Library

Syndetics cover image
Image from Syndetics

African film and literature : adapting violence to the screen / Lindiwe Dovey.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Film and culturePublisher: New York : Columbia University Press, [2009]Copyright date: ©2009Description: 1 online resource (356 pages) : illustrationsContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • computer
Carrier type:
  • online resource
ISBN:
  • 9780231519380 (e-book)
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Additional physical formats: Print version:: African film and literature : adapting violence to the screen.DDC classification:
  • 791.43096 22
LOC classification:
  • PN1993.5.A35 D68 2009
Online resources:
Contents:
Cinema and violence in South Africa -- Fools and victims : adapting rationalized rape into feminist film -- Redeeming features : screening HIV/AIDS, screening out rape in Gavin Hood's Tsotsi -- From black and white to "coloured" : racial identity in 1950s and 1990s South Africa in two versions of A walk in the night -- Audio-visualizing "invisible" violence : remaking and reinventing Cry, the beloved country -- Cinema and violence in francophone West Africa -- Losing the plot, restoring the lost chapter : Aristotle in Cameroon -- African incar(me)nation : Joseph Gaï Ramaka's Karmen geï (2001) -- Humanizing the Old Testament's origins, historicizing genocide's origins : Cheick Oumar Sissoko's La genèse (1999).
Star ratings
    Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Ebrary Online Books Ebrary Online Books Colombo Available CBEBK2000774
Ebrary Online Books Ebrary Online Books Jaffna Available JFEBK2000774
Ebrary Online Books Ebrary Online Books Kandy Available KDEBK2000774
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Analyzing a range of South African and West African films inspired by African and non-African literature, Lindiwe Dovey identifies a specific trend in contemporary African filmmaking-one in which filmmakers are using the embodied audiovisual medium of film to offer a critique of physical and psychological violence. Against a detailed history of the medium's savage introduction and exploitation by colonial powers in two very different African contexts, Dovey examines the complex ways in which African filmmakers are preserving, mediating, and critiquing their own cultures while seeking a united vision of the future. More than merely representing socio-cultural realities in Africa, these films engage with issues of colonialism and postcolonialism, "updating" both the history and the literature they adapt to address contemporary audiences in Africa and elsewhere. Through this deliberate and radical re-historicization of texts and realities, Dovey argues that African filmmakers have developed a method of filmmaking that is altogether distinct from European and American forms of adaptation.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [299]-324) and index.

Includes filmography: pages [289]-298.

Cinema and violence in South Africa -- Fools and victims : adapting rationalized rape into feminist film -- Redeeming features : screening HIV/AIDS, screening out rape in Gavin Hood's Tsotsi -- From black and white to "coloured" : racial identity in 1950s and 1990s South Africa in two versions of A walk in the night -- Audio-visualizing "invisible" violence : remaking and reinventing Cry, the beloved country -- Cinema and violence in francophone West Africa -- Losing the plot, restoring the lost chapter : Aristotle in Cameroon -- African incar(me)nation : Joseph Gaï Ramaka's Karmen geï (2001) -- Humanizing the Old Testament's origins, historicizing genocide's origins : Cheick Oumar Sissoko's La genèse (1999).

Description based on print version record.

Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest, 2015. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest affiliated libraries.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

In this important book, Dovey (Univ. of London, UK) examines how African filmmakers from two distant, and quite different, areas of Africa portray and critique contemporary violence on their continent. One area of focus is postapartheid South Africa, where cinema is still in its formative years and deeply dependent on Hollywood for production and distribution. The other is Francophone West Africa (mainly Senegal, Mali, and Burkina Faso), where cinema is well into its fourth decade, yet often still dependent on French funding and distribution. Exploring how colonial tradition influenced contemporary cinema, the author critiques examples of early films in South Africa (Die Voortrekkers, 1916), films of the colonial film units in 1940s, state-controlled films of the Nationalist Party after 1949, and the often-contradictory attitudes within Francophone West Africa toward censoring French films and outlawing the making of African films. Dovey provides lengthy, insightful analyses of several recent films from each area, including (from South Africa) adaptations of Alan Paton's Cry the Beloved Country and Athol Fugard's Tsotsi and (from West Africa) adaptations of Carmen (Karmen Gai) and the Old Testament book of Genesis (La Genese). Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. C. Pike University of Minnesota

There are no comments on this title.

to post a comment.