Constructing (Film) art: Bourdieu's field model in a comparative context

In this paper we seek to apply Bourdieu’s approach to consecration, legitimacy and autonomization in the fields of art to the struggle to legitimize film as art.We examine the efficacy of Bourdieu’s theory in relation to the early ‘film-as-art’ campaign as it received institutional expression in the profoundly different economic, social and cultural circumstances of Brazil and Britain in the 1920s and 1930s. After tracing the broad history of film art movements in each case,we employ Bourdieu’s concepts of heteronomy/autonomy and degree of consecration as the principal axes in mapping the fields of film art in Britain and Brazil.We then compare the conditions of possibility for failure or success in institutionally establishing film as art in the two cases, and conclude with an evaluation of the utility of Bourdieu’s model when applied to film art in such diverse social, cultural and political circumstances.