Orientalism on the screen: contextualising colonial cinema in Morocco

Abstract

ABSTRACT In colonial Morocco, cinema was effectively dynamic in reflecting the interests and values of the dominant players in the film industry: Europeans. Colonial cinema was, thus, instrumental to Westerners, whereas Moroccans were at best consumers of the moving images or, when represented, seemed to be exotic, distorted and voiceless. This article explores the ways how colonial cinema visually produced the Moroccan native reality on the screen. By questioning the grammar of representation, the focus here is to see the extent to which colonial filmmakers were associated with the colonial project and were actually vulnerable in front of its demands and political dictates. The main argument is that colonial cinema—though pre-supposedly was about the extra-European reality—continued to articulate an orientalising discourse that regarded the native characters not beyond the limits of the colonial imaginary, but within its predefined boundaries. To understand how colonial cinema operates stylistically, it will be appropriate to analyse it in the light of Edward Said’s theorisation of the concept of representation with respect to the Self/Other dichotomy.