Africa on Film: Beyond Black and White - Hardcover

Kenneth Cameron

9780826406583: Africa on Film: Beyond Black and White

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0826406580 ISBN 13: 9780826406583

Publisher: Continuum Intl Pub Group, 1994

From serious social commentary to outrageous camp, from Cry, the Beloved Country to Tarzan and Jungle Queen, American and British films have gone to Africa, either in spirit or reality, to find the treasures that lie there. More than four hundred films have been made about (or in) Africa in the English language, from the beginning of Edison films in the first decade of the twentieth century up to the present. They range from endless "B" movies and boys' adventure films, to the ever-popular animal documentaries and safari docudramas, to serious efforts to understand colonialism and African-American identity. Together they make a fascinating montage of European and American projections - and even occasionally offer an accurate portrait of a continent and its varied peoples. A central theme of Africa on Film is racism. But as the subtitle suggests, there is much more as well: sexism, classism, nationalism, imperialism, pan-Africanism; the complex filmic legacy of a continent in transition, and the world that both forces this transition and watches it. In fluid, amusing, and compelling prose, Cameron shows how English language films dealing with Africa have a mixed legacy of reinforcing racism, sexism, and imperialism, and at the same time challenging it.

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From Library Journal:

In this praiseworthy overview and history of English-language feature films set or shot in Africa, Cameron (The Enjoyment of Theatre, Macmillan, 1991. 3d ed.) concentrates on British, American, and South African films. Throughout, he seeks to look beyond-but not over-the flat label of racism currently applied to the genre. The author is also interested in sexism and the role of women in these films; class representation and how it affects race and gender; changes in the levels of racism over time, and why those changes occurred; what the films reveal about the societies that created them; and why Africa has been such a major location for commercial filmmaking. To answer these questions, Cameron looks at the movies themselves, starting with early Edison silents and continuing through the early 1990s. He critiques major films individually with a film lover's eye for quality, but he also looks for their archetypal figures and recurring themes. Throughout, Cameron's sly wit and humor abound. Highly recommended for academic film collections.
Marianne Cawley, Enoch Pratt Free Lib., Baltimore
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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