A political economy approach to film places films within the context of the world and the market in which they are produced, enabling the study of how this context affects all aspects of a film - its production, distribution and reception. Ignoring this context in favour of a purely text-based approach can lead to a skewed analysis of a film. A political economy approach can be multidisciplinary, and inevitably includes considerations of film as a text in the overall analysis. Most importantly, a political economy approach allows for the recognition that cinema has two functions within global capitalism - an economic one, and an ideological one. While films (and film companies) have an economic value and exist to make profit, they also exist to "reproduce the world of the dominant ideology"1. This essay will draw on the school of thought developed by Walter Benjamin and elaborated by Jean-Luc Comolli and Jean Narboni, and focus on Sahara and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (from here on, referred to as Narnia) to demonstrate both the economic and ideological functions of film within our society, how the content and the aesthetic aspects of films are a result of the dominant ideology from which they have emerged, and hence, how a narrative analysis can be complimented by a political economy approach by enabling us to interpret the ideological codes embedded within a film.
A lion being used to represent Aslan Русски...
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and ...
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and ...Political economic film study can be defined as the study of films in the context of the industrial, capitalist structure. Where a narrative-based analysis of a film relies on defining the film as a text, cinema as a culture, the production of meaning, cultural value and using analysis and interpretation to gain an understanding of a film's values, a political economic approach views films as...