Port of Entry: Towards a Political Economy of Cinema in Lebanon (1919-1975)

Abstract

This thesis looks at the origins and early development of the film industry in Lebanon through the lenses of the political economy of media. Its aim is to understand how the country’s economic model has shaped the national film industry and its output. The choice of methodology has been dictated by a recurring, critical remonstrance in the scholarship on Lebanese cinema. The lack of state funding and of “recognizably Lebanese” films have often been adduced as the Achilles heel of Lebanese cinema by scholars and critics alike. In my thesis I frame them on the contrary as constitutive and defining elements of the Lebanese film industry and, therefore, as pertaining to the national character of the country. I start by placing the origins of cinema in Lebanon in the colonial context, to analyze how this has impacted its historical shape and industrial orientation. After having established the ascendancy of distribution and exhibition over production that characterized the early days of cinema Lebanon and pointed to the economic reasons behind this tendency, I proceed to observe how production picked up in the in the early 60s and look at the kind of film that were produced and shot in the “Switzerland of the Middle East.” Though these films were often foreign (co-)productions and featured stereotypical tropes about Lebanon and its capital, I argue that what they represent both textually and contextually should not be dismissed. Their commercial vocation and expendability are not a negation of national cinema, as scholars have argued, but a faithful reflection of the country’s cultural priorities. Conversely, when looking at those film that have been unanimously considered “distinctively Lebanese,” I critically dissect them to show that their national attributes are actually partial and end up reflecting the country’s fragmentation rather than its imaginary essence. I finally argue that the impossibility for cinema to faithfully reflect the nation that produces it is characteristic of both the medium itself and the artificial construct of nationalism.