Nina Lägel
Hamid Naficy, An Accented Cinema

In his text, Hamid Naficy gives an overview of the circumstances and the style of post –1960s filmmakers who came from the Third World and even western societies, and who had in common an experience of displacement and deterritoralization. Hamid Naficy begins his deliberations by giving a definition of accented cinema and then distinguishes its three different types:  exilic, diasporic, and postcolonial ethnic and identity films – divisions mainly based on the varied relationship of the films and their makers to existing or imagined home places and their attachment to compatriot communities.

Diasporic film can be understood as multisided, having a collective memory and consciousness that does not only involve the homeland, but also compatriot communities and a plurality of identities. Exilic films on the other hand mainly include the relationship to a single homeland and focus on the representation of a country and its people.

Postcolonial ethnic and identity cinema in contrast is dominated by the exigencies of contemporary life in the country in which the filmmakers reside. They often deal with problems of topical interest in the host country, though many films share the characteristics of all three types.

Naficy characterized “accented cinema“ by the filmmakers’ intense feeling of displacement that is projected and encoded in their films. The tension and ambivalences felt by displaced writers and filmmakers, who live in the “slipzone of anxiety and imperfection, where life hovers between the heights of ecstasy and confidence and the depths of despondency and doubt” (12), produce the intense complexity that is characteristic for this work. Hamid Naficy stresses that although the experiences of different filmmakers may differ greatly, the films themselves show several stylistic similarities, shaping “accented cinema” as its own film style. He argues, "the accented style helps us to discover commonalities among exilic filmmakers that cut across gender, race, nationality and ethnicity, as well as across boundaries of national cinemas, genres and authorship." (39)

The “accented style” is presented as an attempt to create a nostalgic, even fetishized culture and memorization of the homeland before emigration, consisting of components that give the film an exilic identity. The “accented” style is not only meant in terms of a linguistic meaning, such as pronunciation but, more than that, as a component influencing all kinds of film aspects. Individual and group identities find their expression through the stylistic use of accents in “narrative, visual style, characters, subject matter, theme, and plot” (23). “Accented” use of language, voices, songs and sounds, from voice-over narration and multilinguality to on-screen written texts in the film`s frame, demarcates individual and collective identity.

Naficy deliberates further, emphasizing the “historicity of the authors” (34), which he wants to put back into authorship and the correlation between the films and the home- and host countries as well as the spectators, who must recognize the “accented style”.

What is striking is the fact that, on the one hand, Naficy underlines the uniqueness of the different films while underlining that all filmmakers have different backgrounds, showing how they are greatly influenced by their history that finds its expression in their filmmaking.

On the other hand, Naficy tries to undermine these very differences by creating a stylistic system that he calls “accented cinema”. In this manner, he is trying to cut through the differences and connect those films, regardless of their uniqueness. Naficy criticized earlier that former classificatory approaches forced exile films into one of the established categories, locking filmmakers into discursive ghettos and failing to reflect their personal evolution. But does the definition “accented cinema” not create a label itself, which “locks” filmmakers into a stylistic ghetto? Does that not also limit the potential meaning of the films?

Can experience of displacement and deterritorialization really be shared and generalized in such a way and put in a stylistic category?

How much can older emigrants, such as Fritz Lang and Karl Freund, be adapted to this concept and the discussed characteristics that mostly refer to emigrants after 1960s? Can we take Naficy`s concept of “accented cinema” and apply it to the late `20s and `30s? As later emigrants, Lang and Freund obviously also maintained an ambivalent relationship to their previous and current countries. How much did the experience of displacement have an impact on their style? Can their films “Fury” and “Mad love” be seen as early examples of “accented style”?

What can be said about exilic actors, such as “Peter Lorre”? He was described as a displaced personality who never felt at home in his home or in his host country. He seemed to be the image of “the stranger” in his exile and has always been an outsider. To what extent is his acting “accented”? Can we recognize a strong participation of exilic actors in “accented style” cinema if we transform that concept to earlier cinema?