored span the globe, their aim is less to promote the notion of "world cinema" than to examine what it means in the age of globalization (or late capitalism) to make films that draw upon geographical borders. How do these films and their makers negotiate cultures, languages, and philosophies? The collective conclusion of the contributions seems to be that while we have not yet reached the point of a cinema without borders, we are well along the path. All of the essays in this focus save one deal explicitly with issues concerning film and borders. The one that does not is J. Hillis Miller's "Boundaries in Beloved." Though one might explain away its presence by noting that Toni Morrison's novel was made into a film, this would overlook the real contribution of this essay to our focus. In many ways, Miller's imaginatively rich analysis of the concept of boundaries and borders sets the theoretical table for much of the work that follows. Also, the spirit in which Miller approaches issues of boundaries in fiction fits well with our issues of boundaries in film. Writes Miller, "One function of novels is to make our lived situation explicit by giving imaginary examples of the way people live their lives in terms of boundaries." Following Miller, one might also reasonably assert the same claim about films. Or, in a riff on Miller's line that fits even more specifically the aim of this issue: "One function of films is to make our lived global situation explicit by giving imaginary examples of the way people live their lives as global citizens without boundaries." Finally, one cannot help but wonder after reading these essays whether cinema is globalizing the world...