African Cinematography: Colonial
Film to Nollywood
Lecture 6
Derek Barker
www.derekbarker.info
Dr.Derek.Barker@gmail.com
Overview
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Learning to look
Brief History of Film
Colonial film
BEKE – Bantu Education Kinema
Experiment
• Examples
COMMUNICATION MODEL
SENDER
MESSAGE
RECEIVER
Las Meninas: Diego Velazquez
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
xxx
French Soldier
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Front cover from Paris Match 1950s, showing a young black
soldier in French uniform saluting.
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Saluting soldier: Frenchness, militariness, universal citizenship
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Message: France is a great empire, that all her sons, without any
colour discrimination, faithfully serve under her flag,'
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Promotes myth of imperial devotion, success and the ultimate
legitimacy of the French colonial empire.
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Implied answer to French critics of Algerian colonization: look at
the example of this fine soldier, let his zeal be contagious…
History of Film
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The history of film began in the late 1880s with the invention of
the first movie camera.
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Most films before 1930 were silent.
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1895 to 1906:
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motion pictures move a carnival novelty to an established
large-scale entertainment industry.
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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.
History of Film
Up till 1906:
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First commercial exhibition of film took place on April 14, 1894 at
Edison's Kinetoscope peep-show parlor.
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The most successful motion picture company in the United States,
with the largest production until 1900, was the American
Mutoscope company.
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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.
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By 1896, however, motion picture films with a projector to a large
audience proved more commercially viable than exhibiting them
in peep-show machines.
History of Film
1906 - 1914
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1906 saw the production of an Australian film called “The Story of
the Kelly Gang”.
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More than an hour - longest ever narrative film
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First shown in Melbourne, Australia on 26 December 1906 and in
the UK in January 1908
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In 1907 there were about 4,000 small "nickelodeon" cinemas in
the United States; silent films accompanied by music, usually
pianist playing live.
History of Film
1906 - 1914
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Up to 1913, most American film production was still carried out
around New York
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In 1909, first production unit opened in California
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By 1910, the French film companies starting to make films as long
as two, or even three reels
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This trend was followed in Italy, Denmark, and Sweden.
History of Film
1914 – 1919
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films changed from short programmes of one-reel films to longer
shows consisting of a feature film of four reels or longer
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exhibition venues also changed from small nickelodeon cinemas
to larger cinemas charging higher prices after the advent of the
“film star”.
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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.
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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.
History of Film
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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.
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During late 1927, Warners released The Jazz Singer, which was
mostly silent but contained synchronized dialogue (and singing) in
a feature film;
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Not at first considered viable, later "talking pictures", or "talkies",
boomed.
History of Film
1940s
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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.
History of Film
1940s
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The US entry into World War II also brought a proliferation of films
as both patriotism and propaganda.
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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
History of Film - Africa
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During the colonial era, Africa was represented [almost]
exclusively by Western filmmakers.
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The continent was portrayed as an exotic land without history or
culture.
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Examples:
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Tarzan and 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.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzcRa6n_qoE
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otze5gxzjck
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
BEKE
• The project aim was that of realizing educational
films to be played by mobile cinemas for the
education of the black ("bantu") people.
• Approx 35 such films, on 16mm, were produced
between 1935 and 1937, when the project's
Carnegie grant expired.
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.
BEKE
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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.
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Only three of the BEKE films survive and are held at the British
Film Institute Archives:
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"Veterinary Training of African Natives" (1936).
http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk/node/1533
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"Tropical Hookworm" (1936).
http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk/node/735
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"African Peasant Farms - the Kingolwira Experiment" (1936).
http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk/node/230
Colonial Film Unit
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1939 – 1955
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Over 200 short films
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The CFU was originally established under the Ministry of
Information to produce ‘propaganda’ films, encouraging African
support for the war effort.
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After 1945, under the Central Office of Information, the CFU
produced instructional films for African audiences
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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.
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