Politics of Cultural Conversion in Colonialist African Cinema

Abstract

Politics of Cultural Conversion in Colonialist African Cinema Femi Okiremuete Shaka (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Lesley Banks and Paul Robeson in Sanders of the River (dir. Zoltán Korda, 1935, United Kingdom). Image courtesy of the author. For some time now, the cinematic practices of Africa have often been assessed as a unified cinematic practice—one which was essentially colonialist. Historians and critics of African cinema have often overlooked the need to make a distinction between the two divergent cinematic practices, colonial African instructional cinema and colonialist African cinema, which existed side by side during the colonial era. Colonial African instructional cinema was a governmental and non-governmental agency [End Page 61] sponsored cinema that treats the medium essentially as a vehicle for social mobilization and public education. In most of its productions, the medium is used as a vehicle for teaching Africans modern methods of agriculture, medication, banking, taxation, personal hygiene, urban planning and development, youth mobilization, community self-help schemes, etc. The films do not represent Africans as lacking knowledge of these things; rather, they represent them as doing things in the old-fashioned traditional ways. The emphasis therefore is on using the medium as an aid to the process of modernization. On the other hand, colonialist African cinema was/is sponsored essentially by private commercial interests, and it lays claim to Africa through representation of colonialist conventionalized stereotypes of Africans in European culture. Thus the lack of any systematically argued critical criteria or theoretical propositions for qualifying a film as African or otherwise meant that the criticism of African cinema has often been silent, and has neglected several important issues necessary for a proper appraisal of the field. It is not the objective of this study to propose a theoretical framework for the criticism of postcolonial African cinema. By properly distinguishing between the two types of Colonial cinematic practices, and by further comparing both practices with contemporary African cinematic practices, the roots of current practices will not only be formally established, but their distinctive features will also become apparent. In essence, I will try to define the various practices that preceded contemporary African cinema. I have attempted to map out some of the methodological problems plaguing the criticism of African cinema, as well as to provide the critical criteria for distinguishing between the two types of cinematic traditions. I have also examined the historical background of colonialist African cinema and undertaken an analysis of Zoltán Korda's Sanders of the River (1935, United Kingdom) as a case study of cinematic practice. Certain terms require definition. By colonialist African discourse/cinema, I mean both continental and diasporic European representations of Africans that use European metaphysical concepts, its moral values, ethics, and aesthetics, to judge through representation those of Africa as inferior imitations or types of European originals. I will be using the term "colonialist" to qualify and distinguish this mode of discourse in order to avoid generalizations that would otherwise give the wrong impression that all European representations of Africa and Africans are colonialist. Above all, I am using the term "African" to qualify the African experience in colonialist discourse in general. This is the sense in which I will be using terms such as colonialist African discourse, colonialist African literature and colonialist African cinema. [End Page 62] Methodological Problems in the Criticism of Colonialist African Cinema The study of colonialist African cinema, unlike colonialist African literature, upon which the majority of its texts are based, has remained a neglected area in African film scholarship. Studies that have been carried out on the representation of Africans in cinema deal essentially with the images of African Americans in American cinema. Studies such as those carried out by Noble, Mapp, Bogle, Leab, Cripps, Nesteby, etc., deal only tangentially with Africa by virtue of the African origin of African Americans. The only exception in this regard is Richard Maynard's work, Africa on Film, Myth and Reality. However this collection of essays by historians, anthropologists, and journalists pursues arguments that seem to equate representation with reality. Stam and Spence have questioned the validity of such a methodological approach to colonialist filmic studies: these studies...