If I were to make a list of the best Americans movies based on the 11 ”American” movies I had seen that would seem really ridiculous since movies across various genres and decades seem almost incomparable since we understand that we can’t use “American movies” as a fixed category
this common…
Just my opinion, but I disagree with this. The notion that “American movies” cannot be used as a “fixed” category is untrue. The United States had produced various incarnations of its own unique national cinema. Examples - film noir (a distinctively American style of filmmaking derived directly from American WWII anxieties), Westerns, 1970’s Hollywood Renaissance, etc, all derived from uniquely American histories, social environments, and experiences.
The same applies to “foreign” cinema - yes, we know there are different genres under each country’s cinematic identity. To describe cinema within the parameters of national identity is not always trivializing or fetishizing the country, it’s also acknowledging and celebrating each country’s unique history and the way these histories influence the art they produce.
Rita Hayworth on the set of Miss Sadie Thompson, 1952
