Introduction: The Creation of a Cinema Engagé How did African cinema come to embrace certain meanings or values frst as important, then as central and then as natural or inevitable in its self generated charge of creating a cinema engage? Foran answer, itis instructive to look at the work f one ofthe eatist practitioners of African cinema now oftentouted asthe father of African cinema, Sembéne Ousmane. [intend to presenta series of Sembéne’ films as openings onto th larger ‘questions of African cinema. The ultimate issue I aim to address isthe price ‘of fllowing Sembéne's approach to an ideologically driven cinema. More gen cally, since he is regarded as a forerunner, groundbreaker, leader, fatter, en able, and more, Iwill also discuss the pric paid by African cinema for having ‘adopted his fundamental assumptions. Inthe earliest years of African cinema, it was a cinema of revolt against colonialism, and then against neocolocialism, dependency, and eurocentrism. The system of values underlying Sembéne’s work, asa harbinger of a cinema of revolt, was widely embraced, given the reigning ideological values ofthe 1960s and 1970s; so now we can examine the ‘consequences of embracing that system of values, an issue perhaps not available for us to examine or question before the present time [want to get to this by suggesting a paradigm forthe narrative structure of most of Sembéne's films. The political assumptions and thie limitations rim: plications willbe made clear once the underlying pattern is analyzed. The broad ‘outline ofthe paradigm ar the following: The films begin withthe present tion of a problem, usually involving a crisis that crystallizes around some op- position tothe films protagonist. Tis i usually followed by a false solution in ‘which the prospects ofthe removal of the obstacle are shown tobe inadequate Eventually a true solution i found, with theists related to the film's under. lying thetorc resolved and explcated This isthe threefold path to truth, so 10 speakt a trajectory atthe end of which the audience i enjoined to see snd ap preciate the truth uncovered by Sembéne and, ideally, be motivated to act. Each film constructed according to this model must silence some figures, must occlude contrary or alternative perspectives that might have led some ‘where other than where th director wishes to lead us, and thisis the leser pen aly tobe paid for accepting the underlying system of values. Finally, the ques tion of the large system of values may also be sen as leading us to condusions that are equally limiting in the intexpellations ofthe viewer. We can se these ‘questions of lager systems of value as having pertinence to the field of post colonial studies ast passed from its earlier years of national independence 10the mote recent perc of globalization, withthe concomitant postcolonial cri {cs of the African netion, Sembéne has been there throughout this entire pe Tiod, and his films continue to have a huge impact, if not on other younger filmmakers then on Africanist in general, as well as that severly specialized audience fr African film, ‘Sembénc’s carer begins with short or medium-Length films, such as Borort ‘sare (1963), La Nore de. .. (1966), and Taav(1970), where the basic pattern js established: Borom Saret concerns a cartman whe hauls goods or people for 8 living, The initial problem is that he doesn't earn enough money to make 8 ‘decent living. The implied solution for him i beter pay, a problem related to the fact that his clientele is generally drawn from the relatively impoverished ‘lass of ordinary Senegalese. Eventually the cartman is convinced to take a ‘wealthy client t0 the plateau—the expensive, formerly European quartier of Dakar—as the apparent solution to his need for cash His action isan infraction ofthe rules forbidding charertes (or horsedrawn carts) from going tothe pla- teau, and despite the rich client’ promise to help, his carts confiscated He re turns home on foot as his personal dilemma is now portrayed as the conse {quence of an unjust economic and socal system based on class division. The {implied solution lies in working through the injustices of class difference a solution in harmony with the general acceptance ofthe socialism widely em ‘braced by African intellectuals in the 1960s In the final scene, the cartman’s “wife leaves him with ther chil, telling him she wil find money forthe food they need. The false solution of the cartman trying to extend his income by ‘daring to go onto the plateau fr a higher fre, and trusting his bourgeois now ‘eau riche client to protect him, is replaced by the determination of the no~ nonsense wife who night be seen to representa more idealized proletarian fig tre. There are othersmall elements in the film that eat to this, but the gist of the film ies in its presentation of class values along the lines ofa revolutionary socialist point of view ‘The same might esd of Taw film that portrays an unemployed young ‘man as its eponymas protagonist, highlighting the failures of independence to provide Senegalese society with economic development fr the poor. ordinary people. The immeciate, apparent problem is unemployment, and the inade- ‘buate solution is presented simply as Tau finding employment. The ultimate ‘solution call for abroader change in the economic and socal system. En route to this postion we have two interesting aspects that deserve mention. The ist appears in a scene of children begging in the street, a common if scandalous ‘occurrence inthe 19705 when qur'anic teachers were thought to be responsible for sending their stadents out to beg (a recurrent public issue in Dakar). This scene sconjoined to reflection mad by a passing driver on viewing the mont: ‘ment to independence: he says that in the ten yars since independence, they havent come very “The second aspect involves family relations. Tau the unemployed youth, is the son ofa “tradit onal father patriarch who fils to provide for his family, but who still dominates the mother and children asa tyrant, and who claims 2 Postcolonial African Cinema the rights to his position on religious or customary grounds. The critigue re- mains grounded in Sembines socialist modernism, What is occluded in this Rather, ny interest ies in those films that are amenable othe kinds of analysis that on: «zncerned with the ways in which desire and fantasy play decisive roles inthe ‘ideological constructions of subjectivity and agency Lyotard’ criticisms ofthe rand nartatives of historic of any other progresvist program, be they {rounded in class gender or economics ae not vtated even when cansiering the conditions of production in Africa ‘We are called 1 read the forces that account for modernism or postmodern ism, or globalization, not from the perspective of a dominant western culture ashas been the caxeof Jameson or Lyotard, or Foucault and Said for that matter Bat it would be folish to presume that there is not, and has not been, a cont {ence of circumstances in Africa that has accounted for, and continues to account for, modernism and globalization. Afterall, Europe could not have had its ver. sions of modernism without the African or colonial other to serve as its ten Plat for alterity, nd globalization cannot have its outsourcing without having its Third World sweatshops and tax-free zones to exploit. This isa study of A rican cinema from within the zone, and especially from within the contact zone ‘Anew space and time are required forthe terms of modernism and globalize ‘ton t be understood as the property ofthat zone. We will start the study with 20 Postcolonial African Cinema they alpen he 59705 a ae po spree odin he ml daha wah the cating ee of Ae changing vial eles In French the ter ta Sag nee mga tig: Din eomtget ogre on the trac cnin that lays othe Inroduction 21 a