Mahir Şaul, Ralph A. Austen. Viewing African Cinema in the Twenty-First Century: Art Films and the Nollywood Video Revolution. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010. vii + 248 pp. $26.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-8214-4350-7.
Reviewed by Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie
Published on H-AfrArts (August, 2016)
Commissioned by Jean M. Borgatti (Clark Univeristy)
The cinematic arts can be arguably defned as adheres to the auteur tradition of French flm‐ the apex of a culture of visuality and it is not by making confronts the emergent example of Nolly‐ chance that the moving image and images of all wood and related modes of flm production that kinds in general have become a key technology of hew to Hollywood’s powerful business-oriented narrative in the era of globalization. In this re‐ model with its global preeminence. These con‐ gard, African cinemas of diferent historical ori‐ texts present two visions of African cinema that gins, discursive focus and aesthetic orientation can sometimes seem totally divergent. Mahir Şaul are increasingly notable as key aspects of African and Ralph A. Austen, in Viewing African Cinema visual and cultural experiences. The debate over in the Twenty-First Century: Art Films and the what constitutes African cinemas occupies an im‐ Nollywood Video Revolution, attempt to bridge portant place in these developments, especially in this divide between the auteur and populist con‐ light of the divide between auteur and populist texts of African cinema by comparing the two traditions of African flmmaking that seem to di‐ dominant and very diferent African flm indus‐ vide neatly along colonial lines into Francophone tries. In the introduction to their anthology, Şaul and Anglophone cultures of African cinema. How‐ and Austen defne these as a “relatively long-es‐ ever, these categories do not adequately describe tablished tradition of celluloid flms centered in the divergent modes of practice evident in how French-speaking West Africa and identifed with such cinemas are located in the global economy, its biennial FESPACO (Festival Panafricain du Cin‐ where transnational engagements defeat the es‐ ema et de la Television de Ouagadougou) and a sentialist idea of a homogenous or nationalist newer more commercial video flm industry “African cinema.”[1] based in English-speaking West Africa and la‐ In the contemporary era, the classical defni‐ beled, after its major Nigerian source, Nollywood” tion of African cinema as a mode of practice that (p.1). According to Şaul and Austen “the obvious H-Net Reviews diferences between FESPACO and Nollywood flm Although Viewing African Cinema in the extend beyond the production conditions, con‐ Twenty-First Century pays attention to the history tent, and form into the realm of cinema scholar‐ and development of FESPACO-style (auteur) cine‐ ship” (p. 2); scholars of francophone art flm are ma, its main focus is on the challenge posed to humanists who are mainly concerned with cine‐ African cinema discourse by Nollywood and relat‐ ma aesthetics while the study of video flms is ed practices. Nollywood emerged from the eco‐ mainly dominated by social scientists (mainly an‐ nomic turmoil that struck African countries in the thropologists) and relegated to the realm of cul‐ 1980s, which killed of a nascent celluloid flm in‐ tural and media studies. The book transcends pre‐ dustry. The key practices that it identifed came vious scholarly inquiries into these phenomena from Nigeria, where the term Nollywood was by combining studies of both. coined to describe a nascent flm industry that Viewing African Cinema in the Twenty-First used the video-flm format. Moving from celluloid Century consists of an introduction by Şaul and to video flm as its primary medium, the Nolly‐ Austen and thirteen essays divided into three wood industry in Nigeria produced a vast number parts: part 1 (suggestively titled “The 'Problem' of of movies between 1992, when Kenneth Nnebue Nollywood”) contains fve essays that describe released Living in Bondage, widely regarded as and interpret the Nollywood phenomenon and its the frst Nollywood movie, and 2010 at the rate of spread to diferent African countries. Part 2 (“Im‐ circa 1,500 movies per year.[1] Although it is usu‐ ported African Films and Their Audiences”) con‐ ally discussed under the rubric of African cinema, tains two essays that analyze the historical and Nollywood is quite a diferent phenomenon; its contemporary audience reception of African flm. flms are almost exclusively produced in the video Part 3 (“FESPACO/Art Films in the Light of Nolly‐ format, and since the early 2000s, in digital video wood”) has six essays that carry out case studies format. Also, the flms are produced in the English of FESPACO and its engagements with Nollywood. language, which distinguishes them from contigu‐ Şaul and Austen state that the essays in the book ous ethnically oriented flms made in Nigerian came from a 2007 conference at the University of languages such as Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa (in Nige‐ Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, that brought together ria), Twi (in Ghana), and Kiswahili (in Tanzania) scholars working in both FESPACO and Nolly‐ that support equally substantial and competitive wood flm, and the collected essays afrm the im‐ contexts of contemporary flmmaking usually portance of this conference. However, they erro‐ classed under the Nollywood rubric. Nollywood neously credit the frst conference on Nollywood has subsequently become a truly pan-African cul‐ to this 2007 Urbana-Champaign gathering. Actual‐ tural machine and a nexus of transnational cul‐ ly, the frst such conference was the 2005 Nolly‐ tural productivity.[2] Shot on video, edited on per‐ wood Convention in Los Angeles devoted to clari‐ sonal computers, and copied onto cassettes and fying how the new Nollywood industry fts into digital video discs, Nollywood flms have achieved the discourse of African flm (full disclosure: I or‐ a global footprint connecting Africa, particularly ganized this conference). The Nollywood Conven‐ Nigeria, to its diverse and far-fung diasporas ev‐ tion conference was documented on a website, erywhere.[3] printed programs and radio. The disregard of this Nollywood originated at the end of the twen‐ earlier conference by Saul and Austen is an exam‐ tieth century as a national media form that ple of the perennial Western tactic of unduly emerged free from the control of the state and has claiming primacy in the study of African cultures. since become the most visible cultural machine on the African continent.[4] However, Jonathan Haynes notes that the explosion of video produc‐
2 H-Net Reviews tion in Nollywood and related industries in to regularize procedures for taxing video-flm Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa--per‐ products. haps the most signifcant cultural phenomenon in Nollywood engages contemporaneity and Africa in the past two decades--has produced a de‐ globalization from an unapologetic location on layed echo in scholarly attention and academic the African continent. Its locale specifcity and publishing.[5] Saul and Austen’s anthology transnational formations are therefore of signif‐ emerged as an appropriate response to Haynes’s cant scholarly interest. This perhaps accounts for challenge to scholars. It contains essays by leading Onookome Okome’s unapologetic description of scholars of African flm who focus on the emer‐ Nollywood as the “mirror through which contem‐ gent media and technologies embodied by Nolly‐ porary Africa is represented to the world” (p. 26). wood: the video/digital flm format, the relative For this author, what Nollywood ofers is “a med‐ independence of the industry (it is mainly f‐ ley of social, political, and cultural discourses nanced through the private sector), the frenetic framed within the discursive regime of the popu‐ pace of production that embodies what Sidney lar, commodifed and commercialized machine of Kasfr describes in another context as jua kali (hot popular-arts production in Nigeria” (p. 35). sun), which in Nigeria led to astounding numbers Okome dismisses challenges to Nollywood from of flms produced in a single year, and of course “cultural mediators” and the older generation of its global footprint developed through informal Nigerian/African flmmakers who worked in cel‐ but surprisingly efcient partnerships.[6] luloid and were marginalized in the new dispen‐ Şaul and Austen’s introduction to Viewing sation. Most of their complaints centered on what African Cinema in the Twenty-First Century pro‐ they considered the problematic subject matter of vides a succinct summary of each article included Nollywood flms. Ademola James (former director in the book and justifes its tripartite division. of the Nigerian National Film and Video Censors Part 1 of the book contains articles by Jonathan Board) characterized these as follows: “occultism, Haynes, Onookome Okome, Birgit Meyer, Abdala fetishism, witchcraft, devilish spiritualism, uncon‐ Uba Adamu, and Matthias Krings. Jonathan trolled tendency for sexual display, bloodiness, in‐ Haynes is widely regarded as the dean of Nolly‐ cest, violence, poisoning, etc.” (p. 29). wood studies and his article outlines protocols Okome mounts a spirited defense of the in‐ and suggestions for how to incorporate the study dustry, pointing out that its flms refect the “dif‐ of Nollywood into existing flm discourse. Noting culties of living in a criminalized state” (p. 37). that ethnographers working in the feld of anthro‐ However, it is hard not to fault Nollywood in all pology of media were largely responsible for the its incarnations for promoting a colonial mentali‐ foundational work in the feld, Haynes encour‐ ty, especially in the realm of religion, through ages flm scholars to apply the full disciplinary ap‐ video flms that privilege Western ideas over in‐ paratus of flm studies to video flms. Haynes's digenous African mores, in what Birgit Meyer de‐ defnition of the structure of this industry as an scribes as the “staging of spiritual fghts in which aggregation of myriad tiny, relatively impover‐ the Christian God eventually overpowers indige‐ ished producers marks Nollywood as a classic ex‐ nous deities” (p. 43). In reality, this simply mirrors ample of what Robert Neuwirth defned as a Sys‐ contemporary social developments related to the tem D economy, covering economic activities that overwhelming impact of Pentecostal Christianity operate largely outside neoliberal control.[7] This and charismatic churches in the social life of the is changing though, as African governments have people. moved to formalize the industry, mainly in order
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The articles by Birgit Meyer, Abdalla Uba active agents in the construction of meaning from Adamu, and Matthias Krings describe contexts of the texts they chose to engage” (p. 109). video-flm production in Ghana, Northern Nigeria Part 3 of Viewing African Cinema in the Twen‐ (whose distinctive video-flm industry is inspired ty-First Century evaluates FESPACO flms and by Bollywood), and Tanzania. Meyer’s study of the their interaction with the emergent Nollywood in‐ Ghanaian video-flm industry describes its prece‐ dustry. It opens with Mahir Şaul’s analysis of the dence to Nollywood but also the overwhelming “history of this cinema in its relationship to impact of Nollywood flms on the industry. Abdal‐ French support, pan-Africana and Third World la Uba Adamu’s analysis notes that “the transgres‐ ideology, African audiences, the important role of sion of local norms of privacy by Hausa video Upper Volta/Burkina Faso as a permanent site of flmmakers, have both created and revealed ten‐ the festival, and the growing role of South Africa sions between media globalization and Hausa as a new center of fnancing for FESPACO and Muslim culture” (p. 72). Mathias Krings in turn Nollywood cinema” (p. 5). It also includes other documents the transnational impact of Nollywood essays by Jane Bryce, Peter Rist, Stephan Sereda and its global reach, using its spread to Tanzania and Lindsey Green-Simms (who both draw direct as a case study. Krings’s article discusses how for‐ comparison between FESPACO and Nollywood eign video-flms were localized by dubbing their flms), and Cornelius Moore, who describes how dialogue in Kiswahili (in Tanzania); having them California Newsreel serves as a conduit through narrated by veejays (video jockeys) who comment which FESPACO flms reached the American pub‐ live on foreign flms shown in local video clubs; lic. and in one particular case, turning them into Overall, Viewing African Cinema in the Twen‐ photonovels. ty-First Century is a frst-rate compendium of on‐ Part 2 of the anthology reviews flm viewing going discussions about the nature, protocols, and in Africa, both before and immediately after inde‐ impact of video-flm production as a new media pendence, and consists of two articles. Vincent form in African cinema. Jonathan Haynes is cor‐ Bouchard’s essay about commentary and specta‐ rect that scholars should bring all the arsenal of torship in African flm reception describes vari‐ canonical flm studies to bear on the study of ous flm-viewing practices, noting “in the popular video-flm in Africa and many of the essays here forms of flm projection, the brouhaha and vari‐ make commendable attempts in that direction. It ous audience activities modify the reception of is, however, true that at this early stage of this dis‐ the flm shown [and] the interaction between the course, many essays still focus on providing basic spectators allows a form of appropriation” (p. 95). documentation of the various contexts of video- He concludes that “the practice of adding an oral flm production. The essays here transcend this by commentary to popular flm screening is the re‐ highlighting the relationship between the local sult of a media reconfguration born during the contexts of these video-flm industries and the encounter between (non-modern) oral practices larger transnational discourse of African cinema. and the appropriation of a cinematographic appa‐ More importantly, their efort to bridge the FES‐ ratus born out of a foreign culture, in this case, PACO/Nollywood dichotomy is commendable Western modernity” (p. 106). However, in her since it is really an attempt to bridge the Franco‐ study of audience preferences in Tanzania, Laura phone and Anglophone divide in contemporary Fair points out that “African audiences were selec‐ Africa, a stubborn and abiding legacy of coloniza‐ tive consumers of global cultural fows, as well as tion. The increasing formalization of Nollywood, the infuence of new online-based technologies
4 H-Net Reviews and several examples of collaborations between flmmakers working on both sides (as well as the growing infuence of South Africa) suggest that the lines between the two modes of African cine‐ ma are collapsing. Hopefully, many more books of this kind will document the new contexts that emerge as a result. Notes [1]. Pierre Barrot, ed. Nollywood: The Video Phenomenon in Nigeria (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008). [2]. Moradewun Adejumobi, “Nigerian Video Film as Minor Transnational Practice,” Postcolo‐ nial Text 3, no. 2 (2007), available online at http:// journals.sfu.ca/, 2007. [3]. Matthias Krings and Onookome Okome, eds. Global Nollywood: The Transnational Dimen‐ sions of an African Video Film Industry (Bloom‐ ington: Indian University Press, 2013). [4]. Brian Larkin, Signal and Noise: Media, In‐ frastructure, and Urban Culture in Nigeria (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008). [5]. Jonathan Haynes, “A Literature Review: Nigerian and Ghanaian Videos,” Journal of African Cultural Studies 22, no. 1 (2010): 105. [6]. Sidney Kasfr, “Jua Kali Aesthetics: Placing the City as a Context of Production,” Critical Inter‐ ventions: Journal of African Art History and Vis‐ ual Culture 1, no. 1 (2007): 35-45. [7]. Robert Neuwirth, Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy (New York: Pantheon Books, 2011).
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Citation: Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie. Review of Şaul, Mahir; Austen, Ralph A. Viewing African Cinema in the Twenty-First Century: Art Films and the Nollywood Video Revolution. H-AfrArts, H-Net Reviews. August, 2016.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=33071
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