French Cinema's Other First Wave: Political and Racial Economies of "Cinema colonial," 1918 to 1934

Abstract

The French colonial lobby took an early interest in film and grasped its efficacy as a means of stimulating popular support for the Empire. Documentary travelogues gave way to narrative film in the 1920s; the stunning box office success of L'Atlantide (1921), made filming in exotic locales de rigueur for ambitious directors. In the popular imagination, Morocco and the Sahara, l'extreme Sud d'Alg6rie, remained wild, insecure, and untamed. In fact, marechal Hubert Lyautey's residency in the Protectorate of Morocco and the Foreign Legion headquarters in western Algeria helped filmmakers overcome most logistical problems. Directors acknowledged their debt to colonial administrators and expressed their gratitude to Lyautey in particular. Film companies of the 1920s preferred to work in Morocco. Its locales, architecture, and folkways gave them low-cost settings and labor for movie extras that enabled them to compete with Hollywood spectaculars. The precolonial society had remained intact, because Lyautey had won support for his policy of indirect rule through sophisticated campaigns to manipulate French and Moroccan opinion, not leastways through film. This symbiosis exercised a subtle yet powerful influence on film themes and narrative content. Documentaries made in Africa and fictional films made in North Africa con-