Abstract
Two under-studied and deceased auteurs, the Lebanese Randa Chahal Sabbagh and the Syrian Omar Amiralay, are resounding voices of antagonistic discourse in the study of Arab cinema. From Our Heedless Wars to The Kite, Sabbagh was a maker of both fiction and nonfiction films during the 1980s until the early 2000s, all of which, in different modes and emotional registers, reflected on the violent intrusion of geo-national politics and sectarianism in Lebanese society. From Everyday Life in a Syrian Village to A Flood in Baath Country, Amiralay used the documentary form to critique the paternalistic nature of the state apparatus in Syria. By examining the ways in which their films address processes of interpellation at the intersections of subject and state, ruler and ruled, occupier and occupied, and self and other, this chapter looks comparatively at two distinctly different approaches to cinema that bring questions of performativity and revolutionary Third Cinema into the contemporary foreground.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Works Cited
Al Jazeera Centre for Studies. “A Century On: Why Arabs Resent Sykes-Picot.” Al Jazeera, 2016, interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2016/sykes-picot-100-years-middle-east-map/index.html.
Brenez, Nicole. “Edouard de Laurot: Engagement as Prolepsis.” The Militant Image: A Cine-Geography, special issue of Third Text, vol. 25, no. 1, 2011, pp. 55–65.
Bruzzi, Stella. New Documentary. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2006.
Butler, Judith. Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Daou, Marc. “Controversial Film Struck from TV Line-Up Following Religious Pressure.” France 24, 1 Apr. 2010, www.france24.com/en/20100401-controversial-film-struck-tv-lineup-following-druze-pressure.
Dawisha, Adeed. Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2002.
Dickinson, Kay. “Syrian Cinema: Out of Time?” Screening the Past, Aug. 2012, www.screeningthepast.com/2012/08/syrian-cinema-out-of-time/.
Guneratne, Anthony R. “Introduction.” Rethinking Third Cinema, edited by Guneratne and Wimal Dissanayake, London: Routledge, 2003, pp. 1–28.
Hinnebusch, Raymond. Syria: Revolution from Above. London: Routledge, 2001.
Houssami, Eyad, ed. Doomed by Hope: Essays on Arab Theatre. London: Pluto Press, 2012.
Khatib, Lina. “The Voices of Taboos: Women in Lebanese War Cinema.” Women: A Cultural Review, vol. 17, no. 1, 2006, pp. 3–14.
Makdisi, Ussama. “The Mythology of the Sectarian Middle East.” Houston, TX: James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Rice U, 2017.
Mookas, Ioannis. “The Road to Damascus.” Bidoun, vol. 8, Fall 2006, bidoun.org/articles/the-road-to-damascus-discovering-syrian-cinema.
Nichols, Bill. Blurred Boundaries: Questions of Meaning in Contemporary Culture. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1994.
Roy, Sara. “The Gaza Strip: A Case of Economic De-development.” Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. 17, no. 1, Autumn 1987, pp. 56–88.
Salti, Rasha. Insights into Syrian Cinema: Essays and Conversations with Contemporary Filmmakers. New York: Rattapallax Press, 2006.
Shafik, Viola. Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity. Cairo: The American U in Cairo P, 1998.
Shaviro, Steven. Post Cinematic Affect. Zero, 2010.
Solanas, Fernando, and Octavio Getino. “Towards a Third Cinema” (1971), www.marginalutility.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Towards-a-Third-Cinema-by-Fernando-Solanas-and-Octavio-Getino.pdf.
“Subhah—Muslim Prayer Beads.” Encyclopedia Britannica, www.britannica.com/topic/subhah.
Van de Peer, Stefanie. “Selma Baccar’s Fatma 1975: At the Crossroads Between Third and New Arab Cinema.” Vol. 34 / French Forum, vol. 35, nos. 2–3, Spring/Fall 2010, pp. 17–37.
———. “The Moderation of Creative Dissidence in Syria.” Journal for Cultural Research, vol. 16, nos. 2–3, Apr.–July 2012, pp. 297–317.
Wedeen, Lisa. Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2015.
———. “Ideology and Humour in Dark Times: Notes from Syria.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 39, no. 4, Summer 2013, pp. 841–873.
Wright, Lawrence. “Captured on Film.” The New Yorker, 15 May 2006. www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/05/15/captured-on-film.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Alkassim, S. (2020). Amiralay and Sabbagh in the Post-cinematic Age. In: Ginsberg, T., Lippard, C. (eds) Cinema of the Arab World. Global Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30081-4_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30081-4_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-30080-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-30081-4
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)