Beyond the entomological critique: re-thinking Rouch and African cinema

Abstract

Having worked in West Africa for over 60 years, Jean Rouch has long been a contentious figure in African film circles. Though his collaborative and participatory methods aimed to challenge the colonial and postcolonial status quo, they did so from within the very structures and systems of support that secured the French presence in West Africa. Taking the prickly relationship between Rouch and Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène as a starting point, this essay argues that, while understandable and instructive in many respects, the distance maintained between Rouch and post-independence African filmmakers has done a disservice to Rouch’s collaborators hailing from West Africa, effectively effacing them from both French and African film histories. Given that African cinema is in a moment of profound transformation, the author contends that the time is ripe to open up a new kind of dialogue between Rouch and his African contemporaries.