From the NY Times:
UPDATE (June 12): An appreciation of Sembène by New York Times writer A.O. Scott appears here.
Ousmane Sembène, 84, Dies; Led Cinema's Advance in Africa
by A.O. Scott (June 11, 2007)
Ousmane Sembène,
the Senegalese filmmaker and writer who was a crucial figure in
Africa’s postcolonial cultural awakening, has died at his home in
Dakar, Senegal. His family, which announced his death on Sunday, said Mr. Sembène had been ill since December. He was 84.
Ousmane Sembène in 2005. photo source:Seyllou/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Widely seen as the father of African cinema, Mr. Sembène took up
filmmaking in the 1960s, in part because he believed that film could
reach a wider and more diverse African audience than literature. “Black
Girl” (1965), his debut feature, is commonly referred to as the first
African film. Combining realistic narrative techniques with elements of
traditional African storytelling, it tells of a young woman named
Diouana who commits suicide after traveling to Europe with her French
employers.
Diouana’s identity crisis foretold some of the central themes of Mr.
Sembène’s later work — he directed 10 features and numerous shorts —
and of the nascent African cinema more generally. The tensions between
tradition and modernity and between newly independent African nations
and their erstwhile colonial masters are sources of drama and comedy in
his films, which are nonetheless focused on the lives of ordinary
people, frequently women.
“Xala” (1974), which many critics consider his finest film, takes a humorous look at polygamy,
traditional African medicine and the contrasts between urban and rural
life. Neither mocking nor nostalgic in its treatment of traditions, it
is as much driven by the personalities of its characters as by its
ideas about African life. At the same time, the characters’ foibles are
clearly symbols of political and social dysfunction.
Xala. photo source: FilmReference.com
A similar logic obtains in later films like “Guelwaar” (1993) and
“Faat-Kiné” (2001). Writing about the latter movie in The New York
Times, Elvis Mitchell noted that some of its scenes could have been
“whipped up into a tempest of tear-jerking” but that Mr. Sembène’s
“trademark empathy” and sense of detail served as antidotes to
melodrama. Even when he addressed painful and controversial subjects —
as in “Moolaadé” (2004) which chronicles a middle-aged woman’s campaign
to halt the practice of female genital cutting in her village — Mr.
Sembène tempered moral fervor with warmth and humor.
Ousmane Sembène was born on Jan. 1, 1923, in the Casamance region of
southern Senegal. He left school at 14 and moved to Dakar. There and in
France, he worked as a fisherman and an auto mechanic, among other
jobs, before being drafted by the French Army in World War II. His
experiences as a dockworker in Marseilles formed the basis of one of
his novels, “The Black Docker.”
He studied film at Gorky Studio in Moscow, turning to the medium
because, as he put it in 2005, “everything can be filmed and
transported to the most remote village in Africa.” After making three
short films, he submitted the script for “Black Girl” to the Film
Bureau of the French Ministry of Cooperation, an agency set up by the
government of Charles de Gaulle to assist African filmmakers. The
script was rejected, and while Mr. Sembène was able to complete the
film independently, some of his later films would run into trouble with
both French and Senegalese authorities. “Mandabi” (“The Money Order,”
1968), was attacked in Africa for its portrayal of political corruption
and economic devastation, and “Emitai” (1972) was suppressed in France
for five years because of its harsh depiction of colonialism.
“He could criticize Africa, he could criticize racism and he could
criticize colonialism,” said Manthia Diawara, professor of comparative
literature and Africana studies at New York University, in a telephone interview on Sunday. “He never spared anybody.”
In spite of occasional controversy, Mr. Sembène’s mastery and
originality were celebrated both in Africa, where he served as an
inspiration for later filmmakers, and internationally. He won prizes at
the Venice Film Festival in 1968 (for “Mandabi”) and 1988 (for “Camp de
Thiaroye”), and at Cannes in 2004 (for “Moolaadé”). He was a founder,
in 1969 of FESPACO, the biennial festival of film and television held
in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
Cheick Oumar Sissoko, a fellow filmmaker and the Malian minister of
culture, said that with Mr. Sembène’s death, “African cinema has lost
one of its lighthouses.”
Mr. Diawara added: “He really is the most important African
filmmaker. The one that all subsequent filmmakers have to be measured
against.”
- Click here for filmography of "Ousmane Sembene" at imdb.com
