Black African Cinema: Senegal
What was the 1934 Laval Decree?
French law, effectively banned colonized people from making films
What did "Sweet Sweetback's Badassssss Song" (1971) accomplish?
It was the highest grossing independent film at that point
Who was Melvin Van Peebles and why was his film "Story of a Three Day Pass" different?
It was like Bonnie and Clyde much more of a new wave film than Bonnie and Clyde. This is the one with the double dolly of him floating across the bar.
What is Newsreel?
An activist filmmaking collective founded in 1967 that made films about the anti-war movement, the women's movement, and the Civil Rights movement, meant as an alternative to mass media
Who was Carole Roussopoulos?
The first woman in France to buy a video camera in 1970
What was FESPACO?
Most important film festival in Africa
We're talking Gordon Parks, how were his films "The Learning Tree" (1968) and Shaft (1971) notable?
What was notable about the film Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash, 1991)
First feature directed by black woman to be theatrically released in the US.
What is Engaged Cinema?
Spontaneously shot reportage and staged interviews arranged to confront audiences with an argument for revolutionary action that had techniques like shaky camerawork, blurred focus, erratic editing, and a lack of narrative cohesion
What is a Griot? (hint: Senegal)
A musician, storyteller and historian. Key source of oral tradition in West Africa (kind of like a bard)
What was notable about the film "La noire de..." (Ousmane Sembene, 1966)?
First feature film by sub-saharan african director, his most well known film too
What was the LA rebellion?
a name given to black filmmakers who were students in UCLA film school in late 60s-mid 80s. First group of black filmmakers trained at film school
What is third cinema, and how does it differ from first and second cinema?
Third cinema is film as a weapon of liberation, collectivist rather than auteurist, rejection of narrative, distributed secretly. First cinema is mainstream, like commerical Hollywood, and second cinema is auteurist art cinema (new waves).
What is special about the film The Hour of the Furnaces by Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino in 1968?
It was an extremely aggressive documentary with the use of collage of images, sounds, and text with a belief that modernist techniques could be used as part of an appeal to "common people."
What's different about the film "Touki Bouki (Journey of the Hyena)" (1973)?
Unlike Sembene, freely uses modernist techniques of global art cinema. It looks and feels like a new wave film
1. metaphor of filmmaker as storyteller of community
2. use of tales and subjects used in folktales
3. direct commentary in soundtrack by a griot
What were the four conditions for the emergence of blaxploitation films?
1. shift in racial politics in late 60's, 70's
2. economic woes of Hollywood in early 70s
3. "white flight" in early 70s meant black americans represented 30% of urban market for first run pictures
4. building off an already successful formula of exploitation films
What were the four major influences on Third World politicized filmmaking?
- Italian neorealism
- Direct Cinema
- Soviet montage
- New Wave cinemas
What is special about the film The Woman's Film by the San Francisco Newsreel in 1971?
It was a film portrait with a focus on a housewife
What was "Bush Mama" (Haile Gerima, 1979) about?
depicts a young woman's economic struggles and political radicalization
SHORT ANSWER: Xala is thematically structured around a contrast between "good" and "bad" combinations of African and Western cultures. Explain how Rama represents positive aspects of both, and how El Jadji represents negative aspects of both.
El Hadji: wears western clothes, speaks French, seeks wealth (Western). He's polyamorous, patriarchal, visits marabout (African).
Rama: College, opposes polyamory, feminist, likes Chaplin and Hendrix, feminist (Western). Wears African clothes, speaks Wolof, communitarian perspective (African).
What four reasons led to the end of the blaxploitation era?
- protests by civil rights organizations
- audience burnout
- cheaper to import foreign exploitation films
- Hollywood's shift to the blockbuster
What minimalist styles were used in Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles by Chantal Akerman in 1975?
A sparse narrative rendered in a rigorous style by using a low camera height, static camera, long takes, no analytical editing or point of view shots, rectilinear framing at a medium distance from the protagonist, and careful detailing of the acoustic environment (silences)
What minimal narrative does Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles by Chantal Akerman in 1975 use?
A forcing of the viewer to watch "the empty intervals and domestic spaces that mainstream cinema skips over"
Why is there real-time presentations of domestic work in Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles by Chantal Akerman in 1975?
To characterize Jeanne Dielmam, show us the tedium of unpaid domestic work, and dignify household chores as aesthetically and socially significant