The Political Nature of Films: Characteristics and Functions

Abstract

The viewpoint of films being political has been one of the hotspots in international relations that many thinkers give analysis in putting films in a political frame, defining and valuing films from a political perspective. While the internal pattern for making films political and the boundary between films and politics remained vague in a lack of systematic understanding. Thus, this paper gives the internal logic of the politicization of film by exploring the causes, conditions, and essence of the politicization of film in clarifying the independence of film from politics. It is found that the first-person view provided by films makes films available for politically utilized, and the belief of films to be responsible for politics makes films expected to be politically utilized; The politicization of films is essentially the functionalization of films, on the one hand, shows the close relationship between the film industry and politics of their interactive effects in a complex system where audiences, filmmakers, policy decision-makers and critics are all involved. On the other hand, it implies the independence of the film industry from politics with consideration of the autonomy presented in different processes of the film industry.