# And people say that foreign film is inaccessible.



## enrol

Someone was telling a friend of his about a Japanese movie he thought they should both watch. He described it to him, whereupon his friend replied, "And people say that foreign film is inaccessible."

Shouldn't it have been "...foreign films are inaccessible"?


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## boozer

Well, the way it is worded, the sentence has a different meaning:
And people say that *that* foreign film is inaccessible - *that* foreign film in particular, not some other


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## enrol

Oh, I see. Thanks!
I thought he meant, "And people say foreign film is inaccessible." and it didn't make any sense to me. I thought it should have been "And people say foreign films are inaccessible."
But now you've cleared it up. Thanks again!


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## elroy

boozer said:


> the way it is worded


 What do you mean?  


boozer said:


> And people say that *that* foreign film is inaccessible - *that* foreign film in particular, not some other


 That reading is *highly* unlikely. 


enrol said:


> I thought he meant, "And people say foreign film is inaccessible." and it didn't make any sense to me.


 That is how I understand it too, and it makes perfect sense.  "Foreign film" here is a category/genre (like "fiction" or "porn").


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## boozer

elroy said:


> That is how I understand it too, and it makes perfect sense.  "Foreign film" here is a category/genre (like "fiction" or "porn").


In which case the original sentence would be nothing short of ungrammatical. Never mind the fact that 'foreign film' (singular) is inelegant when describing a category film*s* (plural) - it should be either 'foreign', on its own, or 'foreign films' (plural).


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## elroy

boozer said:


> In which case the original sentence would be nothing short of ungrammatical.


 Nope.  It's perfectly grammatical. 


boozer said:


> Never mind the fact that 'foreign film' (singular) is inelegant when describing a category film*s* (plural)


 No, it's not.  It's perfectly natural. 





boozer said:


> it should be either 'foreign', on its own, or 'foreign films' (plural)


 Again, no.  The genre is foreign film.  Foreign films are individual films.  _Foreign_ on its own is incomplete. 

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that _film_ can only refer to a single, individual film.  It can also refer to the art form.  People study film, not films.


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## boozer

elroy said:


> No, it's not.  It's perfectly natural.  Again, no.  The genre is foreign film.


Then why not 'fiction film' or 'porn film', instead of 'fiction' or 'porn' alone? Why this inconsistency - fiction, porn, but 'foreign film'?

If you see 'foreign film' as a category, the original becomes acceptable. Otherwise it is ungrammatical.


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## velisarius

I agree with elroy. The tiger is talking about "foreign films" in general. I also agree with boozer that the singular is a little weird, to teh point of being ungrammatical. Perhaps film buffs talk about "foreign film" in this affected way?


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## elroy

boozer said:


> Then why not 'fiction film' or 'porn film', instead of 'fiction' or 'porn' alone? Why this inconsistency - fiction, porn, but 'foreign film'?


 Because language is not consistent.   Just because we say "porn" doesn't mean we can't say "foreign film" (I don't think "fiction" is used to refer to films/movies). 


boozer said:


> If you see 'foreign film' as a category, the original becomes acceptable. Otherwise it is ungrammatical.


 "Foreign film" is definitely a category/genre, and the original is definitely acceptable.

Here are some examples of this usage (the first one is from a guide for students of cinema art):

Responding to Film
Reframing Theology and Film
http://www.wearemoviegeeks.com/2011/03/i-saw-the-devil-the-review/


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## johngiovanni

I agree with all the points made by elroy.  "Foreign film" in the OP is a genre.
"Studying foreign film is a good way to get going, looking up films by people like Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman..."  ("How to Become a Film Critic", Brian Gosden.)


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## elroy

velisarius said:


> I also agree with boozer that the singular is a little weird, to teh point of being ungrammatical. Perhaps film buffs talk about "foreign film" in this affected way?


 Interesting!  I don't find it weird or affected in the least, and certainly not ungrammatical.  

You're okay with "I study film," aren't you?  In terms of naturalness, in what significant way is that different from "I study foreign film"?


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## velisarius

It's different. Perhaps this is an AE thing. In BE, we (people not connected to the industry) tend to talk about "foreign cinema", rather than "foreign film" for foreign films in general. Also "the French cinema, Italian cinema" rather than "French film" or "Italian film".

Edit: Most ordinary people (but not tigers perhaps) would have used the plural form.


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## elroy

velisarius said:


> It's different.


 Can you try to pinpoint the difference? 


velisarius said:


> Perhaps this is an AE thing.


 Perhaps, although johngiovanni seems to be okay with it.

I should probably add that not only does "I study foreign film" sound perfectly natural to me, but "I study foreign film*s*" sounds bizarre (unless the meaning is that I literally take individual foreign films and study them one by one!).


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## boozer

We do not know who said the sentence and how good their English is. We can always give the sentence an interpretation that justifies its weirdness, but I cannot be persuaded that it is more natural than
_People say that foreign films are inaccessible. (talking generally)_
or
_People say that that film is inaccessible. (talking about the particular film)_


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## velisarius

Sorry elroy, I pressed "post" too quickly. I have added a sentence to my #12.


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## DrChen

boozer said:


> We do not know who said the sentence and how good their English is.


?
Yes, we do! It's Calvin and Hobbes


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## boozer

DrChen said:


> ?
> Yes, we do!


I did not. All I knew was what the OP explained - a friend of a friend saying it...


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## elroy

boozer said:


> We do not know who said the sentence and how good their English is.


 LOL.  This is Calvin and Hobbes, one of the most famous US comic strips around! 

Either way, the sentence is a perfectly grammatical and idiomatic English sentence.


boozer said:


> We can always give the sentence an interpretation that justifies its weirdness


 I don't think anyone here is doing anything of the sort.  I am not "giving" the sentence an interpretation, nor do I find the sentence in any way "weird."  When I read it, I immediately understood the meaning with no effort whatsoever. 


boozer said:


> I cannot be persuaded that it is more natural than
> _People say that foreign films are inaccessible. (talking generally)_
> or
> _People say that that film is inaccessible. (talking about the particular film)_


 The second sentence has a totally different meaning so comparing it to the original in terms of which is more natural doesn't make sense.  As for the first, no one said the original is necessarily more natural.  _Both_ sentences are equally natural, and they basically mean the same thing, although there's an ever-so-slight difference in nuance, because "foreign film" is the genre whereas "foreign films" are the individual films (seen as a group, of course).  It's the same as the difference between "I like fiction" and "I like fiction books."


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## velisarius

In my opinion the tiger in the cartoon is talking pretentious, like a cinema critic or student of the cinema. Ordinary people don't normally use the term that way in Britain. I suppose he's no ordinary tiger.


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## boozer

enrol said:


> Someone was telling a friend of his about a Japanese movie he thought they should both watch. He described it to him, whereupon his friend replied, "And people say that foreign film is inaccessible."


The description in the OP makes it quite clear that they are talking about a particular Japanese film, not about a whole category of films. For the speaker "that Japanese film", as already described, may easily be "that foreign film". I do not see how the second sentence may be discounted as 'not making sense' in the context given.


elroy said:


> The second sentence has a totally different meaning so comparing it to the original in terms of which is more natural doesn't make sense.


It makes perfect sense to say "*that* foreign film is inaccessible" when talking about a film that has already been defined.


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## Scrawny goat

It's perfectly clear to me too. It's a sarcastic comment about a genre of film, of which the particular godzilla-esque movie is but one example.  

It's also a particular style of communication- a comic strip. Economy of words is the norm.

Cross posted and edited to rebut boozer's most recent.


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## elroy

boozer said:


> I do not see how the second sentence may be discounted as 'not making sense' in the context given.


 I never said it didn't make sense; I said it was highly unlikely.  (I think you misunderstood the "not making sense" part of my last post, but it doesn't matter.)

Actually, now that I think about it, I _do_ think that reading doesn't make sense!  The only thing that Calvin tells Hobbes about the movie is that it has a "Japanese cast"; he doesn't specify which particular movie it is.  How could Hobbes know what "people say" about that particular movie if he doesn't even know which movie it is?!  All he knows is that it's a Japanese movie, so he makes a statement about foreign movies in general.

Another important point is that in American English, we rarely use the word "film" to mean "movie."


Scrawny goat said:


> Economy of words is the norm.


 If only this principle had been applied more thoroughly by omitting "that," we wouldn't be engaged in this debate.


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## Scrawny goat

elroy said:


> I never said it didn't make sense; I said it was highly unlikely.  (I think you misunderstood the "not making sense" part of my last post, but it doesn't matter.)
> 
> Actually, now that I think about it, I _do_ think that reading doesn't make sense!  The only thing that Calvin tells Hobbes about the movie is that it has a "Japanese cast"; he doesn't specify which particular movie it is.  How could Hobbes know what "people say" about that particular movie if he doesn't even know which movie it is?!  All he knows is that it's a Japanese movie, so he makes a statement about foreign movies in general.
> 
> Another important point is that in American English, we rarely use the word "film" to mean "movie."
> If only this principle had been applied more thoroughly by omitting "that," we wouldn't be engaged in this debate.


Exactly. Plus, it's a joke. It's only funny if it's a generalisation.


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## elroy

Scrawny goat said:


> Plus, it's a joke. It's only funny if it's a generalisation.


 That's actually probably the most powerful argument against boozer's reading, but also the most difficult to prove.  Logical and lexical arguments aside, boozer's reading simply falls flat and just doesn't work.  It was only after analyzing the sentence and context metalinguistically that I identified the other arguments I presented.  This one I intuitively _felt_.


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## Pietruzzo

boozer said:


> The description in the OP makes it quite clear that they are talking about a particular Japanese film, not about a whole category of films.


 It's unlikely he's heard people speaking about the accessibility of that specific film since he didn't even know the film existed before his friend mentioned it. More likely, "film" is uncountable in this case, as per the Oxford LD's definition:
[uncountable] (especially British English)(usually North American English *the movies*[plural]) (British English also *the cinema*) the art or business of making films/movies
to study film and photography 
the minister responsible for film and the theatre
the film industry


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## boozer

What I do not understand is *how* you people know so much about the context...
When I saw the original post, I read the explanation given, then I clicked on the icon and it opened an image the size of a coin - completely useless, so I closed it.
I still have no idea what tiger you are talking about, never mind what category of films...
The only thing I saw, and still see, is a dubious sentence said/written by God knows who.


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## elroy

Do you see the thumbnail and link in the first post?  If you click either, it should open up the comic.  If it doesn't, this may be a technical issue.

In any case, here's the comic: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/cb/a3/03/...he-definition-of-calvin-and-hobbes-comics.jpg


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## Keith Bradford

boozer said:


> ...I cannot be persuaded that it is more natural _..._


Oh, come on, Boozer, make a little effort!  Elroy, Velisarius, Johngiovanni and Scrawny Goat have all tried to persuade you that "foreign film" is a perfectly normal expression.  I agree with them.  At what point will you accept you might have been mistaken?


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## boozer

When you press the thumbnail, you get nothing but the thumbnail. 
When you press the link, however, a cartoon opens. Had no idea there it made any difference.
Your link is dead for me, too, but I have seen it now.


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## wandle

From the OED:





> *film
> I 10 b.*
> As a mass noun: the making of films considered as an art form, genre, or industry. Also sometimes in pl. Cf. *cinema* n. b.





> *cinema
> b.* Cinema films collectively, esp. considered as an art-form; the production of such films. Also, material suitable for presentation in or as a cinema film.


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## Scrawny goat

boozer said:


> When you press the thumbnail, you get nothing but the thumbnail.
> When you press the link, however, a cartoon opens. Had no idea there it made any difference.
> Your link is dead for me, too, but I have seen it now.


Drumroll....... and have you changed your mind now that you have seen the context?


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## elroy

velisarius said:


> In BE, we (people not connected to the industry) tend to talk about "foreign cinema", rather than "foreign film" for foreign films in general. Also "the French cinema, Italian cinema" rather than "French film" or "Italian film".


 Ah.  In American English, we almost never use the word "cinema." 





boozer said:


> When you press the thumbnail, you get nothing but the thumbnail.


  This might be a browser issue.  I'm using Safari and clicking the thumbnail opens up the comic for me.


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## Scrawny goat

Maybe we could lure Bill Watterson out of retirement if we sent him a link to this thread. I feel sure he would at least get a kick out of it.


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## velisarius

I think we've lost sight of the question. 


> Shouldn't it have been "...foreign films are inaccessible"?



I would say that in BE normally we would prefer to say exactly that for this particular sentence in an ordinary conversation between two ordinary film-goers. I think the tiger was being a bit facetious.


I'm curious. Would most people go for the plural in AE as well, or are both equally likely?


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## elroy

velisarius said:


> Would most people go for the plural in AE as well, or are both equally likely?


 Trying to answer this makes my head hurt.  I'm teetering between "equally likely" and "plural somewhat more likely."


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## wandle

velisarius said:


> I would say that in BE normally we would prefer to say exactly that for this particular sentence in an ordinary conversation between two ordinary film-goers.


I agree.


velisarius said:


> I think the tiger was being a bit facetious.


Part of the joke lies in the contrast between the boyish eagerness for sensational violence and the mature reflection on the limitations of people's attitudes.

Using the singular emphasises the adult nature of the comment by making it about the art form rather than individual films.
Perhaps in the UK the cartoonist would have said 'oriental cinema'.


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## dojibear

velisarius said:


> I'm curious. Would most people go for the plural in AE as well, or are both equally likely?



As an AE speaker, the sentence by Hobbes (the tiger) is correct, and clear, and commonplace. I have seen any uses of the phrase "foreign film" in general statements about non-USA films. I am fairly sure I have seen "foreign film" said to be "inaccessible" in serious discussions by film critics.

The joke here is that the boy is speaking in childish language about what appeals to a small boy: monsters and stuff. The tiger is imitating adult conversational style, as he often does. The contrast is amusing.


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## elroy

dojibear said:


> As an AE speaker, the sentence by Hobbes (the tiger) is correct, and clear, and commonplace.


 Ditto.


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## boozer

wandle said:


> Perhaps in the UK the cartoonist would have said 'oriental cinema'.


I do not know about 'oriental', but I would certainly have expected 'cinema'.

But I admit that I was fooled initially. I only saw the cartoon itself a few posts ago


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## velisarius

dojibear said:


> I have seen "foreign film is inaccessible" in serious discussions by film critics.


 Yes, so have I and that was my point. It's the "people say" that made me stop and think, because I don't think that in Britain "people say" exactly that.


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## elroy

Hm, "people say" here just means "people are of the belief that."  It's not about the actual words people use.


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## wandle

dojibear said:


> I have seen "foreign film" said to be "inaccessible" in serious discussions by film critics.





velisarius said:


> Yes, so have I and that was my point. It's the "people say" that made me stop and think, because I don't think that in Britain "people say" exactly that.


Using 'people say' as a reference to critics elevates the speaker to a position which dismisses the critics as ordinary people, pedestrians on the cultural highway.


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## velisarius

I don't think it's the critics that say foreign film is inaccessible. I'm reluctant to try to analyse the thought processes of an American talking tiger though.


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## PaulQ

The significant word is "*film*" - this is AE not BE. Why didn't the tiger say "*movie*" if he meant "*that film*"? It is because he speaks American... in which "*film*" can easily be uncountable.

In BE, "film" (other than in reference to the film placed in cameras) is strongly countable.

Had the War of Independence not been fought, the line would have been "And people say that foreign *cinema* is inaccessible." or "And people say that foreign *films are* inaccessible."


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## wandle

The two definitions in post 31 appear to be equivalent, but I think there is a different nuance to each.

'Cinema' as a countable noun normally means the cinema hall, or theatre, and thus in the abstract expresses the whole experience of going to the cinema.
'Film' in the countable sense is an individual movie and as a mass noun denotes films collectively.


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## PaulQ

wandle said:


> 'Cinema' as a countable noun normally means the cinema hall, or theatre, and thus in the abstract expresses the whole experience of going to the cinema.


Not to me, and apparently others:
OED


> *Cinema: 1.b. Cinema films collectively, esp. considered as an art-form; the production of such films. Also, material suitable for presentation in or as a cinema film.*
> 1918   Webster's New Internat. Dict. Eng. Lang. Add.   Cinema,..moving pictures collectively.
> [...]
> 1952   Sunday Times 25 May 7/7   It would be foolish to try to judge ‘Mourning Becomes Electra’ (Carlton) as a piece of cinema.
> 1952   Sunday Times 25 May 7/7   None of this amounts to cinema.
> 1959   Observer 8 Mar. 16/7   The pity is that cinema, as an art, was and is capable of a greatness that TV has never approached.


I tend to agree with the OED.


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## wandle

PaulQ said:


> I tend to agree with the OED.


So do I. That is why first, in post 31, I quoted meaning (b) (abstract); and secondly. in post 46, I was taking meaning (a) (countable) into consideration as well:


> *a.* A popular abbreviation, and now the usual form, of cinematograph n.; hence (short for cinema hall n. at Compounds 1, etc.), a building in which cinematographic films are exhibited.


Both definitions of 'cinema' are valid. My suggestion is that the countable meaning lends the abstract meaning  of 'cinema' a nuance which is not quite matched by 'film'.


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## siares

What a completely unusable category! Does the tiger include British or Australian in foreign?

Can I substitute 'cinematography' for 'cinema'/ uncountable 'film'?


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## wandle

siares said:


> cinematography


That is the skill or activity of making a film. The OED says:


> The use of the cinematograph; the art of taking and reproducing films.


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## Juhasz

siares said:


> Does the tiger include British or Australian in foreign?



Probably not.  But then, Hobbes (the tiger) also only jokingly included a Japanese monster movie in the category _foreign film_.  In 1986 when the comic was written, the term _foreign film_ would have connoted European (and maybe Asian) art cinema, i.e. the films of Italian neorealism, the French new wave, and the similar movements in other countries.  These films were not only (and perhaps not _primarily_) inaccessible to the average American movie-goer because they were subtitled, but also because they defied the conventions of Hollywood film making (arguably).  Watch the opening scene of Béla Tarr's _The Turin Horse_ (which you can find on YouTube) for a good example of (arguably) inaccessible _foreign film _with no language barrier.

The joke is that not all films that are geographically foreign could be lumped into the category of _foreign film_.  James Bond films would never be found in the Foreign Film section of a video rental store (when they existed).  _Godzilla_ movies probably weren't in that section either.  




siares said:


> Can I substitute 'cinematography' for 'cinema'/ uncountable 'film'?



No.  Cinematography refers to only one aspect of film making.  The Wikipedia article on the subject gives a good definition: "*Cinematography* is the science or art of motion-picture photography by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as film stock."


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## siares

Thank you, both! The word is a false friend then.


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## elroy

At least from a modern perspective, I would say British and Australian films _are_ included.


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## Scrawny goat

elroy said:


> At least from a modern perspective, I would say British and Australian films _are_ included.


Surely, like the Academy Award, its 'picture in a language other than English'


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## elroy

I don’t know about the Academy Awards, but for me as a layperson, a British or Australian movie definitely qualifies as foreign.  In other words, I would not bat an eyelid if they were included in a foreign film festival.


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## Myridon

Scrawny goat said:


> Surely, like the Academy Award, its 'picture in a language other than English'


The Academy Award is for Best Foreign Language Film, not Best Foreign Film.
The American release of _Trainspotting _has subtitles.


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## Ali Smith

Given that in American English the word “cinema” is never used in the sense of “movie theater”, would “foreign cinema” have worked as well?

And people say that foreign film is inaccessible.
And people say that foreign cinema is inaccessible.


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## PaulQ

And people say that foreign cinema is inaccessible.


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## a little edgy

> And people say that foreign cinema is inaccessible.



That works in British English, where "cinema" is an everyday word, but not in American English. We don't use the word at all except in the names of things, like movie theaters and magazine or websites. Americans know what it means in British English, but an American using the word _in America_ is likely either joking or mocking the pretensions of film snobs, the only people on this side of the Atlantic likely to use the word seriously.

Otherwise, it seems that every possible interpretation of "foreign film" vs. "foreign films" was discussed exhaustively back in 2017, so I'll only say that in the context of the comic strip presented in the OP, it's obvious to me that Hobbes (the tiger) is talking about *foreign film as a genre*, and doing so in a deliberately pretentious way to set up a humorous contrast with the lowbrow nature of the film being described, apparently a sequel to or knockoff of _Godzilla_.


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## dojibear

Ali Smith said:


> Given that in American English the word “cinema” is never used in the sense of “movie theater”, would “foreign cinema” have worked as well?
> 
> And people say that foreign film is inaccessible.
> And people say that foreign cinema is inaccessible.


The example is not talking about a movie theater, and saying it is inaccessible. It is using "cinema/film" to mean "the entire industry, including all movies". American English uses "cinema" with that meaning.



a little edgy said:


> That works in British English, where "cinema" is an everyday word, but not in American English. We don't use the word at all except in the names of things, like movie theaters and magazine or websites.


I disagree. I've heard it many times in AE. I saw the word in many US magazines (before the internet). Check the WR dictionary (American English part). This is the only defintion of "cinema" that is not marked "British": 

cinema (noun) 1. motion pictures, as an art or industry (uncountable)


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## Chasint

Ali Smith said:


> Given that in American English the word “cinema” is never used in the sense of “movie theater”, would “foreign cinema” have worked as well?
> 
> And people say that foreign film is inaccessible.
> And people say that foreign cinema is inaccessible.


I read through this whole thread with great amusement. There has been a lot of nonsense talked.



> And people say that foreign film is inaccessible



We do not have to be English, American, Australian, or Bulgarian, to see that "film" in this sentence is being used a as non-countable noun. For simplicity, and just to see the grammar, we could alter the sentence as follows:

_Foreign film is inaccessible_

In the context of the medium (i.e. film), we can see that the structure is: <adjective> <non-count noun> <singular verb "to be"> <adjective>

I am British and I have no trouble seeing that this refers to the genre _film_. Likewise, if the sentence had been "And people say that foreign cinema is inaccessible", it is obvious that _cinema_ is a genre.

Indeed, even if the sentence had been, "And people say that foreign flickery-magic-lightbox-with-noises is inaccessible", it would still be clear that we are dealing with a genre: Why? Because (1) there is no article in front of _flickery-magic-lightbox-with-noises_ and (2) it is followed by a singular verb. Therefore it is a non-countable noun.


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