A Tempest by Philip Crispin (review)

Abstract

MLRy 98.1, 2003 213 A Tempest. By Aime Cesaire. Trans. by Philip Crispin. London: Oberon. 2000. ?4 PP- ??-99- ISBN 1-84002-143-8. The African independences of the late 1950s and 1960s were intensely experienced by Cesaire. The great poet of Negritude, who had become one of the foremost voices in the anti-colonial struggle, could now finallyspeak ofthe end of centuries of repression and dispossession. An unforeseen, and yet unavoidable, side effectof this change in perspective was the end of the viability of his previous poetic images of Africa (and the colonized world in general) as disempowered, violated victims ofcolonialism. The movement into the postcolonial period called for a more nuanced understanding of social and political relations than the Manichaean colonizer/colonized models which characterize his poetry. Cesaire's solution was a radical one: he largely abandoned poetry in favour of the theatre, which, he felt,was a medium through which he could better address the pressing political specificities of the emerging postcolonial world. Une tempete is the last of three plays written in this period, the others being La Tragedie du roi Christophe and Une saison au Congo. As an early example of the now popular postcolonial trope of rewriting the European canon, Une tempete engages with the questions of race and class which are central to Shakespeare's text, and resituates them in a distinctly 1960s context, which owes as much to the United States' civil rights period as to the Africa of the independence era. Cesaire's rewriting goes far beyond imitation and creates a remarkably confident and powerful commentary on colonialism and its effectson the colonized subject. Caliban's Prospero-imposed identity as an uncivilized, uneducated savage is slowly turned back on the master, until Prospero finally reveals that his own self-image has been undermined by the gaze of the slave. In suggesting Prospero's final, debilitating dependence on Caliban for his idea of himself, Cesaire hints at a Sartrean influence: the master is guilty,it seems, of a colonial version of mauvaisefoi. A further intertext is also surely Genet's much earlier Les Negres, in that both plays reverse colonially imposed stereotypes through baroque rituals of masking and unmasking 'true' identity. I imagine the problems of translating such a work would lie in establishing and maintaining the correct tone, and in producing language equivalent to Cesaire's, which is characterized by excess and sometimes obscure allusion. Philip Crispin handles these problems skilfully. While his translation remains laudably faithful to Cesaire, at the same time he creates a play in an idiom which will make the work accessible and appealing to contemporary readers and audiences in the anglophone world. University of the West Indies Martin Munro Jean-Jacques Beineix. By Phil Powrie. (French Film Directors) Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press. 2001. xiii + 240 pp. ?12.99 (pbk). ISBN 0-7190-5533-4. Manchester's series on French film directors is in full spate and Phil Powrie's study of Beineix is a meticulously researched, extremely thorough, and superbly illustrated addition. Dispensing with the tendency of most books from the series to feature ten or a dozen stills, Powrie has taken the time and effortto produce twenty-seven 'screengrabs ' from the films themselves. He also includes a preface by the director, a most comprehensive bibliography, a filmography complete with budget and box officefig? ures, and a briefanalysis ofthe recently released Mortel transfert.Powrie is clearly a fan of Beineix and is enthusiastically revisionist in his stance. His book sets out to address the consistent and at times vituperative critiques that have dogged Beineix throughout his career, and to posit new readings of his six feature films. At times the thoroughness with which Powrie critiques the critiques leaves less room than one might have ...