Oral Tradition and the Aesthetics of Black African Cinema
Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike
This tremendous fund of African imagery, ritual-spiritual language, music, dance, metaphor and
proverbs, the mythic components and poetic resonances of the oral traditions, when adopted to filmic
codes, would produce film aesthetics that are African.
Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike
In his celebrated 1994 book, Black African Cinema, from which this text is selected, Nwachukwu
Frank Ukadike, a Nigerian film scholar, presents an insider’s perspective on films by black Africans:
films, he explains, that best represent authentic African culture, history, and experience. Such films
counter and correct the extreme misrepresentations of Africa in Western films, which have done more
to spread and entrench primitivist stereotypes than any other art medium. Of countless examples,
one has only to recall Hollywood’s Tarzan films to understand the mandate of black African film
makers. Despite the harm such movies have done, however, in this reading the author makes a
strong case for film as the privileged vehicle for authentic African expression. Ukadike underlines
what he and many cultural historians consider the essential, shared element of African culture: its
oral tradition, the tradition of the griot, the storyteller. “In the oral tradition,” writes Ukadike,
comparing it with film, “the griot is endowed with multiple functions, as musician, dancer, and
storyteller; he is the storehouse of oral tradition.” The prestige and potential of film, then, for black
African filmmakers, critics, and their global same/other audiences, is in cinema’s griot-like ability to
simultaneously employ verbal expression, visual language, and the performative: music, dance, and
theater. Cinema’s message may be understood in any language and potentially bridges differences.
Like other writers in this volume, Ukadike defines non-Western modernism as a synthesis of Western
modernism and indigenous traditions.
The author asks us to consider this question: “How has African cinema imbued the dominant film
structure with oral tradition to penetrate the African condition and bring to the surface African facts
to inform the public?”
Source: Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike, Black African Cinema, 70-72, 201-216. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1994.
Francophone Origins
(…) France's interest in the development of cinema in most of its West African excolonies – Gabon, Congo, Niger, Mali, Senegal, Benin, Madagascar, Cameroon, and
Burkina Faso – is certainly linked to the educational and cultural patterns that it
adopted in colonial days, otherwise known as the policy of assimilation. This policy
sought to "detribalize" the Africans by bringing them to the threshold of French
culture. The French government, rather than regarding Africans as colonized
people, preferred to call them "overseas Frenchmen."1 However, since the French
did not recognize or respect local African cultures,
and since they considered culture the basis on
which French citizenship was determined, they
resolutely embarked on a program of turning the
elite of their African wards into Frenchmen. The
historical impetus for discrediting the African way
of life, in other words, lay in the ideology of
imperialism,
principles
enshrined
of
in
assimilation.
this
Thus
case
in
the
assimilation
resulted in the creation of an elitist class of
Africans crowned with what Bernard Magubane
aptly termed "the accoutrements of Western
civilization."2 This class of a few selected Africans
1. Ousmane Sembène: La noire de…
(Black Girl); Senegal, 1966.
was accorded certain privileges enjoyed by French
citizens. More than any other benefit, their French
education alienated them from their own culture.
Although directing films was one such privilege, some of the assimilated pioneers
of African cinema did not cooperate with this policy,3 demonstrating that cinema in
Africa transcends the ideological motivations rooted in a specific dogmatic interest.
Between 1962 and the end of 1980, a great majority of films made in the
francophone region were partially financed through the assistance programs
provided by the Coopération. Some of the first directors who benefited from this
scheme between 1962 and 1970 were the following: Niger's Mustapha Alassane,
Aouré, La bague du roi Koda (King Koda's ring, 1964), Le retour de I'adventurier
(The adventurer's return, 1966), and Oumarou Ganda, Cabascado (1969);
Senegal's Ousmane Sembène, Borom Sarret (1963), Niaye (1964), La noire de . . .
(Black girl, 1966), and Manama Johnson Traoré, Diankha-bi (The young girl,
1969); Côte d'lvoire's Timité Bassori, Sur la dune de la solitude (On the dune of
solitude, 1966), La fernme au couteau (The woman with a knife, 1968), and Desiré
Ecaré, Concerto pour un exil (Concerto for an exile, 1967); and Cameroon's Urbain
Dia Mokouri, Point de vue (Point of view, 1965).
The best known among the French-aided films are Ousmane Sembène’s Borom
Sarret and Black Girl. With the release of Borom Sarret, the impact of a serious
indigenous African film production was felt. When it was exhibited at the 1963
Tours International Festival in France, it not only made history as the first black
African film seen internationally by a paying audience but it also made an
impression on the international scene by winning a prize – the second African film
to do so after Aouré. Since then, recognition has accorded it the status of the first
professional film ever made by a black African. Shot in Dakar, Borom Sarret, only
nineteen minutes long, is unquestionably an African masterpiece. It dealt, in
embryonic form, with important issues that later became dominant themes of
black African cinema and which Sembène and other filmmakers since then have
emphasized in greater detail. In the filmic treatment of microcosmic situations,
Borom Sarret is deliberately allegorical, structured to evoke national (and by
implication continental) specificities, through the introduction of "fragmentary
discourse" that reveals coded political messages. The contrast between the urban
poor and the urban rich of Dakar served as the basic subject, but Sembène
interweaves a series of vignettes to present African life in a neocolonial setting.
But this neocolonial setting reflects, in the first place, the disappointment of being
colonized. Here we see a poignant attack on the African elite who have replaced
the white colonial administrator, on cultural alienation, and on social and economic
exploitation, all pointing to the mantle of misery that was to prevail under
neocolonial African governments - civilian or military.(…)
Oral Tradition and the Aesthetics of Black African Cinema
Black African cinema and African artisan crafts, both influential vectors of oral
tradition, share a sociocultural structure - a system of ideas and images - as
collective synthesis of a society that never tires of defining itself to itself and to the
rest of the world. Here lies the core of a tradition that gathers elements of
reflection and introspection, provoking real-life discussion of the African condition.
Using allegorical means, black African cinema achieves this, thus placing new
emphasis on the well known African tradition of making a point with stories - an
important aspect of African life not widely disseminated to the outside world,
except in literary circles.
The structure of African storytelling is composed of a variety of cultural and
symbolic configurations. Much of this variety is enunciated . . . in the cohesive web
surrounding the relationship among the text, the spectator (audience), and the
performing artist (orator-narrator). This symbiotic relationship among the artist,
text, and spectator, which African writers have so eloquently stressed,4 has also
posed problems for African novelists and filmmakers, problems concerning
language and the means of technical reproduction - the Africanization of the
medium. For example, writing in Africa's languages is inhibiting since numerous
languages abound. Chinua Achebe, Nigeria's veteran novelist, felt that the English
language was capable of transporting his African views, noting that the language
must "be a new English still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered
to suit its new African surroundings."5 This view is antithetical to Ngugi wa
Thiong'o's radical advocacy of writing in African languages in order to restructure
African literature.6 Like other controversial passages in the article from which
Achebe's statement was extracted, and seen in conjunction with early African
writers who held similar views and who are often criticized by African writers, 7
Ngugi's dictum would also be limited and fails to provide an antidote to the
problems of Ousmane Sembène, a novelist turned filmmaker. (…) With film, the
visual images can spread the message more effectively. Even if the language used
poses some problems, the message of the film image is still discernible to the
viewer. Written literature and film depend on technology, but film transcends oral
tradition and literature because it allows for wider coverage by producing audio
and visual images simultaneously.8
The choice of film production means
acceptance of European technology and
codes of representation. But as to their
application in the African context, it was
only
a
short
time
before
African
fllmmakers discovered the means of
integrating traditional aesthetics into the
stylistic
repertory
of
world
cinema.
These modes of representation would
resonate
African
with
indigenous
sensibility.
Like
codes
the
and
African
2. Gaston Kaboré, Wend Kuuni (God’s Gift);
novels which developed precisely out of Burkina Faso, 1982.
this instrument of cultural symbiosis, one of the expedient ways to inject African
cinema with a dose of authenticity is to exploit the interlocking elements of the
continent's cultural heritage. This tremendous fund of African imagery, ritualspiritual language, music, dance, metaphor and proverbs, the mythic components
and poetic resonances of the oral traditions, when adopted to filmic codes, would
produce film aesthetics that are African.
Black African cinema, in this regard, has already dedicated itself to a genuine
refurbishment of the continent's culture. The significance of its services to the
African people is that it is persistent in highlighting images of historical experience,
cultural identity, and national consciousness in past and present struggles.
Whether some of the views expressed remain optimistic or pessimistic, whether
they provide solutions to the impending crisis or not, the point is that these films
are presenting debatable issues to the public by utilizing African cultural
associations in a unique fashion no foreigner is capable of providing. How has
African cinema imbued the dominant film structure with oral tradition to penetrate
the African condition and bring to the surface African facts to inform the public? Is
this tradition holding, and how has it been utilized in filmic narrative patterns?
Oral tradition and the aesthetics of African cinema are becoming the subject of
exploration by African film historians and critics whose studies are pertinent to the
understanding of African film practice. While Mbye Cham9 links Sembène's
storytelling capability to that of the gewel (griot or storyteller) and the lekbat (also
storyteller), Françoise Pfaff10 sees this trait encompassing Sembène's narrative
techniques in such films as Borom Sarret, Xala, and Ceddo, where the griot's role
is elaborated. In another perspective, while Manthia Diawara11 analyzes the role of
the griot in Sembène's films, this analysis is extended to the work of other
directors - providing a detailed examination of oral tradition as an aesthetic device
in cinematic narrative in the same way that Teshome Gabriel12 explores oral
narrative and film form in Harvest: 3,000 Years.
(…)
Ababacar Samb-Makharam's Jom, coproduced with Germany's Zweites Deutschen
Fernsehen (ZDF television), is a good example of black African cinematic strategy
completely reliant on oral tradition. In this film, a griot relates to his listeners the
story of Dieri Dior (Oumar Seck), who murders a French colonial administrator. In
the rage that follows the revenge, Dieri, rather than surrender, decides to die a
dignified death by killing himself.
The ramifications of this dignified act are
recalled through the story of Khaly during a present-day labor strike. (…)
Narrated by a griot, the film reveals the multidisciplinary talent of the storyteller.
Samb-Makharam acknowledges in his production notes that the griot "is also an
endless
source
where
painters,
writers,
historians,
filmmakers,
archivists,
storytellers, and musicians can come to feed their imaginations.”13 In the oral
tradition, the griot is endowed with multiple functions, as musician, dancer, and
storyteller; he is the storehouse of oral tradition. The peripatetic nature of his
performance enables him to recount to listeners the history of the entire
community. His audience can in turn pass such knowledge on to others who are
not present, in an endless transmission-passing from mother to sons and
daughters, generation to generation. It is this type of knowledge that would
precipitate, if need be, mass mobilization. (…)
If in Jorn Samb-Makharam's structure illustrates the use of a historical narrative
form of storytelling, Kaboré’s Wend Kuuni is a prototype of creative candor for its
definitive advancement in the effort to utilize specifically African cultural elements
to create indigenous cinematic aesthetics. Basically, Wend Kuuni is a revival of the
family-oriented film fashioned after the African oral tale tradition; it depicts a
young boy's traumatic experience of losing one family and finding another. (…)
If one of the principal constituents of oral tradition is organization, examination,
and interpretation of society's past and present, Wend Kuuni shows that the
fragmentation of linear images and their remolding in "new configurations and
contexts," to use E.H. Gombrich's phrase,14 can be achieved by blending oral art
with cinematic art. In this film, the whole process of juxtaposition is conveyed by
decoupage15 specifically through parallel montage, extensive use of continuity
editing,
and
with
admirable
characterization
and
performances
by
the
nonprofessional cast. These elements, also comprising shifts and transgressions (of
oral tradition and dominant cinematic conventions), assist in capturing the graphic
images of the boy's transformation and the centralization of the film's rugged
humanist qualities. As the narrative shows, Kaboré eschews chronological order by
inverting the linearity of the tale as it would be told in oral narrative by employing
the above filmic devices. (…)
(…) Visages de femmes [1985, Ivory Coast] by Désiré Ecaré, makes a different
contribution to black African film aesthetics through oral tradition. Ecaré's
innovative use of song and dance, here functioning as a vital narrative element,
holds the film's structure together while other significant cultural oral traditions
come into focus. (…)
Visages de femmes begins with ten minutes of song and dance. Beautifully
composed and shot mostly in close-up with a few medium shots, it begins with two
drummers dexterously providing the exhilarating music that draws a large village
crowd in colorful traditional attire together, happily dancing the two-step. This
wonderful scene, masterfully choreographed, catches the gay exuberance of the
denizens of Loupou, in a sequence so compelling that J. Hoberman noted that "one
would be proud to show [it to] a Martian as evidence of life on earth."16 There is no
dialogue omnisciently telling the viewer what is happening. The visuals are selfexplanatory, providing an introduction to the African culture. (…)
Like other filmmakers mentioned, who base their creative approach on oral
tradition, Désiré Ecaré, actor, dramatist, and filmmaker who studied at the Institut
des Hautes Etudes Cinématographiques (IDHEC) in Paris, also believes oral
tradition to be a mainstay of African film language. In his work, oral tradition
functions as a way of conceiving cinematic structure, a way of seeing, a view of
the cosmic universe, and a way of articulating political and cultural possibilities.
This means that, while the structural underpinnings in his films revolve around this
cultural precept, his work is also based on an ideology that seeks to debunk rigid
methodologies. Like Kaboré, Ecaré favors multiple narrative structure, as opposed
to, for instance, Sembène’s linear narrative style. But where Kaboré and Sembène
clarify through simplicity and meticulous attention to detail, Ecaré uses an elliptical
film style. (…)
(…) Visages de femmes is crafted around excellently choreographed dancing and
singing. As in grammatical construction, where a punctuation mark breaks a
sentence, the dancing and singing sequences play a similar role in the story line.
Both are elements of form and content reinforcing the structure without breaking
the flow of the diegesis; both also function as well-intended transition devices. In
traditional African cultures the reason why oral tradition has had such an
enormous impact on communication is its reliance on one of the most powerful
elements of culture, the indigenous language, for its exposition. Since the
employment of the oral tradition reflects patterns of everyday life, the narrative
trajectory is easily understood. This sensitivity to a particular cultural heritage
promotes a greater level of self-awareness and suggests avenues of social change.
(…)
From the marvelously well-orchestrated opening sequence of this film, one is
immediately struck with the conviction that African music, as the adage goes, can
emerge from African dance steps, lyrics can take their cue from oral poetry, and
live performances can be a reassemblage of African rituals and folk opera. In the
oral tradition, music and dance serve as bridges to the animating forces of nature,
which is why in traditional cultures they are inextricably linked with aspects of
everyday life. In this function, every rhythm generated is associated with particular
activities, where rhythmic complexities serve to differentiate one particular African
song and dance from another and one function from another. The rhythm of
African music and dance is inspiring in its sophisticated and intended form. It
evokes and manifests the cadences of creation, life and death struggles, and
generally accompanies ordinary ceremonies usually requiring a group of musicians
and dancers who perform communally with no strings attached. Contrary to the
negative anthropological misinterpretations of African song and dance in Western
films and television, which usually emphasize the exotic, for Africans, song and
dance are not just accessories to life, they are transmitters of culture,
indispensable to African existence.(…)
3. Ababacar Samb-Makharam: Jom, ou l’historie d’un people
(Jom, or the Story of a People); Senegal, 1981
1 A policy change was adopted in the late 1940s in recognition of Africa's role in defending France in World War II, when the Ministry of
Colonies in the French cabinet was renamed the Ministry of Overseas France. Ironically, it was also during this same period (1944) that the
French colonial authorities massacred the Senegalese infantrymen awaiting repatriation at Camp de Thiaroye (the title of Sembène’s film) after
they had fought for France during the bloody confrontations against the Axis.
2 Bernard Magubane, "A Critical Look at Indices Used in the Study of Social Change in Colonial Africa." Current Anthropology 12, no 45
(October-December 1971): 419-443.
3 Although scripts were censored and politically explosive ones rejected, anticolonialist films such as La noire de, Soleil O and others, whose
productions could not be easily suppressed, could be manipulated through distribution. The Cooperation could choose to control the impact of
these films by buying the rights to distribute them only in French cultural centers in Africa (or not distribute them at all).
4 For instance, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (London: James Currey; Nairobi:
Heinemann, 1986) A.Hampate Ba, "The Living Tradition" and J.Vansina, "Oral Tradition and its Methodology," both in General History of
Africa: Methodology and African Prehistory, ed. J. Ki-Zerbo (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 166-203 and 142-163
respectively.
5 In his 1964 speech "The African Writer and the English Language," now in Achebe's collection of essays Morning Yet on Creation Day
(London: Heinemann, 1975), 62.
6 In Decolonizing the Mind, Ngugi wa Thiong'o makes his position clear. See "A Statement," xiv, and especially chapter 1, "The Language of
African Literature," 4-33.
7 See Ngugi, Decolonizing the Mind, 19.
8 For fuller discussion of technology and image reproduction, see Jean-Louis Baudry's “Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic
Apparatus," Film Quarterly 28 (Winter 1974-75): 39-47.
9 Mbye Cham, "Ousmane Sembène and the Aesthetics of African Oral Traditions," Africana Journal 13 (1982): 24-40.
10 Pfaff, The Cinema of Ousmane Sembène.
11 Manthia Diawara, "Oral Literature and African Film: Narratology in Wend'Kuuni," Presence Africaine no. 142 (2d Quarter 1987): 36-49.
Also "Popular Culture and Oral Traditions in African Film," Film Quarterly (Spring 1988): 6-14.
12 Gabriel, Third Cinema in the Third World, 27.
13 From Production Press Kit, Jom.
14 EH.Gombrich, The Story of Art (Oxford: Phaidon, 1978).
15 See Jean-Louis Baudry, "Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus," 40.
16 J.Hoberman, "It's a Mod, Mod World," Village Voice, 17 February, 1987,67.
Figures:
Ousmane Sembène: La noire de (Black Girl); Senegal, 1966. Courtesy of New Yorker Films.
Gaston Kaboré, Wend Kuuni (God’s Gift); Burkina Faso, 1982, Courtesy of the British Film Institute.
Ukadike, p. 211
Ababacar Samb-Makharam: Jom, ou l’historie d’un people (Jom, or the Story of a People); Senegal,
1981. Courtesy of the Françoise Pfaff Collection.