ABSTRACT
Cinema, an international medium since its birth, has only recently assumed a worldwide reach and presence. World cinema has much to learn from the successes and limitations of world literature and world music in the age of globalization, lessons which also show us that world cinema is a more suitable term than international, global, or foreign to grasp cinema's distinctness in alignment with other cultural developments. To understand the configuration of new world cinema and the massive transformations that have taken place in the development of world cinema, we must locate the meaning, usage, and limitations of the terms that preempt world cinema. The technological, financial, and aesthetic prowess of Hollywood make it very difficult to formulate a conception of world cinema in which Hollywood does not stand as the dominant center. Building on Andrew's approach, the authors propose three levels of approaching world cinema: polycentric world cinema, polymorphic world cinema, and polyvalent world cinema.
