African Cinematography: Colonial Film to Nollywood Lecture 6

1. African Cinematography: Colonial Film to NollywoodLecture 6 Derek Barker www.derekbarker.info Dr.Derek.Barker@gmail.com

2. Overview • Learning to look • Brief History of Film • Colonial film • BEKE – Bantu Education Kinema Experiment • Examples

3. COMMUNICATION MODEL RECEIVER MESSAGE SENDER

5. Las Meninas: Diego Velazquez

7. Pure representation • Is it possible for the image to be “true”? • Is it possible that a pure relation to be achieved between the representor and the represented? • Foucault: yes, it is possible, but only where the one representing and the one represented are made invisible

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9. French Soldier • Front cover from Paris Match 1950s, showing a young black soldier in French uniform saluting. • Saluting soldier: Frenchness, militariness, universal citizenship • Message: France is a great empire, that all her sons, without any colour discrimination, faithfully serve under her flag,' • Promotes myth of imperial devotion, success and the ultimate legitimacy of the French colonial empire. • Implied answer to French critics of Algerian colonization: look at the example of this fine soldier, let his zeal be contagious…

10. History of Film • The history of film began in the late 1880s with the invention of the first movie camera. • Most films before 1930 were silent. • 1895 to 1906: • motion pictures move a carnival novelty to an established large-scale entertainment industry. • movement from films consisting of one shot, completely made by one person with a few assistants, towards films several minutes long consisting of several shots made by large companies in something like industrial conditions.

11. History of Film Up till 1906: • First commercial exhibition of film took place on April 14, 1894 at Edison's Kinetoscope peep-show parlor. • The most successful motion picture company in the United States, with the largest production until 1900, was the American Mutoscope company. • Peep-show type films using 70 mm wide film each frame printed separately onto paper sheets for insertion into their viewing machine, called the Mutoscope. • By 1896, however, motion picture films with a projector to a large audience proved more commercially viable than exhibiting them in peep-show machines.

12. History of Film 1906 - 1914 • 1906 saw the production of an Australian film called “The Story of the Kelly Gang”. • More than an hour - longest ever narrative film • First shown in Melbourne, Australia on 26 December 1906 and in the UK in January 1908 • In 1907 there were about 4,000 small "nickelodeon" cinemas in the United States; silent films accompanied by music, usually pianist playing live.

13. History of Film 1906 - 1914 • Up to 1913, most American film production was still carried out around New York • In 1909, first production unit opened in California • By 1910, the French film companies starting to make films as long as two, or even three reels • This trend was followed in Italy, Denmark, and Sweden.

14. History of Film 1914 – 1919 • films changed from short programmes of one-reel films to longer shows consisting of a feature film of four reels or longer • exhibition venues also changed from small nickelodeon cinemas to larger cinemas charging higher prices after the advent of the “film star”. • move in USA towards shooting more films on the West coast around Los Angeles continued during World War I, until the bulk of American production was carried out there. • The Universal Film Manufacturing Company formed in 1912 as an umbrella company for many of the independent producing companies, and continued to grow during the war.

15. History of Film • 1926, Hollywood studio Warner Bros. introduced the "Vitaphone" system, producing short films of live entertainment acts and public figures and adding recorded sound effects and orchestral scores to some of its major features. • During late 1927, Warners released The Jazz Singer, which was mostly silent but contained synchronized dialogue (and singing) in a feature film; • Not at first considered viable, later "talking pictures", or "talkies", boomed.

16. History of Film 1940s • Demand for wartime propaganda created a renaissance in the film industry in Britain, with realistic war dramas like 49th Parallel (1941), Went the Day Well? (1942), The Way Ahead (1944) and Noël Coward and David Lean's celebrated naval film In Which We Serve in 1942, which won a special Academy Award. Etc.

17. History of Film 1940s • The US entry into World War II also brought a proliferation of films as both patriotism and propaganda. • American propaganda films included Desperate Journey, Mrs. Miniver, Forever and a Day and Objective Burma. Notable American films from the war years include the anti-Nazi Watch on the Rhine (1943), etc. 1950s onwards saw major boom in filmmaking in all industrialized countries

18. History of Film - Africa • During the colonial era, Africa was represented [almost] exclusively by Western filmmakers. • The continent was portrayed as an exotic land without history or culture. • Examples: • Tarzanand The African Queen, King Solomon's Mines and, in the mid-1930s, the Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment (BEKE) was carried out in order to educate the Bantu peoples. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzcRa6n_qoE • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otze5gxzjck

19. BEKE • The Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment (BEKE) was a project of the International Missionary Council in coordination with the Carnegie Corporation of New York and British colonial governments of Tanganyika (Tanzania), Kenya, Uganda, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Nyasaland (Malawi) in the mid-1930s

20. BEKE • The project aim was that of realizing educational films to be played by mobile cinemas for the education of the black ("bantu") people. • Approx35 such films, on 16mm, were produced between 1935 and 1937, when the project's Carnegie grant expired.

21. BEKE • BEKE productions were silent, low quality films with naive plots that usually involved a "wise guy" (giving the good example) prevailing over a "stupid guy" (impersonating bad habits). • While some actors were black, everything else in the production was British, building on a stereotypical representation of Africa and Africans.

22. BEKE • The main teachings conveyed by the films were about hygiene rules, methods of cash crop cultivation and cooperative marketing, and "prestige films" that highlighted the institutions of British rule. • Only three of the BEKE films survive and are held at the British Film Institute Archives: • "Veterinary Training of African Natives" (1936). http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk/node/1533 • "Tropical Hookworm" (1936). http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk/node/735 • "African Peasant Farms - the Kingolwira Experiment" (1936). • http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk/node/230

23. Colonial Film Unit • 1939 – 1955 • Over 200 short films • The CFU was originally established under the Ministry of Information to produce ‘propaganda’ films, encouraging African support for the war effort. • After 1945, under the Central Office of Information, the CFU produced instructional films for African audiences • From 1950 onwards, the Colonial Office finally assumed full control of the CFU; ceased film production, instead supporting and sponsoring the establishment of local film units and training schools.

24. Examples • Landing of Savage South Africa 1899 http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk/node/1186 • Father and Son 1945 http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk/node/1755 • Colonial Month 1949 http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk/node/387 • Star Beer 1949 http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk/node/1887 • Nairobi 1950 http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk/node/1698