Presenting Colonial Films and Decolonizing Film Heritage
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Access to Empire: Presenting Colonial Films and Decolonizing Film Heritage Molly Bower Supervisor: Eef Masson University of Amsterdam, M.A. Second reader: Christian Gosvig Olesen (Graduate School of Humanities) Submitted: 24 June 2016 Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image Access to Empire: Presenting Colonial Films and Decolonizing Film Heritage table of contents 1 Introduction: Accessing colonial film, then and now 1 1.1 Then: Colonial perspectives escaping the frame ..................................................... 2 1.2 Now: Archival access to colonial film ..................................................................... 5 1.3 Overview of research ............................................................................................... 7 2 Theoretical foundations: Decolonizing film heritage 9 2.1 Review of relevant literature: Film, archives, and colonialism .............................. 9 2.1.1 Filmic constructions of power and history ......................................................... 10 2.1.2 Archive as a site of colonial bias ......................................................................... 12 2.2 Theoretical frameworks: Re-readings and contact in colonial film presentations 14 2.2.1 Decolonial epistemology ..................................................................................... 15 2.2.2 Reinterpreting narratives ...................................................................................... 15 The filmic archive as site of interpretation, Reading along the grain, Presenting preserved film 2.2.3 Film presentation as site of narrative contest and contact .................................... 20 Persistent colonial narratives, Film presentation as contact zone 3 Case study: The Colonial Film Catalogue in the filmic archive 25 3.1 A single body of work .............................................................................................. 25 3.2 Colonial imbalances in an online space ................................................................... 27 3.3 Stabilizing decolonial interpretation ........................................................................ 30 4 Case study: Péter Forgács' Looming Fire and the film 34 installation as contact zone 4.1 Looming Fire and re-use of archival records ........................................................... 34 4.2 Installation as screening environment for colonial film histories............................. 35 4.3 Fragmented micro-histories....................................................................................... 38 4.4 Speaking back to the colonial gaze ........................................................................... 39 5 Conclusions and further research 43 bibliography 45 Bower 1 1 Introduction: Accessing colonial film, then and now Usually the film screenings were included into a larger colonial program with speeches or musical performances of singers or a local marching band. Lectures were conceived of as a social gathering and were therefore strongly recommended by the Society. Following the “social spirit” the Weilburg branch asked the viewers not to leave the lecture hall immediately after the film screening but to stay for a glass of beer and talk about the things people had seen or listened to. (Wolfgang Fuhrmann, “Locating Early Film Audiences: Voluntary Associations and Colonial Film,” 296) The pro-colonial agenda of film screening environments has not always been explicit, but in the case of the events organized by the German Colonial Society, it could not have been more clear. Their popular1 screenings held between 1905 and 1908 by local branches of this society were part of a larger effort to promote nationalism, along with German colonial policies and investments.2 Branches of the society were present “in almost every German city and town”3, and the screened films were largely produced by amateur cinematographer Carl Müller and depicted scenes, landscapes, and phantom rides in the German colonies of East Africa.4 The screenings' steadiest attendees were invited groups from the German Colonial Women's Association, school children, and soldiers5. The events were made part of pro-colonial political campaigns, when during the legislative election campaign of 1907, the Society organized screening-lectures to reach the working class and promote candidates from the “colonial wing in the Reichstag.”6 The film screening was used, in other words, as a place for constructing and solidifying convictions about the colonies. While scholarship on colonialism in film theory has focused on formally constructed representations, much less has been said with regard to how the act of presenting of colonial film history day can construct knowledge. As this introduction will show, films become sources of colonial knowledge within specific screening environments. However, screening environments can also challenge the colonial knowledge such films aimed to reproduce. Overall, this research will 1 Wolfgang Fuhrmann, "Locating Early Film Audiences: Voluntary Associations and Colonial Film," Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 22, no. 3 (2002): 299. 2 Ibid., 295. Note: According to Fuhrmann, one explicit link to colonial investments can be found in the membership and support of Adolph Woermann, a powerful investor and trader in German colonies. As a member of the Colonial Society, Woermann sponsored films to promote his shipping and transport businesses in the colonies, which were then screened by the Woermann Company in German harbor cities to promote the business and its military ties. 3 Ibid., 293. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., 296. 6 Ibid., 298. Bower 2 seek to theorize how colonial film history forms part of practice in film archives, and to identify how colonial films are used to resist the legacies of oppression they once had a hand in promoting. In this context, “colonial films” are those which take as their subject people, places or events that existed or took place under or as a direct result of colonial occupation. This term, which I define for the purposes of this research, will refer to films made largely between the late nineteenth century and the middle of the twentieth century, and may include films, videos and moving images made after this period that take as their subject de-colonization.7 I will open with a discussion of how screenings of colonial films have constituted an important part of intellectual and cultural life, in order to show the reader how such films formed part of a culture of colonial support. Such a culture is strongly linked to oppressive colonial projects, according to Edward Said, in its promotion, at times, of “the disturbingly familiar ideas about flogging or death or extended punishment being required when 'they' misbehaved or became rebellious, because 'they' mainly understood force or violence best; 'they' were not like 'us,' and for that reason deserved to be ruled.”8 Now, many colonial films are housed in collections at national film archives in Europe, particularly in those countries that pursued colonial occupation into the twentieth century. Contemporary access to these films through such archives' presentations demands an engagement with the history of film's ties to empire. To start, I will discuss how those ties were formed in part through the context surrounding their presentation. 1.1 Then: Colonial perspectives escaping the frame Throughout their histories, colonial films have been screened under a variety of conditions, but according to research into the history of colonial films, the original screening conditions generally promoted the perspective of the filmmakers. The range of such perspectives spans from instructional state propaganda, directly promoting policies of colonial governance, to earnest but selective depictions of happy family life in European settlers' home movies. A discussion of the different types of colonial films' screening conditions, both theatrical and non-theatrical, public and private, will illustrate the ties between films' exhibition and the promotion of empire. The context through which most colonial images made their way to commercial screening halls was in the form of newsreels. These single-reel films were shot, edited, and distributed quickly and presented as news about events in the colonies, screened there and also screened “back home.” Adding a journalistic (though often sensationalist) tone to the established style of film travelogues, many newsreels took as their subjects faraway locales, often colonies. While they sometimes looked at lighter human-interest stories, they also addressed events of military intervention, though not 7 Spelling note: This spelling, with a hyphen (“de-colonize”) refers to the political process of being granted, fighting for and/or establishing political independence and self-government following a colonization, annexation, or occupation. This is to distinguish this usage from the term “decolonial” as a theoretical concept and approach. 8 Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Knopf, 1993), xi. Bower 3 without care for the preservation of empire. Gerda Jansen Hendriks's research into the limited newsreel coverage of the Indonesian war for independence (1945-49) reveals its imperial strategy: “The Dutch policy was seen as ‘providing information’. With hindsight, it is certainly justified to call the information policy ‘propaganda’, because it was explicitly produced to influence the opinion of the Dutch audience, even if the authors believed their vision was balanced