Through the Lens of Israeli Cinema: A Review

Abstract

Through the Lens of Israeli Cinema A Review Rachel Harris Raz Yosef, The Politics of Loss and Trauma in Contemporary Israeli Cinema. New York: Routledge, 2011. 218 pp., ISBN 978-0415876889 (hc). US $130.Anat Y. Zanger Place, Memory and Myth in Contemporary Israeli Cinema. London Vallentine Mitchell, 2012. 286 pp., ISBN 978-0853038450 (hc). US $79.95.Miri Talmon and Yaron Peleg, eds. Israeli Cinema: Identities in Motion. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011. 391 pp., ISBN 978-0292743991 (pb). US $35. ISBN 978-0292725607 (hc). US $49.50.ABSTRACTThis review essay examines three recently published books on Israeli cinema. Raz Yosef's The Politics of Loss and Trauma in Contemporary Israeli Cinema; Anat Y. Zanger's Place, Memory and Myth in Contemporary Israeli Cinema; and Miri Talmon and Yaron Peleg's edited volume, Israeli Cinema: Identities in Motion. It considers the ways in which Israeli cinema is inextricably linked to the history of Israeli nationalism and reflects on the treatment of this issue within these three texts. Examining major issues in the field and considering theoretical models relevant to the individual essays, chapters, and books, this essay offers a context from which to explore Israeli cinematic scholarship.In the past decade Israeli cinema has undergone a dramatic transformation in both cinematic and academic terms, as evidenced in three recent books on the topic: Raz Yosef 's The Politics of Loss and Trauma in Contemporary Israeli Cinema; Anat Y. Zanger's Place, Memory and Myth in Contemporary Israeli Cinema; and Miri Talmon and Yaron Peleg's edited volume, Israeli Cinema: Identities in Motion. Now the darlings of the international community, Israeli films have been chosen to open major international festivals, receiving numerous awards throughout the world and frequently being nominated for best foreign language picture at the American Academy Awards. Correspondingly there has been a rise in interest in Israeli films on academic campuses, with the occasional public screenings or film series giving way to the inclusion of Israeli films in courses on Israel across the humanities and social sciences, and to the rise of courses focused on Israeli cinema. Yosef 's and Zanger's books are scholarly monographs on the major theoretical shifts in the development of Israeli cinema in recent years, and they are aimed at scholarly audiences. By contrast Talmon and Peleg's edited volume gives more of an overview of the history of Israeli filmmaking and seems aimed at undergraduate students and university courses.Israeli cinema began in the early twentieth century with the entrepreneurial endeavors of Yaacov Ben Dov, the first person to own his own movie camera in Palestine. The documentary footage he shot recorded General Edmund Allenby's arrival in Ottoman Palestine in 1917, during the final days of the sultan's reign, and the early establishment of Jewish settlement projects. Unlike the case in Soviet Russia, where filmmakers were often forced to create propaganda works highlighting the successes of the new regime, filmmakers in Palestine-such as Ben Dov; his successor, Baruch Agadati, who purchased Ben Dov's film archives in 1934 upon his retirement; and others, including Helmar Lerski and Natan Axelrod-eagerly produced films and newsreels that patriotically represented the Zionist spirit and its enterprises. Many of these films were funded by or later sold to the Jewish Agency, the Jewish National Fund (KKL), Keren Hayesod, Hadassah, and other groups, which used them both for fundraising purposes and to encourage immigration.The first feature films in Israel were often scripted around documentary footage, sometimes telling the story of an individual or group working to redeem the land-such as Labor (Avodah, Helmar Lerski, 1935)-using hard labor as well as modern farming techniques, while defending the fledgling settlements from marauding bandits. These films, like Oded the Wanderer (Oded Hanoded, Haim Halakhmi, 1932), simplistically divided the Arab population into two archetypes: the sympathetic Bedouin, whom the Zionists might civilize while he in turn would teach the young pioneers secrets of the land, and the dangerous and ignominious Arab, who could not be trusted. …