Re-examining Lionel Rogosin’s Come Back, Africa : Innovations and Limitations
Kristin Kingsbury Smith
Middlebury College Spring 2008
Introduction: Scene reflection
Zachariah, a middle-aged migrant laborer from rural South Africa, walks into the frame, back turned towards the camera, and dutifully puts away folded laundry.
Reaching under a pile of clothing, he discovers his female boss’s hidden bottle of whiskey and takes a couple sips. Smiling, he refills the bottle with water, turns the radio on, and dances in front of a mirror laughing; however, his employer interrupts his few moments of amusement and accuses him of drinking her alcohol, talking to her with
“cheek,” and wearing her scarf instead of working. She promptly fires him for his intrusion into white society. Once again unemployed, Zachariah is subjected to the unrelenting oppression of 1959 South African apartheid.
This scene occurs approximately twenty minutes into Lionel Rogosin’s anti- apartheid film, Come Back, Africa (1959), which follows Zachariah through his daily life
under intense oppression. Due to the scene’s polysemy, analyses could range from
discussing racism to its aesthetics, the government’s restriction of alcohol, the boss’s
“white fear” of rape, or the power relations between a white madam and her black
domestic worker. Furthermore, since Rogosin is an American director visiting South
Africa, one could also explore how the scene fulfills his Western stereotypes. For my
thesis, I am most interested in questions regarding power structures within the film: How
does Zachariah assert his agency? Is his agency curtailed and, if so, by whom? How does
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the film recreate social hierarchies? What formal, cinematic choices does Rogosin make
and how do these empower or dis-empower the characters? How does Rogosin insert
himself into the visuals? Does the film reinforce or disrupt South African or American
dominant ideologies, like white supremacy or patriarchy? How does contextualizing the
film within South African and American history help understand these ideologies?
Analyzing a politically-charged, racially complex, and aesthetically creative film
like Come Back, Africa is complicated because its encoded messages confront directly
and indirectly, consciously and sub-consciously, power struggles over race, gender, and
class. Consequently, the film is structured, both visually and ideologically, around
contrasts and contradictions. Despite these complexities, academic analyses often
simplify Come Back, Africa into a binary interpretation: critics either praise it for its
empowerment of black South Africans or criticize it for its unorthodox craftsmanship. In
contrast, I will acknowledge the film’s prevailing dominant and resistant ideologies by
discussing its innovations and its limitations, refusing to categorize it as either “good” or
“bad.”
To film Come Back, Africa , Lionel Rogosin and his wife, Elinor Rogosin, traveled
to South Africa on a tourist visa in May 1957. After months of researching South
African culture and traveling throughout the continent, Rogosin decided to create an anti-
racist film about apartheid’s oppression of non-white South Africans. However, the
government’s restrictions on media and overwhelming bureaucracy provided major
obstacles. As a cover story, Rogosin lied to government officials that he was planning a
musical travelogue or an adaptation of the Afrikaner classic novel, Commando .1 After
1 Lionel Rogosin. Come Back Africa: A Man Possessed . Edited by Peter Davis. (South Africa: STE Publishers 2004), 42. 2
weeks of paperwork, interviews, and frustration, he eventually received the permits
needed to allow his crew and equipment into South Africa. Rogosin then collaborated
with Bloke Modisane and Lewis Nkosi, two prominent black South African journalists, to
write a minimal script that personalized the oppression of apartheid. 2
Unlike many of the later feature films about apartheid, Come Back, Africa seamlessly blends together the documentary and fictional drama genres. Shot secretly in
Sophiatown and Johannesburg, the film uses documentary techniques, like on-location shooting and an attempt to cinematically represent the “reality” of South Africa.
However, the film also borrows drama conventions by including a loosely-constructed, episodic, and fictional plot: Zachariah leaves Zululand to work in a gold mine outside of
Johannesburg. After obtaining a work pass, he moves to Sophiatown and becomes a domestic worker in the city. However, upon being fired, he wafts through a series of menial jobs at a garage, a hotel, and a road construction crew. In and out of employment, he becomes familiar with Sophiatown’s urban culture, including illegal shebeens (bars) and violent tsotsis (gangsters).3 Halfway through the film, his wife
Vinah and their children join him in Sophiatown, leading to Zachariah’s imprisonment
when the couple is caught illegally sleeping together. During his absence, a tsosti named
Marumu, with whom Zachariah has had previous encounters, murders Vinah after she
denies his sexual advances. When Zachariah returns home, he finds his wife dead and
2 Bloke Modisane and Lewis Nkosi were two writers for Drum magazine, a prominent newspaper in Johannesburg aimed at black audiences. In addition to contributing to the script, both writers also acted in the film, along with fellow Drum writer Can Themba. 3 According to Clive Glaser in Bo-Tsotsi , the word “tsotsi” most likely originated from the American word “zoot suit,” a popular fashion trend in South Africa thanks to Hollywood gangster films. Although the word originally referred to South African males who simply wore zoot suits, by the 1950s it also implied crime, violence, and gangs. Clive Glaser. Bo-Tsotsi: The Young Gangs of Soweto, 1935-1976 . (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Press, 2000), 47-71. 3
family destroyed; in the crushing final shots, he breaks down in emotional anguish,
symbolizing the demoralizing consequences of apartheid’s oppression.
During the production phase, Rogosin was under continual threat of arrest and
deportation; his memoirs, published in a book named Come Back, Africa: A Man
Possessed , indicate his paranoia of being watched and having his footage confiscated. 4
Although the National Party did not prevent Rogosin’s efforts, government officials immediately labeled him a communist after the film’s premier in Europe.5 Not surprisingly, the government also banned Come Back, Africa in South Africa until 1988. 6
Furthermore, this communist discourse followed Rogosin to the United States, where he could not find a distributor for the film despite its critical praise from the European film festival circuit. To exhibit the film, Rogosin took out a ten-year lease on the Renada
Cinema in Greenvich Village, New York. After using his personal money for renovations, Rogosin renamed the theater the Bleeker Street Cinema and Come Back,
Africa opened there on April 4, 1960, two weeks after the infamous Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa. 7
Although Come Back, Africa attracted small crowds at the Bleeker Street Cinema,
critics widely applauded its perceived “realism” while questioning its sometimes stilted
scenes. The day after the film’s premier, The New York Times published a review that
4 Rogosin, Lionel. Come Back Africa: A Man Possessed . Edited by Peter Davis. (South Africa: STE Publishers, 2004), 14. 5 Peter Davis. In Darkest Hollywood: Exploring the Jungles of Cinema’s South Africa . (Athens, Ohio:University Press, 1996), 56. 6 Vivian Bickford-Smith. “How Urban South African Life was Represented in Film and Films Consumed in South African cities—1950’s.” Workshop 2000: Urban Living in the 20 th Century. << http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/history/cuc/2kpapers/smith.html>> accessed 1/17/2008. 7 Nick Pinkerton. “Glasses Full of Rye.” Reverse Shot
criticized the film for its non-professional actors but also celebrated it for its “candid,
forceful and often poignant pictorial quality—its distinction of catching the image in
sharp and relentless terms.” 8 Film Quarterly’s review, one of the harshest, attacked the film’s “painfully cramped and awkward scenes” that were “banally conceived and become melodramatic.” At the same time, the journalists lauded the documentary shots, including the mine scenes, and Rogosin’s attempts at conversational dialogue. 9 Time’s review, published three weeks after the premier, again denounced the film for its “stilted” acting and also suggested that the film was too “scrupulously fair to the whites.”10 Yet,
the review praised the film for depicting the vibrancy of South African culture and
criticizing the National Party for forcing Africans “to live, as they often have to die, like
dogs.” 11 Time went on to name Come Back, Africa as one of its “Best Pictures of 1960”
for its “honest, impartial, heart-harrowing study of an average Negro’s life in the black
hole of Johannesburg.” 12 Thus, reviews from the film’s 1960 release focused on the film’s aesthetic limitations while still praising its anti-racist message.
Since these initial reactions to the film, Come Back, Africa has steadily continued to spark academic discussions about apartheid, Sophiatown, the documentary genre, and
South African cinematic history. Two historical analyses, by Ntonglea Masilela and
Josef Gugler, explore how Come Back, Africa differs from previous South African films, especially for its inclusion of black South Africans into the production process.13
8 Ibid. 9 Roger Sandall and Cecile Starr. “ Come Back, Africa .” Film Quarterly. (13.4, Summer 1960), 58-59. 10 “A Camera in Johannesburg.” Time . 25 April 1960
Masilela also describes the film’s revolutionary use of Zulu, Afrikaans, and English,
instead of solely relying on English, like previous films.14 Similarly, Vivian Bickford-
Smith approaches Come Back, Africa from a historical point of view by comparing its representation of Johannesburg to the city’s representation in two previous films, Jim
Comes to Joburg (1949) and Cry, the Beloved Country (1952). Unlike the latter two films, he applauds Come Back, Africa for holding the National Party responsible for the
atrocious living conditions of non-white South Africans and presenting a “politically
sophisticated black intelligentsia who—rather than portrayed as sinful, as in the Korda
film ( Cry, the Beloved Country )—promise the prospect of political change.” 15 These
historical analyses effectively illustrate how the film breaks away from previous
conventions of South African cinema by refusing to demonize cities or use a white
protagonist to explain apartheid’s oppression.
In her article on New Africanism, Ntongela Masilela uses the shebeen scene in
Come Back, Africa to illustrate, as quoted by Lewis Nkosi, the 1950s’ “tremendous feeling of hope that it was possible to change South Africa through a passive resistance and through the moral force of one’s argument.” 16 She argues that the film’s optimistic
tone would have been absent if it was made after the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960; the
film thus represents some of the last days of the New Africanism movement, which
focused on a vibrant arts culture and non-violent resistance.17
University Press, 2003. 14 Masilela, “South African Film History,” 64. 15 Bickford-Smith, “Urban South African Life.” 16 Qtd. in Ntongela Masilela. “The New African Movement and the Beginnings of Film Culture in South Africa.” To Change Reels . Edited by Isabel Balseiro and Ntongela Masilela. (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2003), 27. 17 Ibid, 27-28. 6
However, Masilela’s argument does not take into account the more cynical
aspects of the film. While the shebeen scene at first illustrates an optimistic approach to
resistance, the second half is much more dismal. Drum journalist Can Themba rants
about the hopelessness of their situation and retorts that “human nature stinks,”
suggesting the black intellectuals’ bitterness and frustration. 18 The film’s ending is also
more pessimistic than Masilela implies: with Vinah dead, children to look after, and
continued pass problems, Zachariah throws dishes in a crashing thunder against the wall
and relentlessly pounds his fist on the family table. Transformed by the oppression and
violence of his surroundings, he is a broken man. The viewer is left wondering whether
Zachariah is in the process of becoming politicized like Themba, Modisane, and Nkosi or
on the crux of resorting to becoming a tsotsi; the vague, uncertain ending detracts from
Masilela’s argument about the film’s optimism and representation of New Africanism.
Using a more textual analysis than Masilela’s cultural studies approach, Isabel
Balseiro’s article “Black Claims on White Cities” provides the most thorough visual and
symbolic analysis through an almost scene-by-scene critique of the film’s use of space.
She argues that the visuals illustrate Africans’ growing ownership of the “white” city of
Johannesburg. When black South Africans are forbidden from entering downtown, the
city is depicted as lifeless, looming, and monotonous; in contrast, once the black workers
arrive to start the work day, the city awakens with music and dancing. 19 In another
18 Drum magazine was a white-owned newspaper targeted towards a black audience. A core set of black journalist, which included Bloke Modisane, Lewis Nkosi, and Can Themba, wrote stories about “crime, jazz, speak-easies, pin-ups, and celebrities; which vied for space with human interest stories and exposures of the injustices of apartheid.” The articles ranged from flashy gossip to serious journalistic endeavors. Paul Gready. “The Sophiatown Writers of the Fifties: The Unreal Reality of their World.” Journal of African Studies . (16.1, 1990), 144. 19 Isabel Balseiro, “ Come Back, Africa : Black Claims on ‘White’ Cities.” To Change Reels: Film and Culture in South Africa . Edited by Isabel Balseiro and Ntongela Masilela (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2003), 93. 7
interesting argument, she discusses how the film illustrates apartheid’s unequal treatment
of Africans in different economic classes, such as the urbanized black intellectual versus
the rural migrant laborer. 20 In the black community’s social hierarchy, Zachariah’s
migrant laborer status positions him at the bottom, while the intellectuals are at the top.
As such, Zachariah, not the black elites, is continually humiliated in the film. Although
Balseiro’s article is perhaps the most complete analysis, she refuses to analyze how the
film may be limited.
In the most recently published article on Come Back, Africa , Mariagiulia Grassilli
provides a cultural studies analysis of the film in “Anthropology and Cinema: Visual
Representations of Human Rights, Displacement, and Resistance in Come Back, Africa
by Lionel Rogosin.” Grassilli asserts that making Come Back, Africa was a form of
resistance to apartheid, both for the director and the cast members. 21 Importantly, the
film allowed black intellectuals like Can Themba, Bloke Modisane, and Lewis Nkosi to
attack passive liberalism and voice their criticisms of apartheid to a wider, more
international audience. 22 Taking a different perspective from previous academics,
Grassilli’s article focuses on the film and its production process as indicative of South
African culture in the late 1950s. However, similar to Balseiro, she refuses to question
the film’s empowerment and incomplete inclusiveness.
Thus, the majority of the academic research on Come Back, Africa stresses the
film’s departure from earlier South African cinema by illustrating black, urban culture
through a black protagonist and including prominent Drum journalists Bloke Modisane
20 Ibid, 88. 21 Mariagiulia Grassilli. “Anthropology and Cinema: Visual Representations of Human Rights, Displacement and Resistance in Come Back, Africa by Lionel Rogosin.” Visual Anthropology . 20 (2007), 227. 22 Ibid, 228. 8
and Lewis Nkosi, in the scriptwriting. However, analyses of the film often ignore how
the film is not revolutionary and how, at times, it perpetuates the status quo. For
example, the visuals reinforce rather than question South Africa’s patriarchy. Although
Lionel Rogosin immersed himself in South African culture for nine months before
filming, he remained a white, upper-class American director using film to represent “the
other.” 23 As producer, director, and co-writer, his artistic control over the film inadvertently allows some of his American cultural biases to seep into the film during the production phase. Subsequently, some of his portrayals of 1950s South African culture are lacking or reliant on stereotypes.
To address these shortcomings, I will critique Come Back, Africa by analyzing different power structures that influenced the film’s encoding and manifested themselves in the visuals. By asking questions about who is empowered and who is not, what aspects of South African culture are represented and which parts are conspicuously absent, I hope to shed light on some of the film’s complexities that have been previously ignored. My ideas of power and control are rooted in theories of hegemony and negotiation: although systems perpetuate dominant ideology, the receivers negotiate through this ideology and assert their own agency. In analyzing Come Back, Africa I
view anyone involved in the film’s production, be it a crew member, the characters, the
government, or Rogosin himself, as a site of negotiation. While power is not distributed
equally among these individuals or groups, they all negotiate their experiences to adapt
and survive under their cultural conditions. Furthermore, to fully understand Come
Back, Africa , the film must be contextualized as both a visual representation of a culture
and a product of its time, place, and American director.
23 Rogosin, Come Back, Africa, 23. 9
In the following analysis, I focus on the process of making the film and its
representations of life under apartheid. To begin, I provide a quick summary of the
historical moment that Rogosin experienced when he arrived in Johannesburg, South
Afirca in 1957. Focusing on oppression, I suggest that the National Party’s laws and
white supremacy limited Rogosin’s creativity, while also severely restricting his cast and
the characters they play in the film. In the next chapter, I then describe how the film’s
cast and characters resist this oppression, both in making the film and through small acts
of resistance shown in the visuals.
However, the main characters in Come Back, Africa are often depicted as
oppressed, passive victims of an unjust system, removing some of their agency.
Rogosin’s decisions to leave out the large, non-violent resistance movements of the
1950s, as well as international movements like Pan-Africanism, suggest his intentions:
I didn’t want the film to be a pure polemic on political terms ‘about’ the wrongs and injustice of apartheid, I wanted also a communication of human spirit so that the people on the other side of the barrier could feel emotionally what Africa really is like.24
Hoping to express the “human” aspects of apartheid, Rogosin’s goals and biases help determine which aspects of South African life he includes and which he ignores. Yet,
Rogosin’s control is not infinite either. He is restricted by the grammar available in the
1950s to discuss racial and African-studies issues, as well as the government’s overwhelming bureaucracy that imposes on his freedom of expression.
In the final section, I focus on how American and South African ideologies intersect and conflict in individual characters. For each of the main characters, I present a brief reflection on their representation in the film. These reflections are not meant to be
24 Rogosin, Come Back, Africa , 34. 10
inclusive, but starting points for thinking about how the film both creates and limits
agency. Through these reflections, I found that the film’s visuals continually focus on
personal power struggles: Zachariah’s bosses control him, he controls his wife, and
Marumu, the tsotsi, controls both of them. Analyzing these different negotiations and
social hierarchies within Come Back, Africa, or the lack of power struggles in certain sequences , illustrates how the film uses race, gender, and class to break Westerners’ stereotypes while simultaneously perpetuating the status quo.
When writing about South African culture and complex racial representations,
terminology is always a source of tension. Throughout this analysis, I will most often
refer to a character’s race as white, black, coloured, or Indian. These terms are
problematic because the National Party used them for the Population Registration Act
and, as such, they are innately simplified, arbitrary, and constructed. However, I use
them out of the necessity to quickly identify a character’s race in order to move on to the
“meatier” sections of my analysis. Furthermore, in writing his memoirs, Lionel Rogosin
referred to these categories; thus, I also use them for the sake of continuity between
sources.
Additionally, I would like to emphasize that my analysis is not the only or most
comprehensive method for discussing Come Back, Africa . I do not include, for example,
information about audience reception, though I believe this would be an informative
endeavor that could potentially influence my arguments. Instead, after reading various
critiques of the film, I reflected on my dissatisfaction with the repetitive argument that
the film was empowering simply because it gave black South Africans a voice. I agree
that the film was revolutionary for relying on a black migrant worker as the protagonist,
11 using African languages, and allowing the Drum writers’ to openly and unapologetically discuss their views on race and violence in South Africa; however, the film is still a product of its historical context and is thus limited by factors often beyond Rogosin’s control. In discussing these limitations, I do not wish to detract from the film’s historical importance and aesthetic innovations; rather, by arguing that the film is simultaneously revolutionary and conforming to the status quo, I hope to suggest new methods of thinking about South African films.
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Chapter 1: Oppression
Discussing oppression in Come Back, Africa is somewhat redundant as its primary
objective is to expose apartheid’s everyday discrimination against black South Africans.
Zachariah’s interactions with white characters continually result in humiliation for the
protagonist: he is called savage, wrongly accused of rape, and continually fired by white
employers without just cause. Beginning with a short summary of apartheid, I will
contextualize the country’s white supremacist legislation and culture within its historical
moment and then discuss Rogosin’s interpretation of coercion within the film. Since
previous academic work has thoroughly analyzed Zachariah’s degradation, I will only
briefly discuss how oppression manifests itself in the mise-en-scene.
In 1948, the Afrikaner-dominated National Party won national elections and took
control of the Union of South Africa’s government. Although this year marked the
“official” beginning of apartheid, the party’s instituted segregation was the continuation
of over three-hundred years of entrenched white supremacy and colonial ideology. 25
Dutch settlers began colonizing what would later become the country of South Africa in
1652, with the British taking control of the Cape of Good Hope by the late eighteenth century. After a series of violent encounters between British and Dutch settlers, dubbed the Boer Wars, the British established control over the territory. This dominion lasted until 1962, though South Africans established an internal government, the Union of South
Africa, in 1910. Early on, this newly-created government began instituting segregation laws, which would later help structure apartheid legislation.26 One example of these efforts to legislate racism was the Natives Act of 1913, which designated that only 7% of
25 Kevin Shillington . History of Africa . Revised Second Edition. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 364. 26 Ibid. 13
the Union’s land was for black South Africans, though blacks constituted over 80% of the
population. 27
After World War II, industrial growth led to massive urbanization in South
Africa, as many rural blacks left their poverty-stricken homes in the country for better opportunities in the cities; in response, the National Party began a propaganda campaign that played on white fears of a black takeover.28 After winning the 1948 elections, the
National Party began introducing policies to preserve white minority power by restricting
Africans’ opportunities and efforts for equality. In a 1950 speech, Prime Minister
Hendrik F. Verwoerd described his separate development plan as policies that acknowledged “the supremacy of the European in his sphere” but also believed in “the supremacy of the Bantu in his own sphere,” meaning it would give “the two population groups opportunities for the full development of their respective power and ambitions without coming into conflict.” 29 Refuting these statements, African historian Kevin
Shillington denounces apartheid as “an economic system, designed to restrict blacks to the position of a permanently subordinate, low-paid working class.” 30
To keep Africans subjugated, the government passed two cornerstone laws of
apartheid, the Population Registration Act (1950) and the Group Areas Act (1950). The
former law separated all South Africans into categories: White, Indian, Coloured, and
Bantu (African / black), and within Bantu as “Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, Venda, Sotho, and
so on.” 31 Although these categories defined one’s opportunities and freedoms, they were
27 Ibid. 28 Ibid, 410-11. 29 John A. Williams. From the South African Past: Narratives, Documents, and Debates . (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997), 253-54. 30 Shillington, History of Africa , 411. 31 Ibid. 14
fluid and often arbitrarily assigned. The Group Areas Act used these constructed racial
categories to allocate each group its own land. Not surprisingly, “white” areas were the
best land with the easiest access to the city centers, while black areas were far from the
downtown areas, had marginal housing, and often had increased environmental risks,
such as greater proximity to power plants. Through various segregation laws, the
National Party attempted to control Africans’ movement, recreation, economic
opportunities, and private lives. Thus, in the twentieth century, although most of the
African continent was in a process of de-colonization, South Africa was instead
increasingly oppressing Africans’ rights; this is the historical context in which Rogosin
filmed Come Back, Africa .
In the film, Sophiatown symbolizes the Group Areas Act’s destructiveness.
Sophiatown has been glorified in South African history as a multi-cultural, vibrant
neighborhood similar to District 6 in Cape Town and Harlem in the United States.
However, tension exists between the nostalgic symbolism of Sophiatown and the reality
of its sub-standard living conditions. Although consisting of only 237 acres, by 1950 its
population was over 40,000 people; 32 yet, the neighborhood also had a large number of
African-owned properties and a more bohemian culture than the rest of Johannesburg. 33
Sophiatown offered an energetic jazz scene, two cinemas for black audiences, and the
only “black” swimming pool in Johannesburg. Furthermore, journalist John Gunther
describes the district as home to an “African middle class with the highest standard of
living and the most education in the Transvaal,” including a politically-active, black
32 Ulf Hannerz. “Sophiatown: The View from Afar.” Journal of Southern African Studies . (20.2, June 1994), 184-85. Gready. “The Sophiatown Writers,” 140. 33 Gready, 141 15
intelligentsia, symbolized in the film by the Drum magazine writers in the shebeen
scenes. 34
However, as Johannesburg’s population and sprawl increased, the separation between the non-white Western Areas, which included Sophiatown, and white neighborhoods decreased, muddling the government’s efforts to create a strictly segregated city. As early as 1939, the Union government threatened to demolish the region for its “unique reality centered around such issues as the right to freehold tenure, its race-class composition, and the co-existence of community and slum.” 35 Once the more pro-segregation National Party came into control, Sophiatown was destined for destruction. Forced removals of residents, under the pretext of slum clearance, began in
1955 and continued through 1959.36
Lionel and Elinor Rogosin arrived in Johannesburg in the middle of the evictions
and razings. Many critics, including Isabel Balseiro and Ntongela Masilela, commend
Come Back, Africa for its inclusion of some of Sophiatown’s last visual documentation
before its destruction. For instance, as Vinah and Zachariah walk through Sophiatown’s
streets, they pass houses in crumpled heaps and a large graffitied wall that reads, “Hands
off the Western Areas.” Similarly, in a Zulu conversation between Zachariah, Vinah, and
a landlady, the landlady emphasizes how much control the government has over space,
despite the fact that much of the land in Sophiatown was legally owned by its residents:
Zachariah: Why are there so many broken houses? Landlady: They don’t want us to own our own houses. Zachariah: What is the reason for that? Landlady: Because the government does not want us to live like people.
34 Qtd. in Rogosin, Come Back, Africa , 34. 35 Gready, 141 36 Ibid, 157-58 16
Sophiatown is thus illustrated as a site of power struggles between the government, the Group Areas Act, and its populace. For the first half of the film, the neighborhood is filmed with music and dancing, suggesting its vibrant culture. However, halfway through the film, Rogosin shifts to highlighting apartheid’s oppression. He lingers on the crumpled ruins of houses already condemned and bulldozed by the administration. In one shot, Vinah and
Zachariah stand to the right of a ruined house with a billowing tree in the background; due to the lack of color, the tree resembles a large, black cloud of smoke wafting through Sophiatown and suggesting government- induced fire, destruction, and violence. As shown in the neighborhood scenes, the
National Party exposes its oppression of non-whites by clearing areas that violate its racialized zoning; the faceless white legislature is in control while the more personable
Sophiatown residents are victims of their policies. Rogosin also introduces black-on- black violence in the film’s latter half, though he frames this aggression as a product of the government’s tyrannical subjugation. While this violence is initially petty, it intensifies until climaxing with Vinah’s murder. With Rogosin’s focus on music, dancing, tsotsis, shebeens, crime, and ruined houses, the film’s representation of
Sophiatown is a mixture of resistance, violence, and oppression.
Along with the Group Areas Act, Come Back, Africa also portrays the effects of
the oppressive pass laws on everyday black South Africans. During apartheid, South
Africans were forced to carry passes, which identified their names, racial category,
17
employment history, and previous encounters with the police. When Rogosin arrived in
South Africa, the government had recently mandated that women must also carry
passes. 37 Thus, the scenes about Vinah’s pass suggest the film’s historical specificity; if
Rogosin had made the film before 1958, the conversation between Zachariah and the
landlady over Vinah’s pass would not have occurred. Forcing both females and males to
carry a pass allowed the National Party to control and subordinate all non-white South
Africans. During the filming of Come Back, Africa , an average of 318,700 people per
year were prosecuted for breaking pass laws. 38 The pervasiveness of the pass laws and
the subsequent threat of arrest are evident in the film as the black characters constantly
discuss and worry about their passes.
Zachariah’s pass troubles begin after the film’s introduction montage, when
Zachariah first learns about the difficulties of obtaining a work pass to go to
Johannesburg. The dialogue between Zachariah and his coworkers juxtaposes
Zachariah’s highly-personal, economic reasons for needing a pass with the bureaucracy’s unrelenting and unsympathetic regulations. While Zachariah states that “there is not enough to eat,” his more experienced and knowledgeable coworker replies, “Yes, but the pass is important for the whites.” Later, Zachariah is told that “there are many kinds of passes, one for working in the deep, another for the surface, another to visit friends in mines, and another to work in Johannesburg.” This dialogue foreshadows the complications and hardships imposed by the pass laws, with which Zachariah will grapple for the rest of the film.
37 “Chasing Women in South Africa.” Time . 17 Nov. 1958. < http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/ 0,9171,810648,00.html> accessed 18 February 2008. 38 Alan Morris. “Continuity or Rupture: The City, Post-Apartheid.” SocialResearch (65.4, Winter 1998), 759. 18
While the scene’s dialogue illustrates the importance and cruelty of the pass laws, the visuals emphasize the laws’ oppressive control of movement. As Zachariah and his coworker sit in the mine workers’ bunkhouse, the top bunk beds create a low-ceiling that weighs down on the two men. Additionally, Rogosin frames the men so that they sit among vertical poles supporting the beds; in multiple shots, the poles sit in the shot’s foreground and leave the frame unattached to a bed. These poles are reminiscent of the bars of a prison cell, caging the men behind a barrier. The brick and plaster wall, poorly constructed and preventing any privacy, is also reminiscent of a primitive prison. As the men discuss the pass laws’ oppressive control of their movement, Rogosin physically captures them in their prison-like, migrant workers’ bunkhouse.
In another pass-related scene, Zachariah approaches a white supervisor of a road crew to ask for a job. Like all the previous employers, the supervisor asks to see
Zachariah’s pass; however, Zachariah’s pass has expired and he is living illegally in
Johannesburg. The supervisor points out the direness of Zachariah’s situation by commenting that, if caught, the police could sell him as labor to farms or evict him from
Johannesburg. Yet, the white man still hires Zachariah. He also decides to fix
Zachariah’s pass book for him because if Zachariah does it himself, the office will “keep
19
[him] waiting four or five days.” Reflecting on apartheid’s disparities, the conversation
compares a pass’s worth to white characters versus black characters. To Zachariah, the
pass book determines everything: his employment, where he can work, where he can live,
where he can move, and with whom he can associate. To the white supervisor, the pass
book is simply something to be checked and perhaps fixed if incomplete. An expired
pass is little more of a hassle for him, though for Zachariah it could mean arrest or at the
very best a multiple-day ordeal. While the pass laws are inconsequential to the
supervisor, to Zachariah they symbolize oppression.
Along with controlling Africans’ movement, the National Party also attempted to
control Africans by regulating their recreational time. 39 For example, the government restricted alcohol consumption and established beerhalls, where supervisors managed what times workers could drink and how much. Beerhalls thus helped the government to control its workforce; however, the alcohol was often diluted and of poor quality. In response, many non-white South Africans visited illegal shebeens to purchase more potent alcohol, though this put them under constant threat of arrest. Speaking to this risk,
Can Themba, in his journalistic piece entitled “Let the People Drink,” found that 950,415 cases were tried before court for liquor and drug convictions in 1954, with 93% of these ended in a sentencing.40
Come Back, Africa illustrates the government’s attempts to regulate alcohol
consumption by filming Zachariah’s visits to Martha’s shebeen. In the film’s second
39 For work on this topic, see John Nauright. “The Development of Soccer and Urban Black Culture and Identity.” Sport, Cultures, and Identities in South Africa . (Cassell, 1997). J.M. Burns. Flickering Shadows: Cinema and Identity in Colonial Zimbabwe. (Ohio: Center of International Studies Ohio University, 2002). 40 Can Themba. The World of Can Themba . Edited by Essop Patel. (Braamfontein, South Africa: Ravan Press Ltd, 1985), 164. 20
shebeen scene, a group of black intellectuals discuss race politics as they smoke and
drink. While they are chiding Zachariah about whether or not he understands their
political ideas, a quick rap is heard on the door. Without missing a beat and in perfect
unison, the patrons simultaneously grab their drinks and hide them underneath the table.
After they realize that the person entering is only Miriam, not a hostile policeman, the
men all return their drinks back on the table. The film continues as if nothing has
happened. This subtle gesture captures the control of the government, even in the
shebeen. Conditioned to living with the constant threat of arrest, the men instinctively
hide their alcohol each time a new customer enters the shebeen.
Furthermore, while the black characters discuss the country’s racism in the shebeen, they are in control of their own sphere; dressed sophisticatedly and voicing their scathing attacks on liberalism and Alan Paton’s acclaimed Cry, the Beloved Country, their opinions are meant to shock the viewer into questioning his or her stereotypes.
Their sharp wit, clean-cut appearances, and intellectual ideas on racism establish their authority. However, the gesture of hiding their alcohol immediately diminishes their agency. The audience is reminded that even Sophiatown’s black elites are subject to the government’s control.
Along with the government’s legislative oppression, the white characters reinforce black subordination through their culture of white supremacy. Treating non- white South Africans as if they are inferior to whites, Zachariah’s employers propagate the National Party’s dominating apartheid ideology. During the underground mine scenes, a supervisor walks by a group of sitting workers. Each of the black laborer raises, salutes, and repeats, “Yes Baas” as the white employer passes. Forced to do so, these
21
gestures degrade blacks while designating whites as worthy of a salute. The white
characters’ cultural acceptance and subsequent daily reiteration of racism further oppress
non-white South Africans.
Lastly, Rogosin misses an opportunity to discuss another form of oppression:
international businesses and investors. In his memoir, he recognizes that “there are heavy
investments of US capital in the gold mines,” and “by supporting the exploitation of
Africans we identify ourselves with their enemies.” 41 However, in Come Back, Africa,
Rogosin refuses to hold international companies accountable for their economic support
of apartheid. Interestingly, the mine where Zachariah works, the Marievale mine, was
originally a German company, though today a Canadian company claims its rights.
However, this mine is not presented as internationally-owned in the film. Consequently,
audiences are led to believe that the mine’s exploitation of cheap labor benefits only
white South Africans, though in reality it also benefits international businesses and
investors. Since Rogosin’s target audience was international viewers, perhaps he felt that
holding them accountable for Western businesses’ exploitive practices would be too
sharp a critique. Nonetheless, this gap suggests the ways Rogosin selectively chooses
what to film and his tendency to simplify apartheid’s complexities.
Since Rogosin’s goal was to expose human suffering under apartheid, the film is
most effective at depicting the black characters’ oppression. The effects of the Group
Areas Act and the pass laws can be seen throughout the film, furthered by the white
characters reiteration of the black characters’ supposed inferiority. Academics widely
acclaim Rogosin for his presentation of racism’s humiliations; however, critiques often
ignore Rogosin’s refusal to hold international companies accountable or how he can
41 Rogosin, Come Back, Africa , 71. 22 oppress characters through his own creative control. Despite the overwhelming victimization of the black cast, the film rarely presents complete domination, either by the government or white characters. For example, while the government ultimately destroyed Sophiatown, the neighborhood still thrives today as a symbol of defiance and vibrant black culture, suggesting a resistance discourse. In the next chapter, I will delve into the characters’ interactions with oppression, how they negotiate their experiences, and their ability to resist their racialized domination.
23
Chapter Two: Resistance
While the government and the white characters perpetuate white supremacist
ideology, the film’s black characters are not simply dominated by their oppression.
Instead, they negotiate their experiences and reactions between compliance and total
opposition. For many non-white South Africans, these negotiations between the
oppressed and the oppressor resulted in politicization during the 1950s. This decade was
a particularly active era for political action, as Ghandian civil disobedience became a
popular form of resistance once the National Party came into power. Suggesting the
prominence of political activism, George M. Frederickson, in Black Liberation , argues
that “the 1950s was the decade in which nonviolent resistance received its most thorough
trial in South Africa.” 42 Come Back, Africa’s visuals, crew, and characters reflect this increased politicization; however, the characters are often framed as victims of apartheid as opposed to active resistors.
Throughout the 1950s, a number of boycotts and strikes erupted over the National
Party’s increasingly oppressive legislation. In 1951-52, the African National Congress
(ANC) organized the Defiance Campaign, which demanded that the government repeal the pass laws, the Group Areas Act, the Suppression of Communism Act, the Coloured
Voters Act, and the Bantu Authorities Act; if these stipulations were not met, they threatened mass civil disobedience.43 Although the demonstration ultimately failed, the government arrested over 8,000 participants by December 1952, suggesting widespread participation and enthusiasm for the demonstration’s political goals. 44
42 George M. Fredrickson. Black Liberation: a comparative history of Black ideologies in the United States and South Africa. (New York : Oxford University Press, 1995), 244 43 Ibid, 246 44 Ibid. 24
Other protests, some more successful than others, exploded throughout the
decade. Again taking lead, the ANC supported resistance efforts against the forced
removals in Sophiatown and protested the Bantu Education Act. 45 Trade unions also flexed their political power and engagement. In 1957, trade unions led 113 strikes with over 6,000 participants cumulatively; despite the strikes’ violations of the Native Labour
Act of 1953, thirteen of the strikes succeeded in gaining wage increases. 46 In some of the
decade’s largest demonstrations, African women protested against the government’s
intensified enforcement of pass laws to include females. Welcoming arrest, these women
refused to carry passes in an effort to overcrowd already full prisons. 47 In the first seven
months of 1956 alone, “an estimated 50,000 women participated in thirty-eight
demonstrations.” 48 Due to increased political activity, the government arrested 156 ANC
members under accusations of communism and high treason in 1956. 49 In the following five years, the members were subjected to a trial without just cause, which eventually ended in all the members being found not guilty. For many South Africans, the Treason
Trails illustrated the government’s arbitrary and unjust legislation and judicial system.
Created in this politically-heightened atmosphere, Come Back, Africa was, in and of itself, an act of resistance for Rogosin, the crew, and the cast. Throughout his memoirs, Rogosin often comments that he felt like a spy in enemy territory while filming: “At moments I felt a kind of joy in our attack, a release to be able to fight back at
45 Ibid 46 Alex Lichtenstein. “The Hope for White and Black? Race, Labour and the State in South Africa and the United States, 1924-1956.” Journal of Southern African Studies . (30.1, March 2004), 150. 47 “Chasing Women in South Africa.” 48 Frederickson, Black Liberation , 250. 49 Rogosin, Come Back, Africa , 8. 25
these monsters—so like the Nazis who had killed millions of defenseless people.” 50
Thus, Rogosin’s goal in making the film was not to make an objective documentary but to create a film with a point of view, one that protested everyday inequalities. This effort is reflected in the film’s title, Come Back, Africa , which is the English translation of the popular ANC protest rallying cry, “Mayibuye i Afrika!” 51 Thus, the film became
Rogosin’s resistance against apartheid.
Throughout the film, Rogosin illustrates his personal resistance to apartheid through the shots’ mise-en-scene. For instance, while Zachariah is employed as a domestic worker he accidentally throws away his madam’s mushroom soup. Upon discovering the accident, his boss yells racial slurs at Zachariah. Yet, Zachariah and his madam are shoved into the upper right hand corner of the frame, making them visually insignificant. Instead of watching the argument, the audience scrutinizes the husband, placed in the foreground, as he reads the newspaper and listens to his wife’s derogatory and condescending rants. Despite the husband’s visible disagreement with his wife’s remarks, his inactivity is put on display; although he later asks his wife to be more patient with Zachariah, Rogosin frames his passiveness during the argument as a striking condemnation (Figure 1). Implying the director’s point of view, this shot accuses liberal white South Africans, who disagree with white supremacy, of inactivity. Rogosin resurrects this protest against liberals in the shebeen scene, discussed later, which becomes a more explicit attack on apathy during apartheid.
50 Rogosin, Come, Back Africa , 87 51 Ibid, 10. 26
Figure 1
Furthermore, at the end of this scene, the wife shrieks to her husband, “They’re savages, savages!” Rogosin then cuts from the interior of the house to a close up of
Zachariah laughing as he sits outside discussing his day with his friends (Figure 2-3). His position and manner are relaxed and easy going, despite the degradation and humiliation he just experienced. Compared to the tense previous scene, the shot is calm and composed. By editing the two scenes next to each other, Rogosin asks the viewer to question who the more “savage” character is, Zachariah or his boss. Thus, Rogosin attempts to debunk the stereotype of the child-like, savage African stereotype and instead illustrate the savageness of white supremacy.
Figure 2 Figure 3
27
Rogosin’s transition scenes can also be read as resistant. In “Black Claims on
‘White’ Cities,” Isabel Balseiro quotes Rogosin’s original script descriptions, which describe his encoding of war imagery into his montages: “naked steel girders suggestive of bayonets, death, war. The twisted steel rods imply…concentration camps…the open pits and twisted steel inside the floor of the new buildings suggest bomb craters.” 52 This
emphasis on war, destruction, and violence
undermines the peaceful, orderly society that
the National Party attempted to construct
with the Group Areas Act and Population
Registration Act. For example, in a shot
during the middle of a montage, the camera is zoomed in enough to abstract the building’s beams from their context. A rope hangs from the beams, dangling and drifting in the breeze. Although not explicit, this shot is reminiscent of a lynching scene, made more ominous due to the lack of humans in the shot. Illustrating the effects of apartheid legislation, Rogosin shows Johannesburg’s
“white” center as dead, cold, and reminiscent of a war film. However, when the black laborers enter the city for the work day, Johannesburg overflows with crowds, music, and dancing. 53 The film’s war imagery thus protests against the laws that deny non-whites complete access and ownership of the city.
Rogosin continues this form of resistance, both beyond and within the diegetic world, in the film’s climatic shebeen scene. In the scene, Zachariah and a group of
African intellectuals discuss the tsotsi Marumu and Cry, the Beloved Country . Rogosin
52 Qtd. in Balseiro, “Black Claims,” 92. 53 Ibid, 93. 28
describes this scene, the first to be filmed, as the most challenging to shoot: his
unfamiliarity with his amateur actors, his experimental approach to improvised dialogue,
and singer Miriam Makeba’s limited availability for re-shooting contributed to these
difficulties. 54 Furthermore, although he had four potential on-location sites for the filming of the shebeen, he eventually built his own set, as the actual shebeens were too cramped for cameras and lighting equipment.55 Therefore, instead of shooting on location like the rest of the film, Rogosin used a mock shebeen placed in the Community of the Resurrection Church’s abandoned school building. The school, previously run by
Father Huddleston, closed due to the priest’s refusal to accept the standards and stipulations of the Bantu Education Act. Thus, the film’s most resistant scene was shot in a building that was an active site of resistance against the National Party, an irony that was not lost on Rogosin.56
Despite the scene’s built artificiality, the sequence is often described as the film’s most “authentic,” illustrating the ability of cinema to synthetically reconstruct reality.
To obtain this illusion of reality, Rogosin spent time at a real shebeen recording Bloke
Modisane, Can Themba, Morris Hugh, and Lewis Nkosi’s discussions about South
Africa’s racial politics.57 Through these taped conversations, he constructed loose
dialogue that he then allowed his actors to change and improvise. Bloke Modisane, at the
end of Rogosin’s memoirs, describes how Rogosin created realism by allowing the actors
to play themselves:
Lionel wanted it to be authentic--the atmosphere of a shebeen, real liquor, real-life intellectual drunks, a real-life shebeen queen, and a genuine look-out for the
54 Ibid. 55 Rogosin, Come Back, Africa , 84. 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid. 29
police… Lionel supplied the liquor—illegally of course…. at the end when the shebeen queen throws us out, the wobbling and the leaning on each other was the real thing. And the reason that the scene came to an end at all was due to the under-sight of Lionel Rogosin who had under-catered… If the police had surprised that sequence, there would have been no Come Back, Africa ; Lionel would have been jailed for supplying liquor to Natives and the Natives would have been convicted of being in possession of liquor. 58
Both Modisane and Nkosi would later explain their participation in the film as
wanting to spread their views on South Africa’s racism and oppression to a wider,
international audience.59 Although Modisane and Nkosi helped write the script, the
shebeen scene is the primary avenue for which Themba, Modisane, Hugh, and Nkosi
freely and explicitly protest their oppression. Rogosin acknowledged the importance of
the Drum writers’ opinions by juxtaposing striking dialogue with mundane visuals.
Throughout the scene, he uses stationary long shots that feel as if the camera was simply
set down in the middle of the room, allowing the audience to experience the conversation
in “real time.” Whether this is an intentional decision by Rogosin to downplay the
visuals or simply the fallout of his inexperience shooting in artificial sets, the
monotonous visuals reinforce the dialogue as the primary focus.
With this emphasis on dialogue, Bloke Modisane, Lewis Nkosi, Can Themba, and
Morris Hugh take full advantage of the scene by speaking out against their oppressive
culture. The line between documentary and drama, fiction and reality melts away as the
audience no longer knows if the actors are voicing there characters’ opinions or their
own. Interestingly, Zachariah’s character is almost completely ignored; with only two
short lines of dialogue, he is placed in the back corner, behind Morris Hugh. In the next
chapter, I will further discuss how this scene marginalizes Zachariah; however, from the
58 Ibid, 135. 59 Grassilli, “Anthropology and Cinema,” 228. 30 point of view of the black intellectuals, being able to express their true opinions in an international film was extremely empowering.
Additionally, this narrative transgression is aimed to shock an international audience into acknowledging their stereotypes of black South Africans. For instance,
Can Themba refuses to simplify Marumu’s identity by labeling him a criminal; he describes Marumu’s childhood, his father’s murder at the hands of another tsotsi, and his subsequent progression into becoming a gangster. According to Themba, this contextualization suggests that Marumu is a victim and product of a violent culture.
Later the men discuss white liberals and Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country .
Although the book received critical acclaim internationally for illustrating the plight of black migrant workers in Johannesburg, the men criticize it for its refusal to question white supremacy or hold the government accountable for its contribution to their violent culture. The four men express their views pointedly and articulately, representing the urban, black South African intellectual as thoughtful and well educated, an important break from conventional South African films. Until Come Back, Africa the black activist had either been ignored in films or portrayed as corrupt and scheming, like John Kumalo from Cry, the Beloved Country .
While most critiques of Come Back, Africa focus on the how the shebeen scene empowers the black Drum writers, scholars rarely discuss the film’s other, albeit smaller, acts of resistance against white supremacy. For example, in the scene described in the introduction, Zachariah discovers his boss’s bottle of whiskey and, knowing the illegality of his actions, takes a sip anyway. He then turns the radio on, drapes her scarf around his shoulders, and dances in front of the mirror. In a tightly controlled, rigid society in which
31
black workers are viewed as little more than slaves, Zachariah’s carefree actions can be
seen as resistance against a job that pays too little and a boss who verbally abuses him.
Instead of quietly cleaning his madam’s room, he drinks her alcohol, plays with her radio,
wears her clothing, and asserts his agency. Furthermore, when she threatens to call the
police, he replies, “Call the police!” This response marks a shift in his interactions with
his madam. In a previous scene’s argument, he responded more passively, only
mumbling his frustration and allowing himself to be humiliated. Thus, in the latter
scene, Zachariah’s comment “Call the police!” marks his growing awareness and
intolerance of apartheid’s inequalities.
Similarly, Zachariah and Eddie’s joyride during the garage scene can also be
viewed as a form of resistance. In this sequence, Zachariah and his friend fill a car with
gas for their boss and drive it a couple extra blocks before returning it. As lower class
Africans living in Sophiatown, neither Zachariah nor Eddie can afford a vehicle;
therefore, when they knowingly break the rules and take advantage of their jobs, they
resist their subjugated lives. Rogosin adds bouncy, cheerful pennywhistle music to the
scene to emphasize that the two black workers, while in the car, are enjoying themselves
outside the realm of white control.
Despite these acts of resistance, the Africans in Come Back, Africa are most often
represented as passive victims of a racist, oppressive government. Paul Gready argues
that the Drum writers had “a tendency to portray black as passive victims, thereby
concealing mechanisms of survival and resistance.” 60 In Drum , this victimization manifests itself in terms of poverty, humiliation, and a simplification of racial tensions in
60 Gready, “Sophiatown Writers, 162. 32
South Africa: all blacks become victims and all whites become their antagonists.61 I argue that this tendency in Drum is also present in Come Back, Africa , perhaps reinforced by the Drum writers’ input into the film. Zachariah’s protests manifest themselves as small gestures of defiance against his employers, but he is not overtly politicized against the apartheid system. Instead, he is continually humiliated and emasculated, framing him as a victim of white supremacy. Even the shebeen scene, with its political discussions of violence and race, does not directly criticize apartheid or call for mass action against the state. During the mine scene, Rogosin visually reinforces black victimization by cutting between close ups of black workers in the mine tiredly looking down and long shots of them laboring under slavish conditions. This editing frames the workers as exploited victims of South Africa’s capitalist society.
The tension between the actual political demonstrations of the 1950s and
Rogosin’s victimization of his characters is most stark with regards to the ANC’s bus boycotts. These demonstrations were a particularly effective and successful form of civil disobedience. In a February 25, 1957 article entitled “No Law on Earth,” Time describes how a Johannesburg bus boycott ballooned into a 15,000 person rally that pitted the ANC against the National Party.62 In the article, a leader of the boycott describes his reasons for boycotting: “We have no vote. We have no rights. The boycott is our political weapon, and no law on earth can make us ride if we want to walk.” 63 These boycotts emphasized Africans’ agency despite the government’s oppression.
61 Ibid; Jacqueline Maingard. “Trends in South Africa Documentary Film and Video: Questions of Identity and Subjectivity.” Journal of Southern African Studies.( 21.4, Dec. 1995), 658. 62 “ No Law on Earth.” Time . 25 February 1957. < http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/ 0,9171,936836,00.html> accessed 18 February 2008. 63 Ibid. 33
Despite the vast range of political movements in the 1950s, the bus boycotts are
the only mass demonstrations referenced in Come Back, Africa . During Zachariah’s
employment at the garage, the boss reprimands his co-worker Eddie for skipping work
the previous day. The friend’s excuse is that the bus boycott prevented him from
commuting from his home in the distant township to the downtown garage. However,
instead of identifying himself as an active, politically-engaged participant in the boycott,
Eddie stayed at home because he was afraid of the violent ramifications for breaking the
boycott. Thus, the film frames the boycott as a location of potential victimization, due to
black-on-black violence, and not as a site of engaged citizens protesting for positive
change.
In writing about Come Back, Africa , Peter Davis suggests that “although the film
shows none of the momentous events taking place at the time, this is an intensely political
film. The society revealed in Come Back, Africa is one where racism is endemic.” 64
However, the characters’ portrayals as helpless victims also imply that they lack any agency under the racist society . As my brief description of 1950s civil disobedience
implies, black South Africans were much more active than the film’s visuals reflect. The
director’s refusal to acknowledge the union strikes, women demonstrations, heavily-
publicized Treason Trials, and other politically-charged events remains a mystifying gap.
A close examination of Lionel Rogosin’s biography, his cinematic style, and his aims for
the film’s political message suggest that his power over the images as writer, director,
and producer of the film explain why the narrative is not more explicitly political.
64 Rogosin, Come Back, Africa , 10. 34
Chapter Three: Lionel Rogosin
In most critiques of Come Back, Africa , Rogosin’s background as an upper class,
American filmmaker is ignored; however, his life events, social situation, and cultural
anxieties heavily influenced the film’s encoding. Ethnofiction filmmaker Jean Rouche,
after discussing the baggage that a director brings and inserts into his films, suggests that
with Come Back, Africa, Rogosin “was trying to put his own feelings about
discrimination and racism in the film, more than the people themselves did.” 65 Thus, to fully understand the film, one must contextualize who Rogosin was, why he made the film, and how his biases influenced the film’s plot and mise-en-scene. Since Rogosin remains a somewhat vague figure in film studies, concrete biographical information is at times sparse; the following chapter is my attempt to recreate his biography, his goals, and his biases.
Lionel Rogosin was born January 22, 1924 in New York City and spent his childhood growing up in Long Island. The son of German and Russian immigrants, his father owned a successful textile business, for which he was destined to work as an adult.
Although Rogosin did not consider becoming a filmmaker until after World War II, he had an early fascination with cinema. In an unpublished biography, he recalls the excitement he felt after watching Robert J. Flaherty’s Man of Aran (1934) at the age of ten or eleven. 66 Even during his childhood, Rogosin was starting to question the
Hollywood system, as he felt “ Man of Aran made the romantic Hollywood feature films
65 John Adams. “Jean Rouch talks about his films to John Marshall and John W. Adams: September 14-15, 1977.” American Anthropologist , New Series 80.4 (1978): 1005-1020. http://www.der.org/resources/jean-rouch/jean-rouch-interview.html accessed 26 Feb. 2008. 66 Official Lionel Rogosin Website. “The Building of an Alternate Cinema.”
of the time seem insipid and insignificant.” 67 Despite his fascination with film, Rogosin
attended Yale University with the intention of majoring in Chemistry. In 1941 he
volunteered for World War II and served off the coast of Trinidad as a minesweeper
engineer in the navy.68
After the war, Rogosin returned home and finished his degree at Yale. He also traveled, with trips to Eastern and Western Europe, Israel, and his first trip to Africa in
1948. Although he began working for his father’s textile business, he was greatly intrigued by post-war films, especially the Italian neo-realism movement. In 1954, he resigned from the textile company and started filming his first documentary, On the
Bowery . This film launched him into the cinematic world, beginning a career that spanned over the next twenty years, though he never received wide acclaim in the United
States and had continual trouble obtaining funding.69
Understanding the American film industry during the 1950s helps contextualize
both On the Bowery and Come Back, Africa . For Hollywood and the studio system, the
1950s was a decade of transition. A changing political climate due to the Cold War,
blacklisting, and an increased scrutinizing of cinematic representations of Americans
abroad led to a decline in heavily-politicized and socially-active films. 70 While the
Hollywood studio system was weakening by the late 1950s, the “Big Five” studios (20 th
Century Fox, MGM, Paramount, RKO, and Warner Brothers) still relied on the classical
Hollywood style as a template to maximize profits: mainstream films used constructed
67 Ibid. 68 Pinkerton. “Glasses Full of Rye.” 69 Ibid; The Official Lionel Rogosin Website. 70 Peter Lev. Transforming the Screen 1950-1959: The Fifties . Part 7 of History of the American Cinema. Edited by Charles Harpole. (New York: Charles Sribner’s Sons, 2003), 73.
36
sets to control as many variables as possible, adhered to genre conventions, relied on the
Hollywood star system, and utilized a streamlined narrative that minimized unnecessary
plot transgressions. Due to advances in technology and faced with declining audiences,
the studios attempted to woo viewers back to theaters with visual spectacles, including 3-
D, Cinerama, widescreen, and epic, big-budget productions.71 Many of these larger-than-
life productions included massive sets and innumerable casts, combining extravagant
visuals with strict genre rules; thus, in the 1950s, musicals, westerns, and biblical classics
like The Ten Commandments (1956) and Ben-Hur (1959) were extremely popular. 72
In contrast, Rogosin rejected the tight constraints of the Hollywood system and identified with the emerging independent movement, especially with what would later be called New American Cinema. Although the New American Cinema group did not dominate experimental filmmaking until the 1960s, its foundations came from Helen
Levitt’s In the Street (1951) and Sidney Meyer’s The Quiet One (1949). 73 Predecessors
to Rogosin’s films, both Levitt and Meyer created an illusion of reality by using
nonprofessional actors, on-location shooting, occasional use of concealed cameras, a
focus on everyday life, and “spontaneity of action and camera.” 74 Additionally, “the low budgets, the small crews, and the visual and technological roughness imposed by the new and unpredictable shooting circumstances” forced the films to explore new visual forms and subjects. 75 Jonas Mekas, one of the founding members of the New American Cinema
group, published the first issue of Film Culture in 1955, which he used as a venue to
criticize the Hollywood system’s shortcomings. While these criticisms led to the belief
71 Ibid, 107-125. 72 Ibid, 107. 73 Jonas Mekas. “Notes on the New Amercan Cinema.” Film Culture . (Vol. 24, 1962), 6. 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid, 7. 37
that New American Cinema was anti-Hollywood, Mekas described their approach as
“primarily an existential movement, or, if you want, an ethical movement, a human act; it
is only secondarily an aesthetic one.” 76 He called for films that were more innovative,
intimate, spontaneous, and willing to show the uglier, ignored aspects of life.
Rogosin’s style, influenced by Flaherty and the Italian neo-realists, complemented
the mantras of the New American Cinema. Refusing to work within Hollywood’s
accepted boundaries, his independent films had tighter budget restrictions but more
artistic freedom that enabled him to ignore clichéd conventions. As he would later use in
Come Back, Africa , his first film, On the Bowery , combined a loose fictional plot with
documentary footage shot on location in New York’s skid row. Instead of using
professional actors, his cast consisted of amateur actors whose lives correlated with those
of their fictional characters. Thus, the film follows a struggling lawyer-turned-bum
named Ray, played by Ray Salyer, as he drunkenly meanders through skid row’s dive
bars. Suggesting the film’s reality, after the film’s premier, a studio supposedly offered
Salyer a $40,000 acting contract, which he refused saying, “I just want to be left
alone…There is nothing in life but the booze.” 77 Rogosin’s blurring of the boundaries between reality and fiction, using “real life scenes in an organized, planned drama,” is often considered his major contribution to New American Cinema. 78
Nominated for the 1958 Best Documentary Oscar, On the Bowery helped Rogosin develop his cinematic style and humanitarian themes that would later reappear in Come
76 Ibid, 14 77 Qtd. in Pinkerton, “Glasses Full.” 78 Mekas, “ New American Cinema,” 7 38
Back, Africa . 79 In his “Interpreting Reality” article, written after his return from filming
in South Africa, Rogosin explains that “making On the Bowery taught me a method of
molding reality into a form that could touch the imagination of others.” 80 Along with perfecting his style, On the Bowery also introduced the director to a network of contacts
that he would use for Come Back, Africa . For instance, Rogosin used On the Bowery
editor Carl Lerner as the editor for Come Back, Africa . Furthermore, his earlier film
established him as a director working outside of Hollywood’s studio system, allowing
him more flexibility to research and create future works. Using this approach, Rogosin
spent nearly a year in South Africa familiarizing himself with its culture and creating
contacts before beginning filming. While a studio would not have approved of this time
and money-consumptive experience, Rogosin’s refusal to streamline his production
process allowed him to become more intimate with his subject matter, helping to create a
feeling of “reality” in his film.
Rogosin’s decision to produce a film independently from Hollywood had both
positive and negative consequences. Consider, for instance, if Rogosin had wanted to
make a conventional Hollywood film about apartheid. Its form would have been
confined to genres and plots more familiar to Western audiences, allowing the viewer to
escape into the safety of Hollywood’s happy endings and unquestioning stereotypes.
Come Back, Africa’s black protagonist, who in real life was actually oppressed by
apartheid, would probably have been replaced by a newly politicized, white protagonist,
similar to the lead roles in Dry White Season or Cry, Freedom. 81 Most likely, the studio
79 Nicolas Rapold. “The Strength of Street Knowledge.” The New York Sun . 23 March 2007.
system would have frowned on the film’s episodic plot, mixture of documentary and
drama, and emphasis on black empowerment; therefore, Rogosin’s ability to fund his
own film, using his upper-class family’s resources, gave him more artistic control.
However, Rogosin’s use of an experimental style has disadvantages, too.
Compared to a classical Hollywood film, Come Back, Africa’s low-budget craftsmanship,
meandering narrative, and heavy subject matter are at times difficult to follow; his film
thus caters more to art house audiences as opposed to mainstream movie goers. If
Rogosin’s primary goal in making Come Back, Africa was to raise awareness of South
Africans’ hardships during apartheid, than only targeting a niche audience seems
counterproductive. Peter Davis questions Come Back, Africa’s motives by comparing it
to his earlier film, On the Bowery :
This earlier film is shot…to record despair and degradation. Poverty and suffering, however, are highly photogenic; and with this in mind, we are entitled to ask: Did Rogosin select the subjects of his films out of a genuine compassion for the underprivileged? …Or did he select them in order to play upon people’s fascination for the disgusting, the obscene, and the deformed…82
A tension thus exists between Rogosin’s desire to create a visually arresting and
innovative film and keeping it mainstream enough to connect with audiences, spread
knowledge of black oppression, and protest against the apartheid system.
Davis continues to question Rogosin’s intentions by asking, “Why South
Africa?” 83 If Rogosin wanted to create a film about racial oppression, he need not have
looked any further than his own backyard, as the United States was in the throngs of the
civil rights movement. Major events such as the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown vs.
Board of Education, Rosa Park’s arrest, the Montgomery bus boycotts, and the
82 Peter Davis. “Rogosin and Documentary.” Film Culture . (Vol. 24, 1962), 26. 83 Ibid. 40
desegregation of the Little Rock Central High School all occurred in the 1950s. While
these are only a few of the most heavily-publicized events, they are indicative of the
racial issues and tensions that existed throughout the country. Rogosin could have made a
similarly-themed exposé of racism like Come Back, Africa in a number of locales
throughout the United States; yet, he chose to film in South Africa, 7,970 miles away.
Although a complete answer for why Rogosin chose South Africa is probably
unattainable, several aspects of Rogosin’s personal life hint at reasons why apartheid
intrigued him as a subject matter. First, Rogosin’s involvement in World War II as a
navy engineer created a life-long interest in injustices and international politics. He was
especially interested with the fight against fascism and a link he felt existed between
racism and fascism. In the beginning of his memoirs he approaches the question directly:
After the war, I had the conviction that anything remotely resembling fascism had to be fought with all the energy that one could possibly muster…This was the conviction that caused my anguish and indignation about apartheid in South Africa and racism in the United States. I felt some desperate need to communicate to people everywhere the disastrous effects of such primitive behavior. When I was making the film about the Bowery in New York, I conceived of a large universal epic in the form of a trilogy on racialism in the United States, South Africa, and Asia. Since 1948, stories about South Africa had been coming through of such monstrous proportion that I felt the imperative need to fight this ill-conceived ideology with the most effective weapon available to me, cinema.”84
Other theories for making the film in South Africa, though more speculative, are worth suggesting. For instance, when Rogosin recruited cameraman Milek “Emil”
Knebel, he described the project as making a Flaherty-inspired documentary.85 Rogosin also repeatedly refers to Flaherty as inspiration throughout his memoirs. Importantly, many of Flaherty’s films have ethnographic themes and focus on groups different from
84 Rogosin, Come Back, Africa , 18. 85 Ibid, 136. 41
the “typical” American; to make a film similar to Flaherty’s style, Rogosin needed to
travel abroad to film “the exotic other.” In Peter Davis’s original review of the film, he
also suggests that Rogosin is exploiting “the other.” Implying that the film allows
Western viewers to feel comparatively more righteous than white South Africans, Davis
questions why “Rogosin…chooses to hang out the dirty washing of a neighbor, not his
own.” 86
Additionally, Knebel writes that Rogosin was constantly seeking the approval of his father, especially after On the Bowery financially failed.87 His father was clearly disappointed that Rogosin left the family’s profitable business for, what he considered, an unprofitable film career.88 According to Knebel, Rogosin “most wanted to prove to the
old man and to himself that he could be as successful as his father, but in the field of
political and social film-making rather than in the rayon industry.” 89 Thus, by tackling a
large, socially and politically relevant subject, perhaps Rogosin was attempting to prove
to his father the value of filmmaking. Whatever the reasons, Lionel and newly-married
wife Elinor traveled to Cape Town, South Africa in May 1957 with the vague idea of
cinematically exposing apartheid. 90
Once arriving in South Africa, although Rogosin held the most control over the film’s narrative and visual representations, his freedom of expression was another site of negotiation; the film was limited by the government’s bureaucracy, the grammar available to discuss racism in the 1950s, and Rogosin’s personal cultural baggage. For instance, the government’s overwhelmingly slow bureaucracy severely curtailed the
86 Davis, “Rogosin and Documentary,” 26. 87 Rogosin, Come Back, Africa , 136. 88 Ibid. 89 Ibid. 90 Ibid, 18. 42
film’s production process. Although Rogosin scheduled extra time to write and rewrite a
script, plan camera shots, and rehearse his amateur actors, he instead spent six
unproductive weeks driving between Johannesburg and Pretoria trying to obtain visas for
his crew. Rogosin had planned to begin production on May 15, but his cameramen were
not allowed into the country until June 28. 91 Additionally, the crew’s visas allowed them to stay for only three months, furthering anxieties about time restrictions.92 Due to this delay, cameraman Ernst Artaria was unable to arrive early for pre-production preparations, Rogosin was forced to film with a script that took only ten days to write, and the cameramen were unable to reshoot ineffective scenes.93 Therefore, after completing and screening the film, Rogosin blamed many of the film’s flaws, especially the acting, on the time constraints imposed by the government’s bureaucracy. 94
Come Back, Africa is also limited by Rogosin’s own biases and stereotypes, which are often rooted in the limited grammar available in the 1950s to discuss South
Africa’s racial complexities. The African-studies department in the United States is a relatively new branch of higher education, with Northwestern University establishing the first contemporary program in 1948. 95 Although interest in Africa grew throughout the
1950s, by the end of the decade the Fellows of the Africans Studies Association directory
still only recognized two hundred individuals.96 Furthermore, scholar Jacob U. Gordon attributes what growth in awareness about Africa did occur to an increased demand for missionaries and the U.S.’s new interest in acquiring Africanists for national defense
91 Ibid, 79. 92 Ibid, 69; 79. 93 Ibid, 82. 94 Ibid, 14. 95 Philip D Curtin. “African Studies: A Personal Assessment.” African Studies Review . (14.3, Dec. 1971), 358. 96 Ibid. 43
purposes.97 Despite growing interest in Africa, actual research into specific African
issues, such as how to discuss and understand South Africa’s complicated racial
problems, remained limited.
Come Back, Africa and Rogosin’s memoirs reflect this limited grammar available
to discuss South Africa. In reading his memoirs from a contemporary academic’s point
of view, Rogosin’s words sound overtly racist or problematic at best. Rogosin’s
discussion of his efforts to cast Vinah’s character is especially heaped in entrenched
racial discourse. For instance, referring to his initial audition for actresses, he described
one of his top four picks to play Zachariah’s wife:
The name of the fourth, of delicate and beautiful features, came as a surprise. Instead of an African surname, hers was Klein. She was a coloured girl. Her features were not African enough for any of the roles. 98
Rogosin’s refusal to use this fourth actress was primarily due to her inability to
fulfill and confirm Rogosin’s preconceived stereotypes of what an African wife was
supposed to look like. Since her racial background is mixed, despite most likely being
born in South Africa, she is not “African” enough. Rogosin’s inability to see the
country’s racial spectrum will be discussed later with regards to his limited ideas of
racism. Similarly, the director describes his first impression of Vinah Bendile as being
impressed by her “Hamitic features.” 99 The adjective “hamitic” refers to the idea that certain African groups were direct descendents of Ham, described in the Bible as Noah’s disgraced son; the adjective was commonly used during the colonial era to describe
Africans who were supposedly more “noble” and “European-like” than other Africans. .
97 Jacob U. Gordon. “Teaching the African Experience: A Pan-Africanist Approach.” African Studies Review . (19.3, Dec. 1976), 109. 98 Rogosin, Come Back, Africa , 54. 99 Ibid. 44
While the hamitic theory has been removed from today’s African studies terminology due
to its implied racism, this description would not have been uncommon in the 1950s.
Rogosin’s use of problematic adjectives and language in his memoirs reflects the film’s
historical moment, in which African studies was not a common academic undertaking.
Additionally, though Come Back, Africa broke away from many stereotypes and
clichés, South Africa’s cinematic history still limits the film. In Rogosin’s preliminary
screenplay, a migrant worker began in the countryside and traveled to Johannesburg;
however, after living in South Africa and talking with Drum writers who were at times
staunchly anti-rural, Rogosin decided to focus only on the urban culture and
experience.100 Yet, this original storyline suggests continuities between Come Back,
Africa , Jim Comes to Joburg (1949), and Cry, the Beloved Country (1952): all three
films focus on a rural versus urban dichotomy, are set in Johannesburg, focus on a rural
migrant coming to the city, use an African male in the leading role, and were produced by
white, foreign directors. 101
In Jim Comes to Joburg and Cry, the Beloved Country , the city is described as corrupting, while the rural is illustrated as more desirable, peaceful, and harmless. This simplified binary ignores the hardships of the countryside and the empowerment of the urban community. However, since these portrayals were not thoroughly examined and questioned in African Studies’ departments, the problems of discussing the city and the countryside as binaries were not widely acknowledged. Thankfully, Rogosin decided to visually represent only the urban experience. This decision prevents the film from falling
100 Rogosin, Come Back, Africa , 48-49. 101 Bickford-Smith, “Urban South African Life.” 45
into the rural versus urban binary. However, Rogosin’s memoirs do not escape this
tendency:
I had an image of the African I wanted…The warm and open face of many of the tribal Africans before they are disillusioned and embittered by life in the machine age set in the framework of white supremacy—a combination assured to destroy even the strongest human qualities. The problem was to find someone in transition, who still retained some innocence and yet had enough experience to grasp the complexities of urban life. He had to express the corrosive effect of apartheid as well as the simplicity of the tribal Africa. He had to speak articulate but ungrammatical English. 102
Like the earlier films, Rogosin frames rural Africans as innocent and simple, while the
urban African becomes bitter and disillusioned. Rogosin continues this stereotype in his
depictions of Zachariah, a rural Africa, as politically naïve and more simpleminded than
his urban counterparts. In contrast, those characters raised in Sophiatown are more
intelligent and saavy.
Rogosin’s descriptions of Afrikaners in his memoirs also suggest an entrenched
racism that constrains his representations. Peter Davis acknowledges Rogosin’s
problematic language in the memoirs but suggests that “these words and attitudes were of
the time.” 103 In other words, a lack of awareness and available grammar to describe
ethnicity and identity compel Rogosin to rely on stereotypes:
There seemed to be two main physical types among the Boers: the majority were monsters with huge paws and enormous shoulders, probably due to a preponderance of Neanderthal man in their heritage; or little office clerks with faded blond moustaches and watery blue eyes, hardly the prototype of the super- race. The contrast between these two types was amusing and the comedy was burlesqued by the Boer women, who were enormous.104
Despite these generalizing words, Rogosin’s stereotypes do not directly translate into visual representations of Afrikaners in the film. Interestingly, Come Back, Africa
102 Ibid, 56. 103 Ibid, 13. 104 Ibid, 62. 46 does not pointedly distinguish between English, Jewish, Afrikaner, or other “white” identities; instead, all whites become the aggressors and blacks their victims. That said, all the policemen in the film are Afrikaners, as denoted by their accents and use of
Afrikaans. Near the climax, the policeman’s violent arrest of Zachariah is also the only instance of white-black violence shown in the film. That the policemen are the only physically violent white characters in the film reflects Rogosin’s ideas of Afrikaners as more physically and harshly violent than other white groups. Another interpretation of the lack of Afrikaners in the film, perhaps a more practical approach, is that most of the white characters in the film are played by Rogosin’s acquaintances in South Africa; the majority of his acquaintances, implied from his descriptions in his memoirs, were anti- apartheid South Africans of English descent. Thus, the lack of an Afrikaner presence may be attributed to Rogosin’s lack of contact with anti-apartheid Afrikaners.
Nonetheless, his depiction of all white characters as aggressors suggests his indictment of all who live in South Africa who do not speak out against apartheid as guilty of complacency.
As Rogosin’s memoirs illustrate, he was not free of bias and stereotypes. While some of these stereotypes were rooted in the limited grammar available in the 1950s to discuss identity politics, they also stem from his status as an American filmmaker visiting
South Africa. Although he spent months reading about South Africa, living in
Johannesburg, and consulting with the Drum writers for their input, Rogosin was still a foreigner in South Africa and carried his 1950s American social situation with him.
Thus, Rogosin created a film about apartheid’s racism and Sophiatown’s urban culture that was filtered through an American lens. For example, Rogosin’s insistence that he
47
made an anti-apartheid film due to a possible fascist link reflects the U.S. Cold War
mentality and American obsession with containment policies; his continual depiction of
himself as a spy in enemy territory furthers this Cold War mindset.
Similarly, the film’s emphasis on the nuclear family suggests Rogosin’s
Americanization of South African culture. From the 1940s to the early 1960s, American
values centered around family life: men and women married younger and at a higher rate,
resulting in the baby boomer generation.105 Strict gender roles came to define the stereotypical nuclear family, with the wife as the homemaker and the husband fulfilling the breadwinner role. These dominant ideologies were reinforced through political discourse and visual representations, such as commercials and television shows.106
Reflecting this American fixation on the nuclear family, Come Back, Africa’s narrative centers around the destruction of Zachariah’s family. Beginning with Zachariah leaving his family to work in the mines, the destruction ends with his son becoming involved with violence and his wife murdered by a tsotsi. Thus, the family is the central storyline of the plot.
Additionally, as Dorothy Driver argues, Drum magazine in the 1950s reinforced
Western ideals of the nuclear family; its articles and illustrations portrayed a “modern form of romantic love within an ideology of domesticity, aiming for the establishment of a consumer-oriented nuclear family, headed by the husband and father.” 107 Come Back,
Africa ’s plot reiterates Westernized patriarchal gender norms. Males, as the primary
roles, are more action oriented and intellectual, while females play only marginal,
105 Elaine Tyler May. Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era . (New York: Basic Books, 1999), viii-x. 106 Ibid, 11. 107 Dorothy Driver. “ Drum magazine (1951-99) and the spatial configurations of gender.” Text, Theory, Space. Edited by Kate Darian-Smith, Liz Gunner, and Sarah Nuttall. (New York: Routledge, 1996), 233. 48
domesticated roles. For example, despite the family’s financial hardships, Zachariah is
fiercely against his wife Vinah becoming a domestic worker to help support the family.
Additionally, Marumu is used as an example of the negative consequences that occur
when the nuclear family disintegrates. Themba makes a point of connecting Marumu’s
violence to his disjointed childhood: his father was murdered by a tsotsi, leaving Marumu
to the whims of his overprotective mother. The lack of a father figure and his
overbearing mother, who is represented as the “bad mother” American stereotype from
the 1950s, supposedly help explain Marumu’s turn to criminal acts.
Another illustration of Rogosin’s American biases in the film is the lack of
representation of South Africa’s racial spectrum. As mentioned earlier, Rogosin hired his
cast based on who he felt looked “authentically” African. Thus, the majority of the
characters are dark-skinned South Africans, who fulfill Rogosin’s personal stereotype of
being superficially “African.” Yet, in his memoirs, Rogosin states that “the coloured
people of South Africa were really the great tragedy of the country…they were outcasts
from both groups [white and African].” 108 Despite this acknowledgement, the coloured
experience under apartheid is almost completely ignored in the film. Morris, as the only
coloured character in the film, briefly discusses the troubles of identifying as coloured.
However, his laments are easily dismissed as they occur at the end of the shebeen scene
and the other characters are too drunk to listen. The film’s lack of racial diversity is
especially surprising due to Sophiatown’s multicultural makeup, which is often cited as a
primary reason for the neighborhood’s destruction.
Although my argument is speculative, I believe that Rogosin left out South
Africa’s complex racial diversity due to his internalized American ideas of racism as
108 Rogosin, Come Back, Africa, 33. 49 black versus white. During the 1950s, the Civil Rights movement in the United States was generalized and publicized as a white/black issue; this binary left out the experiences of Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, and any number of different ethnicities. In making
Come Back, Africa , Rogosin translated this black versus white dichotomy into his representation of racism in South Africa. Thus, his film ignores Indians, coloureds, international immigrants, and a multitude of ethnicities and constructed races that also faced oppression under the apartheid system. Relying on this racial binary simplifies
South Africa’s complex identity politics: as mentioned before, whites are the oppressors and blacks are the oppressed.
Suggesting another manifestation of Rogosin’s biases, the film’s tsotsis are visually represented as menaces. Zachariah first encounters them in a dark ally at night; his friend Steven quickly pulls him back into the frame’s background, moment before the gangsters walk through the foreground, shrouded in shadow and blurred by the camera.
The inability to fully and clearly see the figures creates an atmosphere of danger and mystery, heightened by Steven’s comment that “if you ever come across them at night, you won’t know what hit you. Tsotsis!” In contrast, when the Drum writers discuss
Marumu in the shebeen scene, they use a more sympathetic tone. While not condoning his criminality, they portray him as a victim of the township’s violent culture. Thus, the
African intellectuals’ representation of the tsotsi figure contrasts with Rogosin’s visual depictions.
Since the Drum writers have the most control over their dialogue in the shebeen scene, their personal opinion of Marumu is represented; however, the rest of the film, in which Rogosin has more control, portrays the tsotsi as a more menacing figure. The
50
dichotomy between Rogosin’s understanding of the tsotsi and the Drum writers’
perception is rooted in their different cultural backgrounds; Rogosin, as a white American
visiting South Africa, seems unable to fully comprehend the potentially empowering acts
of tsotis. In the 1950s American media, the press portrayed tsotsis as savages rather than
as a product of segregating legislation and centuries of oppression. For example, a 1957
Time magazine article entitled “Tribal Instinct,” describes the Johannesburg gang “The
Russians” as primitive, “jungle” savages:
In a prepared ambush along the slum town’s dusty main street, the Basuto ‘Russians’ were waiting with jungle knives, needle-sharp iron rods, battle-axes and a few guns. When the Zulus bore down, the Russians tried to corner each singly. Then, in the horrified words of a local police officer, who witnessed the scene, they would ‘hack his knee or his Achilles tendon so that he would drop, then slowly, neatly, talking to him all the while and wishing him a pleasant journey to Hell, process to pare his head with a knife until he fell dead. 109
After reading descriptions like the above excerpt, Rogosin’s portrayal of the tsotsi as a violent menace to society is unsurprising; however, to the writers at Drum magazine, the tsotsi figure is more complicated. Articles in Drum throughout the 1950s often celebrated gangsters in the township as “economic rebels” to an oppressive system. 110
During the 1950s, practically every issue of Drum included a fictional gangster story or
interview with an actual tsotsi that glorified “the affluent urban-lifestyle enjoyed by these
men.” 111 In his book Bo-Tsotsi , Clive Glaser argues that tsotsi is best understood as a subculture, in which participants “dressed, spoke and behaved in a clearly identifiable way” and “imitated American city slicker clothing styles, spoke tsotsitaal, indulged in
109 “Tribal Instinct.” Time . 30 Sept 1957. < http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/ 0,9171,891359,00.html> accessed 10 Feb. 2008. 110 Mac Fenwick. “Tough Guy, Eh? The Gangster Figure in Drum.” Journal of Southern African Studies. (22.4, Dec. 1996), 626; 629. 111 Ibid, 620. 51
some kind of criminal or quasi-legal activity, and generally moved around in gangs.” 112
Glaser’s description emphasizes the gangster’s agency rather than simply labeling him as a criminal.
Therefore, this subculture became empowering as “accepting New York could be a way of rejecting Pretoria.” 113 To South Africans living in Johannesburg’s townships, membership in one of the big tsotsi gangs created admiration: criminal activity led to economic benefits for many Africans, which was seen as succeeding “not only in spite of white domination but at the expense of it.” 114 While tsotis’ violence was not celebrated, their actions could be interpreted as attempting “get one’s own back against a society in whose functioning one plays no part.” 115 Due to these ideas of the tsotsi as a resistant figure, in 1959 Drum not only named a “Man of the Year” but also a “Tsotsi of the
Year.” 116 Tstotsis hence co-opted their style and behavior as resistance against apartheid.
Instead of accepting an unjust system, they abandoned laws and created social havoc, forcing police to continually struggle to remain in control.
Yet, Drum ’s glorification of the tsotsi lifestyle is not expressed in the film. While
Come Back, Africa represents Marumu as a product of a violent society, he and the other faceless tstotsis are still simplified into a good versus evil binary. Although Marumu is, like Zachariah, a victim of oppression, he remains the villain because of his unprovoked murder of Vinah. Thus, while Can Themba may “feel sorry for him,” the audience does not recognize him as a resistant character. Rogosin refuses to explore how Marumu may be utilizing the tsotsi subculture as a form of resistance. His representations of Marumu
112 Ibid, 47. 113 Hannerz “Sophiatown: The View from Afar,” 192. 114 Fenwick, “Tough Guy,” 626. 115 Qtd in Glaser, Bo-Tsotsi , 61. 116 Fenwick, “Tough Guy,” 628. 52 and the other tsotsis is therefore another site in which Rogosin reconciles an aspect of
South African culture through an American lens. In the next chapter, I will further explore how individual characters are represented in the film, focusing on the intersection of different encodings and ideologies.
53
Chapter Four: Characters and Bodies
Actors and actresses in films are inherently bodies on display. As such, how
characters are cinematically represented and how the audience decodes these images are
crucial questions when analyzing the film’s disruption or reinforcement of stereotypes
and entrenched ideologies. Focusing on representations of gender, class, and race, I
argue that the film, though it gives black characters more agency than previous films, is
not an inclusive portrayal of the apartheid experience: rural, non-black, international,
non-heterosexual, and female South Africans are all marginalized or ignored in the film.
Thus, Come Back, Africa’s characters portray a limited idea of what it means to be black
or white, male or female, or anything in between, in South Africa.
Through representation and mise-en-scene, the film’s physical form reflects sites of negotiation between dominant and resistant ideologies. The ideologies I predominantly focus on are white supremacy, propagated by the government and white characters, and patriarchy, which is reinforced by the government, the male characters, and Rogosin. The cast and their characters actively or subconsciously negotiate their response to apartheid in varying degrees, between acceptance and resistance. Since all black characters are not equally disempowered, they also negotiate power among themselves. The following section closely analyzes Come Back, Africa’s portrayals of bodies and characters as physical sites of power negotiations, where discourses stemming from the government, the filmmaker, and each other constantly intersect.
As discussed in the introduction, my intention for this chapter is not to provide an all-inclusive summary of each character. Instead, I hope these scene reflections will serve as springboards for discussion, particularly about how images signify through mise-
54
en-scene. Although I include seemingly insignificant details, I believe that any detail
within the film, intentionally included by Rogosin or not, is important to the scene’s
functioning. Furthermore, I would like to acknowledge that my personal biases,
particularly as a white, American college student, shape how I decode and interpret the
film. While the following descriptions are perhaps the most subjective in the thesis, they
are not meant to be conclusive but rather initiators of future analyses.
Zachariah
In Come Back, Africa , unlike most Hollywood classical-style films, the protagonist is not introduced with an establishing shot. Instead, the film opens with
Zachariah blending into a crowd of black South Africans; one of many, he is indistinguishable from anyone else in the crowd walking to work. This tactic prepares the viewer for an alternative-style film and also suggests that Zachariah is a “typical” black South African. Rogosin’s representation of “typical” is thus that of a working class, black, heterosexual, male migrant laborer. Zachariah also implies a gender code, as he is a father who wants to fulfill the breadwinner role in the stereotypical nuclear family.
Since Zachariah is the protagonist, the audience sees the world of South Africa through his eyes, meaning that we understand apartheid through the of a black, male migrant laborer gaze.
55
To suggest his rural roots, Rogosin uses Zachariah’s costume to signify his class and country background. He dons a floppy hat, tattered jacket, and patched pants, suggesting his poverty. While the African men who are comfortable and acclimated to their urban setting wear sharp, tsotsi-style fedoras inspired by Hollywood gangster films,
Zachariah wears a less trendy, more casual hat that slouches over his forehead. This country status haunts him throughout the film as he is continually framed as naïve and an outsider to the urban world. For instance, when Zachariah first sees his reflection in his boss’s mirror, he is visibly startled. Rogosin assumes that the protagonist, a rural South
African, is unfamiliar enough with the “modern” world that he would be scared by his reflection. Whether this generalization is realistic for migrant workers coming into the city or not is perhaps debatable, but more importantly, Zachariah is repeatedly shown as more innocent and unsophisticated than his urban counterparts.
Zachariah’s naivety is again emphasized during the shebeen scene. Although
Zachariah’s traumatic fight with Marumu instigates a discussion about racial politics in the shebeen, the black intellectuals do not include him in the conversation. Echoing this exclusiveness, Rogosin also refuses to entirely include Zachariah in the frame. He is pushed to the back left corner of the screen, where he is often blocked by Morris, and given only two lines of dialogue; in response to Morris’s question about whether or not he understands their political discussion, he says, “I’m not understand but I like it.”
Thus, both Rogosin and the intellectuals are condescending to Zachariah in this scene.
Rogosin forces Zachariah, the actor and the character, to say dialogue that suggests ignorance while the intellectuals mostly ignore him. They all assume that Zachariah does not understand their discussion of Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country simply because
56 of his rural, migrant labor class and background. In comparison to the intellectuals,
Zachariah is thus marginalized and disempowered, suggesting a social hierarchy that exists within the township community.
Zachariah is also disempowered through his interactions with his bosses, who reinforce white supremacist ideology. Over the course of the narrative, his employers call him “kaffir,” “savage,” and “stupid.” This continual belittlement and humiliation
emasculate Zachariah, undermining his role as
the dominant member and bread-winner of his
family. Yet, his character does not always take
this belittlement passively. After being caught
procrastinating during his first job, his female
boss yells at him and clearly holds the majority of
the power. In the frame, Rogosin positions her
body to Zachariah’s right, making her reflection
visible in the mirror to his left, completely
surrounding him with her image. However, when
she threatens to call the police, Zachariah refuses to accept her condescension and yells, “Call the Police!” With this dialogue, a brief psychological and physical power shift occurs. The boss steps back, taking her reflection in the mirror with her, as Zachariah’s body suddenly hovers over her own; his reflection also appears in the mirror beside his real body, implying his increased control of the scene. For the first time during the plot, Zachariah indicates his potential empowerment.
57
Despite Zachariah’s several acts of resistance, such as the one above and the
previously-described joyride sequence, he is ultimately oppressed and disempowered.
The only person he can control is his wife, Vinah. Recreating dominant ideals of gender
roles, the film illustrates Zachariah’s power over his wife through a conversation about
whether or not Vinah should seek employment as a domestic worker. Zachariah is
strongly against the idea as he flexes his authority and tells her to stay at home with the
children. However, even this control withers away when their economic situation
worsens and Vinah finds work out of necessity. Furthermore, since the audience
sympathizes with Zachariah’s situation, the audience is meant to despair over Vinah’s
employment. Instead of seeing her employment as an empowering act for black females,
her employment is seen as another tragedy due to apartheid’s oppression. The film thus
reinforces Western-influenced patriarchal standards of male and female gender roles, in
which men earn money and women remain at home.
Vinah
As a black female from rural South Africa, Vinah is the most oppressed figure in
South Africa’s social hierarchy and in the film.117 Throughout Come Back, Africa ,
Vinah’s agency is constantly threatened by her husband, policemen, and Marumu. Her
117 Maingard, “South Africa Documentary Film,” 663.
58 primary role is to emotionally support her husband through his various mishaps and discuss her children’s education. Instead of depicting Vinah as actively wanting to be a homemaker, the film suggests that these chores are “natural” for a woman, promoting
Western ideals of female domesticity. Thus, she is rarely in a shot without a child and the majority of her dialogue is between her and her husband, often about their children.
Her marginalization is reinforced by her husband’s silencing of her voice. When the couple searches for a new house, the landlady asks Vinah how long she has been in
Johannesburg. Although she opens her mouth to reply, Zachariah answers for her. The landlady then asks about her pass, which her husband again answers for her. Made to conform to strict gender norms that designate her as caretaker, Vinah is unable to speak for herself, unless she wants to discuss domestic topics.
Although Vinah most often digests her oppression passively, during one argument with Zachariah, she voices her hopes of getting a job and dissatisfaction with her present situation. After Zachariah tells her she cannot find employment outside their home, she says, “Every time I ask for something you always say no.” This dialogue illustrates the frustrations of black women who face oppression from the government, white employers, and black males in townships. However, in this scene, the audience is more sympathetic towards Zachariah because he is the protagonist and recently has lost his job. The scene’s camera angles and character placement also favor Zachariah over Vinah. While
Vinah is talking, her face is often hidden in shadow or turned away from the camera. In contrast, Zachariah faces directly towards the camera or is only half in shadow, allowing the audience to connect with him more easily. Once Vinah states her discontent,
Zachariah stands up while Vinah remains sitting; using his increased height, he
59 demonstrates his power over her as he continues arguing and then walks away without waiting for Vinah’s response. Furthermore, although Vinah does get a job as a domestic worker, the film does not frame this as a victory over her patriarchal husband. Instead, she unceremoniously and suddenly one day has a job, presumably out of necessity.
Throughout Come Back, Africa , Rogosin exploits Vinah’s character to create
sympathy for Zachariah. Vinah’s dialogue often simply reinforces Zachariah’s troubles,
not her own problems as a marginalized
and poverty-stricken black female. For
example, the scene after Zachariah’s arrest
is the only scene in which Vinah is the
central character. Instead of focusing on
her worries and difficulties due to
apartheid, Rogosin accentuates Zachariah’s absence. Vinah paces around the house,
looks down the long streets of Sophiatown, and briefly cries; yet, instead of feeling
sympathy for Vinah, the audience wonders when and whether Zachariah will return.
Similarly, when Vinah is murdered, the majority of the emotion in the scene comes from
Zachariah’s anguish once he finds her dead body. Thus, throughout the film, Vinah’s
role and voice are diminished and used to further develop her husband’s character.
Along with being silenced by her husband, multiple males suggest their physical
domination over her body. Near the end of the film, a group of Afrikaner policemen
forcedly enter Vinah’s housing and arrest Zachariah. Once they drag Zachariah away,
one of the policemen makes a sexual advancement towards Vinah. Cowering in the
corner, Vinah is completely vulnerable as the policeman gropes her body and speaks
60
Afrikaans, a language she does not understand. The policeman only stops his advances when another policeman arrives and tells him to leave. Vinah, however, is shown as powerless and nearly a rape victim, foreshadowing Marumu’s similar advances at the end of the film.
During the last scene, Marumu, aware of Zachariah absence, forcedly enters
Vinah’s house and attempts to seduce her. Again, Vinah is shown as helpless against her male aggressor, though Marumu goes further than the policeman and actually murders
Vinah. Through these attacks, the males characters objectify and assert ownership over her body. Not only is Vinah the victim of segregation laws and white supremacy, but as a disempowered black female she is also the victim of the country’s patriarchy.
Therefore, of the power structures represented in Come Back, Africa , her negotiated experience is the closest to complete domination. Her race and gender coalesce to heighten her oppression, demoting her to the bottom of South Africa’s social hierarchy.
Miriam
Confirming Come Back, Africa’s overall patriarchy, Miriam’s five minute appearance makes her, after Vinah, the second largest female role. Although the film’s overall lack of females continues the tendency of South African films to emphasize the male experience, (as in Jim Comes to Joburg and Cry, the Beloved Country), it also
61
suggests Rogosin’s fondness for Miriam. When Rogosin first met Miriam, he originally
considered her for the part of Vinah; however, he wanted to include her voice in the film
and felt “for the wife of a Zulu tribesman to have a trained voice would have been a bit
ludicrous.” 118 As such, he cast her to appear as herself in the shebeen. In the scene,
Miriam interrupts the African intellectuals’ discussion of Alan Paton and liberalism.
Wearing a tight, white evening gown and stating that she just came from a party, she appears to be the most Westernized and upper class black female in the film.
Despite her portrayal as a confident, upper class woman, the males in the room remain higher on the social ladder. After walking into the shebeen, the males all ask
Miriam to sing for them, though she refuses saying, “Not now.” However, they influence her to not only sing, but also to stand up and dance, giving the men and the film’s audience a clear view of her body. Throughout Miriam’s two songs, Rogosin capitalizes on Miriam’s “exoticness” and sexuality. During several close up shots of her shoulders and face, Miriam’s sleeveless dress is completely cut out of the frame, suggesting nudity.
Miriam’s body is thus on display for the African men in the shebeen as well as the
Western audiences watching the film, evoking the stereotype of a hypersexualized, black female.
Conflict exists over whether Miriam is using her agency to capitalize on the sexualization of her body or if the men and film are objectifying her against her will. Due to the rehearsed tone of her performance, Miriam seems to recognize that her body can further her performance; she willingly stands up and dances for the men, smiling and unafraid of her sexuality. However, a gesture at the end of the scene also suggests her irritation and discontent with this objectification. After her last song, Miriam sits on the
118 Rogosin, Come Back, Africa , 55-56. 62
couch next to Bloke, who appears to start caressing her body, though Miriam promptly
pushes him away. Since the gesture occurs on the fringes of the frame, with Miriam not
entirely shown, I assume that this moment was not supposed to be caught on film. Bloke
also looks straight at the camera with an embarrassed grin, incriminating his spontaneous
and reprehensible actions. Whether the gesture is unscripted or not, the caressing
illustrates the male characters’ assumed right to make physical advances on females,
welcomed or not. Furthermore, Miriam enters the shebeen only after the political
discussion is over. She is allowed to sing, dance, and display her body but not to discuss
intellectual and complex ideas about race and representation; the female is once again
applauded for her sexuality but ultimately denied access to the male world. 119
Hazel
Another representation of black femininity is Hazel, who appears in the first
shebeen scene. Due to Hazel’s doting on the shebeen’s customers and her advances on
Zachariah, the film insinuates that she is a prostitute. However, instead of focusing on
119 Another interesting layer to Miriam Makeba’s agency is that she seems to have benefited the most from Come Back, Africa . After being invited by the Italian government to the film’s premier in Venice, she refused to return to South Africa and instead became “Mama Africa,” an internationally-acclaimed singer. She appeared in Paul Simon’s 1987 Graceland tour and was the first African to win a Grammy. “Miriam Makeba, A true South African musical legend.” Cape Town Magazine .
the character’s complexity and oppression, Hazel’s primary role in the film is to serve as
an object and a temptation for Zachariah and the other black intellectuals. Neither Hazel’s
background nor her reasons for becoming a prostitute are revealed, though one assumes
that poverty played a role. This lack of contextualization prevents the audience from
sympathizing with her situation. By contrast, although Marumu is a criminal, the
audience is able to relate to him due to Can Themba’s description of his biography and
reasons for illicit behavior. Since Hazel’s history is not discussed, she becomes an
insignificant character and is thus marginalized.
Although Hazel is portrayed as an assertive female in control of her own
sexuality, the film also hints at her subjugation. When Zachariah first visits the shebeen,
he leaves and then re-enters the building. Rogosin’s cut is confusing as the audience
expects Zachariah to return to the room with the other black patrons. Instead, he cuts
directly to another space, in which Zachariah and Hazel are alone. This break in spatial
and temporal continuity creates an unsettling atmosphere that mirrors Zachariah’s
confusion over whether or not he should pursue Hazel. While Zachariah initially accepts
her advances, he then pushes her away. In response, she yells at him to get out; however,
after realizing she is about to lose a customer, she is forced to beg him to come back,
though he refuses. Hazel is shown to be a slave to her black male customers’ whims.
Similar to Miriam, Hazel’s body is objectified. When attempting to cast the film,
Rogosin acknowledged that Hazel’s acting was too poor for a main role, but “was so
suitable a siren that [he] took the risk of her for this minor part.” 120 Therefore, Rogosin hired Hazel primarily for her sexuality. Steven, Zachariah’s friend, reiterates this objectification in the film by stating that “she’s a nice little thing.” While this dialogue
120 Rogosin, Come Back, Africa , 54. 64
actually designates her as a “thing,” an object, he also refuses her the status of an adult
woman by describing as “nice” and “little.” Additionally, her acting consists
predominantly of gestures that signify a seductress, such as her caressing of Zachariah’s
face. When a man wants to dance with her, he has only to pull her up and she obeys.
Similar to all the female characters in Come Back, Africa , while she is allowed to sit and
listen to political discussions, she is not allowed to participate. The film’s dialogue,
Rogosin’s reasons for her casting, and her characters’ gestures all serve to emphasize
Hazel as an object meant to satisfy male desire.
Martha
In contrast, Martha, the shebeen queen, is the only female character who asserts her agency over the male characters. Although she possesses only a minor role, Martha resists dominant patriarchy ideology and runs an illegal pub that provides alcohol to the male characters; the shebeen is especially important because it provides the township community with a location in which to discuss politics. Empowered by her ownership of the shebeen, Martha is both financially independent and a contributor to the community’s culture. At the end of the second shebeen scene, Martha tells the men they are too drunk and must leave, which they do. Throughout the entire film, this dialogue is the only instance in which a female character commands a male character and the male obeys.
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However, Martha is still limited by her portrayal as a nurturer and caretaker for the male shebeen patrons. When Zachariah fights with Marumu, she comforts him and expresses worry, while the other characters, all male, chide him for getting into a fight.
Similar to Miriam and Hazel, Martha is not allowed to participate in the political conversation at the shebeen. Although she owns the pub and is present for political conversations, she is shuffled to the fringe of the frame where she sits and occasionally blinks. The sharp-eyed observer will notice that she continually disrupts the shebeen scene’s continuity, as she appears sometimes on screen right and others on screen left, with no apparent motivation for the switch.
Suggesting her visual insignificance in the scene, her character’s jump cuts are not distracting or disrupting. Additionally, her marginalization is increased by her complete lack of voice; after expressing her worry for
Zachariah, she is not allowed any other dialogue until she forces the men to leave before they are arrested. Again, the film designates the realm of women to predominantly passive, listening roles, while the males participate in political, artistic, and ideological discussions.
Marumu
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Marumu’s character, as the only tsotsi who is given a name and brief biography in the film, is the most violent and dominating black character. Although Marumu is not clearly visible until the store sequence, he makes an implied appearance during
Zachariah’s first visit to the shebeen, when a group of unknown tsotsis walk by Zachariah and Steven. With this context, Marumu is already established as a menacing, mysterious, and physically dangerous character. In the store scene, he pushes Zachariah out of his way, cutting to the front of the line at the general store. Rogosin refuses to let the camera linger on Marumu’s actions, as if to imply that this is a tsotsi’s normal behavior and is therefore nothing extraordinary enough to capture for more than a couple seconds of film.
The storekeeper and the customers know Marumu’s danger and refuse to protest against his actions, suggesting his domination over others. Unlike most of the characters,
Marumu refuses to follow rules and instead flaunts his thorough understanding of
Sophiatown culture. He is thus portrayed as a saavy, if brutish, character in complete control of his urban setting.
At the end of the film, Marumu enters Vinah’s house without knocking, again emphasizing his power over the township. Although Vinah tells him to leave, he instead tries to seduce her, dominating over her body; when she resists, he strangles her. During this violent attack, Rogosin keeps the camera primarily on Marumu instead of Vinah, reinforcing Marumu’s control over the scene and his victim. Yet, the camera also
67 dehumanizes him, as his expression through the scene remains cold and uncompassionate. Once Vinah is dead, he pauses and then quickly leaves the house. As
Can Themba already stated during the shebeen scene, “Nothing’s ever discovered in
Sophiatown.” Rogosin thus implies that Marumu will not be punished for his crime and he will simply continue to roam the streets, asserting his power over the law.
This final scene adds to the tsotsi discourse discussed earlier: is Marumu a victim of an oppressed and violent society or simply a brutal aggressor and murderer?
Rogosin’s dehumanization of the character, specifically Marumu’s inability to show emotion, suggests that his life in Sophiatown has completely desensitized him to the horrors of violence. The director’s refusal to depict his anguish or regret suggests his victimization, supported by Can Themba’s earlier disclosure of his harsh, impoverished childhood. However, in a classical Hollywood film, a character that murders the protagonist’s wife would instantly be labeled as the villain. A tension thus exists over how Rogosin wants the audience to respond to Marumu. While a viewer’s instinct is most likely to label him as a criminal and a villain, his contextualization during the shebeen scene explains his actions, making the audience at least somewhat more sympathetic to his plight.
Penny whistlers and Musicians
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Reflecting on his stay in South Africa, Rogosin continually writes of his amusement and wonder at Johannesburg’s music. This interest can be seen throughout the film, as pennywhistling, gumboot dancing, and a black quartet singing Elvis Presley all appear in the film. On a practical level, Rogosin’s continual inclusion of music can perhaps be explained by his cover story, in which he told government officials that he was making a music travelogue. In case the government questioned his film, Rogosin had musically-oriented footage to convince suspicious officials of his “unpolitical” intentions. Whether due to genuine interest or simply the need for a cover story, the inclusion of diverse music genres suggests Johannesburg’s variety and multiculturalism.
Importantly, the film’s diversity of music prevents one form of music from becoming symbolic of the entire black population’s musical tastes.
The film’s portrayals of the performers’ bodies are also diverse. In a shot of penny whistling in the township, the foreignness of the music is emphasized by focusing on the non-Western dance movements. The scene is gripping because Western audiences are unfamiliar with the genre and performance style of these musicians. Similarly, the shots of gumboot dancing are also exoticized, as this genre is again unfamiliar to most international viewers. However, the shots of the rock band and penny whistling in the city center are more complicated. In contrast to the all-black audiences from the township, these city performers are on display for a multi-racial audience. During the scene, Rogosin cuts to close ups of the audience watching the performers. Instead of the performers being exhibited, Rogosin puts the racially-mixed audience and their reactions on display. The viewer cannot help but search the audience for overtly approving or disapproving faces. This twist in the visuals is perhaps one of the best purely visual
69
commentaries in the film; the mix of reactions shown in these shots, varying from disgust
to thorough enjoyment, suggests the complexity of racism in South Africa. Additionally,
these shots disrupt the stereotype of a black musician performing for a white audience;
instead, the white and black audience members unknowingly perform for a Western
theater audience.
White Employers and Black Intellectuals
Comparing Rogosin’s representations of Zachariah’s white employers to the
African intellectuals furthers the film’s commentary on white supremacy. In the shebeen scenes, the African intellectuals are articulate, passionate, and intelligent. Their education and upper class status in the township community are accentuated as they discuss Alan
Patton, art, religion, and the country’s racial politics. However, due to the injustices of apartheid, they remain socially inferior to any of the film’s white employers. In contrast and perhaps with the exception of the Jewish hotel owner, the white employers are all illustrated as brutish and overly harsh. When Eddie asks the road crew supervisor to give
Zachariah a job, the supervisor threateningly raises his hand as if to slap the friend unjustifiably because he did note refer to him as “Boss.” Although the black intellectuals are portrayed as more sophisticated, they cannot achieve the white employers’ social
70 status due to the unjust, white supremacist policies of apartheid. Thus, while they flaunt their agency in the shebeen, they are limited by South Africa’s oppression.
Crowds
Throughout Come Back, Africa , crowds of South Africans are depicted during transitional montages; mise-en-scene, racial composition, and atmosphere vary widely depending on these shots’ context within the plot. The opening sequence transitions from shots of buildings, to throngs of racially-mixed pedestrians, and finally to a group of black migrant workers walking into Johannesburg. Suggesting the city’s hostilities towards blacks, the beginning images portray the city as an endless canvass of repeating shapes and menacing structures. Shifting to the street level, the camera then captures a racially-mixed crowd glaring at the camera, mirroring the looming structures with unwelcoming eyes. These initial shots create an aura of unease and antagonism, exposing
Johannesburg as a cold and inhospitable city for non-white South Africans.
During the last section of the montage, the shots reveal a group of all black migrant workers coming into the city. Although the audience does not yet recognize
Zachariah, he is walking amongst the crowd. After several subsequent shots that progressively dolly in on Zachariah, the viewer becomes aware that the man is the protagonist. However, the focus on the crowd instead of the protagonist suggests that
Zachariah shares a similar status and background as the other workers that surround him.
This idea of a collective experience among the crowd is strengthened by the title card that appears on the screen:
The film was made secretly in order to portray the true conditions of life in South Africa today. There are no professional actors in this drama of the fate of a man
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and his country. This is the story of Zachariah, one of the hundreds of thousands of Africans forced each year off the land by the regime and into the gold mines.
Subsequent shots of crowds reinforce this emphasis on a shared “black” experience by not lingering on individuals: if Zachariah is shown, he is not singled out with cinematic devices. While the audience recognizes him, he blends in with the other Africans, implying that he is symbolic of many Africans who live in shantytowns and experience similar employment problems.
Perhaps Rogosin’s most interesting use of crowds and bodies occurs in the mines’ visually striking shots. Above the ground, Rogosin shows a seemingly endless line of workers drudging to the mine elevators. Due to the low lighting, only the workers’ helmet lights can be seen, creating an eerie procession of head lamps disembodied from their workers. Despite the large amounts of bodies, the lack of humanity in the shot due to the abstraction is startlingly. This effect is reiterated inside the mine. In one shot, the frame is fractured into three levels of staircases; on each level, a row of humans pressed into each others’ backs slowly moves horizontally across the frame. The rhythm of the mass of bodies and the extreme order of their descent into the mine suggest their bodies are like cogs in a machine. Similar to the above-ground shot, despite the large numbers of people, the bodies are captured as if they are mechanical parts, stealing their humanity.
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Rogosin’s use of bodies is open to multiple readings. Throughout the film, black
South Africans are repeatedly shown moving in unison. They are shown uniformly walking through the streets, practicing mining techniques, and digging at a construction site. In each instance, the bodies merge into one physical form, moving simultaneously and removing their individuality. Visually, the bodies and their movements reinforce the motif of pattern and repetition, helping to keep the film aesthetically cohesive. The dehumanized bodies of black migrant workers also emphasize the degrading aspects of the mines and suggest that South Africa’s economy is built on these nameless black bodies. A more sinister reading is that Rogosin is implying the force and potential violence of the masses if they decided to revolt against their oppression; this illustration of black power, whether a conscious or subconscious encoding by Rogosin, is hinted at throughout the film: Zachariah physically questions his first employer’s power, the children fight in the township, the continual references to tsotsis.
The constant focus on black bodies contrasts with the lack of shots of white crowds. White characters are rarely shown in groups of more than two or three. Shots of
73 white characters also lack feelings of a strong vibrant culture and sense of community that are often present in the shots of black crowds. Instead of establishing South Africa as a haven for white immigrants, Rogosin suggests the seclusion and monotony that stems from the culture’s strict segregation. For instance, the scenes from Zachariah’s first employer in Johannesburg suggest the isolation of the white couple. The husband and wife are framed together in only one scene, during which they irritably argue about
Zachariah. They are not portrayed as a warm, loving family and neither husband nor wife interacts with other white friends. The largest crowd of white characters, with the exception of the crowds watching the musicians in the city, is the group of Afrikaner policemen at the end of the film; however, their portrayals are extremely negative, as they imply that policemen as morally corrupt and unnecessarily violent. Although Rogosin’s depictions of white characters are not always condemning, when compared to the shots of black characters, the white community is bland, lifeless, and confined.
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Conclusion
Come Back, Africa documents the unique but fading cultural vibrancy and
political activism during the late 1950s in South Africa. After the Sharpeville Massacre
in March 1960, two weeks before the film’s release in New York, the National Party
declared a state of emergency and intensified its oppression of non-whites. 121 Its ban on opposition groups, including the ANC, sent resistant members abroad or underground. In this post-Sharpeville Massacre era of heightened security, Rogosin’s film would probably not have been possible to create. Come Back, Africa thus reflects the last moments of what would later be coined the Sophiatown Renaissance, before many black intellectuals were sent into exile. The government’s transition into a police state also explains why the film was not publicly shown in South Africa until 1988.122
After Come Back, Africa’s New York premier, Rogosin immersed himself into a
series of political and humanitarian documentaries, though none received wide
distribution or acclaim. Many of these later pictures reflected and expanded upon themes
he established in On the Bowery and Come Back, Africa : 1965’s Good Times, Wonderful
Times explicitly critiques war and fascism, while a series of films in the 1970s explores the American black experience. Through his continuing efforts to explore inequalities and racism, South Africa never strayed far from his mind; when he died in 2000, he was in the middle of creating an oral history of anti-apartheid activists. 123
121 Vivian Bickford-Smith. “Picturing apartheid: with a particular focus on ‘Hollywood’ histories of the 1970s.” Black and White in Colour: African History on Screen. Edited by Vivian Bickford-Smith and Richard Mendelsohn. (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press), 2007. 122 Bickford-Smith, “Urban South African Life.” 123 Rogozin Family. < http://www.eilatgordinlevitan.com/kurenets/k_pages/rogozin.html > accessed 17 March 2008. 75
In my analysis of Come Back, Africa, I combined film studies with cultural and historical analyses. Since the film’s ideology cannot be completely deconstructed without understanding its historical moment, I provided a brief summary of South
African history to describe the historical events that the Rogosin represented or failed to include. Although he succeeded in portraying Sophiatown’s culture and apartheid’s oppression, he neglected the era’s mass political demonstrations. This gap limits the
Africans’ agency as they are framed as passive victims instead of engaged, active citizens. Additionally, since Rogosin was an American director, I also supplied a brief summary of the U.S. during the 1950s. The director’s attention to family life and his simplification of South Africa’s race politics indicate his interpretation of Sophiatown’s culture through an American lens.
Contextualizing the film within its historical and geographical moment allowed me to consider who is empowered and who is not. While the former question is often discussed with regards to Come Back, Africa , the latter endeavor is mostly ignored in previous academic articles. Females and their characters, for example, are marginalized in the film: Rogosin and the male characters objectify their bodies, delegate them to
Western-like domestic roles, silence their political opinions, and intensify their gendered oppression under apartheid. Similarly, the coloured and Indian experiences, international businesses’ economic support of apartheid, and Marumu’s potential resistance to his oppression are denied space in the narrative. Thus, my approach illuminates the film’s limitations, caused by the government, semiotics, and Rogosin’s social situation.
Both outside and within the film, the cast and their characters are constant sites of negotiation. The characters in the film are influenced by Rogosin’s directions, the cast
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members’ input, the camera’s mise-en-scene, the government’s oppressive legislation,
and a number of other encodings. How the viewer then decodes and forms opinions of
the character suggests another layer that I have not attempted to analyze. Nonetheless,
the complexities of the film are apparent and must not be ignored. Hegemony theory
refuses to simplify characters into an empowered versus oppressed binary, though
previous critics have made such generalizations. By acknowledging the negotiation
process, both within and outside of the diegetic world, I grant characters agency while
recognizing their ideologically-imposed limitations. Martha, the shebeen queen, is an
interesting example: she resists dominant patriarchal ideology by becoming financially
independent through her illegal bar; yet, Rogosin still frames her as female caretaker and
visually marginalizes her to the corners of the frame. Her character is thus a site of
negotiation over whether she resists or confirms patriarchy.
Unfortunately, my method also prioritizes context and ideology over aesthetics.
While the visuals are at times rough, many of the scenes are visually striking. For
instance, in the introduction montage, the camera pans from the top of a building to eye-
line level, creating a “falling” effect, as Balseiro describes it. 124 This shot’s effectiveness cannot be explained away by ideology or context; its effectiveness comes from the artist’s skill in imaginatively recreating reality. When discussing a film’s context and historical moment, these exciting and eye-catching images at times are overlooked in favor of more theoretical points. Future analyses would benefit from recognizing
Rogosin as an auteur and his work as cinematic art, instead of framing the film as a historical document from the 1950s.
124 Balseiro, “Black Claims,” 89. 77
Through this essay, I hope to illustrate Come Back, Africa’s contributions to
South African and American cinema. Before apartheid became a media frenzy and
source of international political activism, Lionel Rogosin was filming the difficulties of
township life and providing prominent black intellectuals a venue for voicing their
frustrations. However, to simply glorify Come Back, Africa as an innovative, anti-racism film is to ignore its intricacies. As a film about South African life made by an American director, it combines both South African and American cultural anxieties, dominant ideologies, and resistant readings into a final product that is not quite a documentary but not necessarily fiction. My description of the film’s limitations is not meant to criticize
Rogosin’s efforts but suggest how films reveal their historical and geographic moment.
Shedding light on these limitations will hopefully lead to future artistic endeavors that continue and hopefully surpass Rogosin’s efforts to debunk stereotypes and empower
South Africans through cinematic innovation.
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Appendix A: Cast and Crew
Zachariah Mgabi...... Zachariah Vinah Bendile………….….Vinah Miriam Makeba………...... Miriam, Singer in second shebeen scene Arnold…………………….Arnold Aunty/Martha………….….Martha, Shebeen queen Dube-Dube…………….….Dube-Dube George Malebye…………..George Marumu…………….……..Marumu, Tsotsi Morris Hugh……….…...…Morris, Asks about the “liberal viewpoint” in second shebeen scene Hazel Futa………….……...Hazel, Prostitute Lewis Nkosi………….…....Lewis Nkosi, Black intellectual and scriptwriter Bloke Modisane.….…...... Bloke Modisane, Black intellectual and scriptwriter Can Themba…….….…..….Can Themba, Black intellectual, who discusses Marumu’s childhood Myrtle Berman…………….Myrtle, First employer in Johannesburg, i.e. Zachariah’s “madam” Rams………………………Rams Steven……………………..Steven, Friend that Zachariah lives with before Vinah arrives Piet Beyleveld……………..Piet Jan Hoogendyk……………Jan, Myrtle’s husband Alexander Sackville……….Alexander Sarah Sackville…………….Sarah Eddie………………………Eddie, Coworker at garage
Lionel Rogosin……...……..Producer, Director, Writer Bloke Modisane……………Writer Lewis Nkosi………………..Writer Ernest Artaria………………Photography Emil Knebel………………..Photography Carl Lerner…………………Editor Boris Sackville……………..South African Consultant Morris Hugh……………….Assistant and Set Builder George Malebye……………Runner McPherson………...……….Pre-production Assistant Elinor Rogosin……………..Pre-production Assistant Miriam Makeba…………….Music Chatur Lal………………….Music
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