The EU turns 50, yet still lacks a "European soul". Wim Wenders suggested to exploit the powerful potential of images. This article invites the reader to explore what images Europe as an abstract idea could produce and what this abstract idea may even be.

The EU celebrated its fiftieth anniversary on Sunday 25 March 2007. Yet, everyone is lamenting for the lack of European spirit. The project of the European constitution was aborted after being rejected by the Dutch and the French. The EU is seen as too remote from its European citizens, too bureaucratic, even undemocratic - in one word not attractive. The EU should embrace something as vaguely described as “Europe”, a word, a concept yet to be invented like America fits the USA with its American way of life, “God bless America”, the “American dream” and all this popular imagery that comes to the mind when thinking about the USA.

One of the European personality to stress this lack of “sex-appeal” of Europe is German film director Wim Wenders, who in a speech delivered at the conference in Berlin “Give Europe a Soul” 20 December 2006, called for the power of image to palliate this European handicap (1). “Europe has a soul” he says, “embedded in its culture”. But “Europe is not taking advantage of its emotional potential!” “We live in the age of the image”, but Europe is not making anything of it. Worse yet, argues Wim Wenders, European myths are being deprived from her by American cinema, as the new James Bond incarnated by David Craig shows: this image of James Bond is very remote from the British gentleman played by “the magnificent Scotsman, Sir Sean Connery” or the “elegant, cultivated Irishman, Pierce Brosnan”.

So, according to Win Wenders, Europe should exploit the potential of the images of the European cinema in order to trigger a “European consciousness”, where emotions, culture are the bonds the cement. Europe must be capable to transform itself from an “abstract idea” to a “vision”.

But how is this abstract idea to be visualised?

Let’s take Wim Wenders assertions seriously, and let’s ask ourselves what indeed could be made out of these European treasures of culture. What could be used to promote a powerful imaginary of “Europe” in European cinema? How could “Europe” be depicted in films to promote a sense of identity and belonging to European filmgoers?

The comic books culture in the USA has been recently adapted successfully to the silver screen, evidently because it is a metaphor for the actual hegemonic domination of the USA on the international scene: a superpower state is like a super hero with superpowers. “With great powers comes great responsibility” teaches Peter Parker’s father.

What do we have in Europe? Tintin? Asterix? Belgium is the incontestable capital for comic books production. The problem is that the most famous “B.D.” (2) characters are living in a world that does no longer exist: ancient times; when European states were still dominating the world through colonies; or during the cold war. Tintin is too old, it would remind too acutely of Europe’s colonial past. Asterix is too French to be transposed to the whole Europe, and even if it was, it would be too much depicting the reality of a France, who wants Europe to adapt its views of Europe: imagine the little Asterix and his village resisting alone and always against the imperial invaders (understood America). Not everyone wants the EU to be an alternative to the US in world politics. Perhaps E.P. Jacobs’ “Blake and Mortimer” could be a candidate for the same metaphoric production for world politics as the American superheroes. It is written in French but the protagonists are British.  In a documentary in French on E.P. Jacobs, former French Minister of Foreign Affairs Hubert Védrine, a fan of these “European” comic books, commented extensively on the views on world politics implied in the “Blake et Mortimer” series. But is it transposable to the contemporary world to have Captain Francis Blake always coming to the rescue with the army? The European army is still missing. Is it imaginable to see at the end of the movie the brave Captain Blake and Professor Mortimer by the EU flag looking at the horizon by the sunset? Would that bind us?

It seems that cartoon characters are either living in a too remote world, incarnating a too national or too regional view, or that simply the “abstract idea of Europe” is not corresponding to the cartoons.

The question is: does Europe even have a pop culture? Certainly European states have a pop culture. So, does the sum of national pop cultures define European pop culture? Is Lady D. European pop culture? Would we feel bound as “Europeans” by a biography of Lady D. adapted to the silver screen? Did “The Queen” touch us as “Europeans”? It certainly won at the BAFTA and the Oscars. But do the French care about monarchy?

Perhaps a European movie prize should be invented, like the Oscars. But why making another prize competing with Cannes, Berlin, or Venise? And how?

No doubt, war is a powerful visual subject for movies. How many movies are made in Hollywood with war as the main subject? Again, the USA has stolen this subject from Europe, when WWII movies are mainly Americans and showing an American side. Of course, most of these movies are criticisable propaganda, and the best label of quality is to watch a war movie that has NOT been approved by the Pentagon for collaboration. But great movies on war have been made, that depict the USA, even in a non-propaganda way. A heavily critical war-movie on the USA is still productive of US imaginary.

We lack European movies that would show the horror of war from a “European” point of view. World War II is perhaps a bit too old, but “Band of Brothers” or “Flag of our Fathers” are recent examples that it still works and appeal to the imaginary of the audience. Why isn’t Europe doing the same? Another very actual and potentially powerful depiction of European emotion is the conflict in ex-Yugoslavia.

After all, the EU was created in the aftermath of WWII on this very idea that “it” should be made impossible in the future. War is a powerful engine for the European imaginary.

Perhaps Europe also lacks a “European Hollywood” to produce these super-productions. Perhaps, some argue, it is also for the best that Europe is relatively free from these blockbusters with pre-chewed scripts, Hollywood picture quality, and aseptised. Perhaps, perhaps not: in the mean-time European film-goers are massively fed by these Hollywood productions.

One question however remains: are we even agreeing on the “abstract idea” that should be visualised? What is this idea of Europe?

As these examples above showed, it is difficult to find something that would be common to all. Wim Wenders narrates that the Americans call us “Europeans”, but it is because they have their own federal-state-mentality and see us as a unity that we are not.

But should we even bother to find what is “common” to all, what “unites” us? This very attempt to define and find a unity, isn’t this the very opposite of what should be learned from the European experience of nation-state building, and the wars that occurred because of identity and unity building in complete contempt for particularities and differences? Regional differences inside “nation-states” and differences between nation-states. I speak of European wars for national identities, regional identities crushed by national unity building.

The search for “Europe” as a common identity should not turn into yet another beacon for exclusion: Christianity, not Islam; Greek and Roman roots, not “barbarians”; “us” not “them”.

The “abstract idea of Europe” should remain one of diversity and openness, cosmopolitanism and dialogue. But all these things are not easily visual.
Perhaps in the end what could bind us all Europeans and would also be visual would be the peoples, the individuals. Could an image of Europe emerge from stories about people and their experiences across borders? Stories of people’s lives ravaged by national identity wars; stories of people reunited after years of conflicts between countries; stories of people’s lives dramatically altered by governments ignoring the peoples. Less dramatically: stories of individuals marrying and experiencing problems in living in between states; cultural chocks; stories of migrations inside Europe.

A nation-Europe is out of the question. So: We, the people?

(1)   http://www.signandsight.com/features/1098.html
(2)   B.D. stands for “Bandes dessinées” in French, meaning comic books.