National Cultural Repertoires of Evaluation in a Global Age: Film Discourse in France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States

Abstract

Abstract The expanded international exchange of culture products caused Western cultural fields to resemble each other. Hollywood movies prevail on import markets around the world, inducing homogenized film fields dominated by blockbusters. However, although global audiences to a large degree consume the same movies, they do not necessarily make sense of them in the same manner. Cultural surroundings may still differentiate the socially constructed national cultural repertoires of evaluation. This article examines the sustenance of such repertoires through the analysis of film criticism in France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and United States. Combined qualitative and quantitative methods demonstrate that while critics in all countries use the same discourse components, evaluative repertoires vary in composition and style. Western countries command distinguishing features that particularize their manners of meaning making despite the ubiquity of globalizing trends.