ABSTRACT
The American cinema looms large as a term of reference for every national cinema in the West and many beyond. Curiously, the US cinema is in many respects like other national cinemas. It relies in the first instance on the certainties of its domestic market, it is embedded in a particular industrial, policy and aesthetic milieu, it has dynamics that are simultaneously local and international, and it negotiates particular social, cultural and ethnic differences within the USA. But Hollywood is not usually thought to be a ‘national cinema’.
