The Films of Ousmane Sembène: Discourse, Politics, and Culture By ...

used, mise-en-scène and cinematography play a very significant role in constructing meaning. The current study fills that gap.

Françoise Pfaff undertook a film-by-film analysis of Sembène’s filmography in the book The Cinema of Ousmane Sembène: A Pioneer of African Film (1984), which analyzed eight of Sembène’s films, from Borom Sarret (1963) to Ceddo (1976). Part I of this book presents background information on Africa and cinema, African oral tradition, and the role of the director as modern griot. In addition to language, Pfaff dealt with such features as space and time, actors, objects and their symbolism, soundtrack, lyricism and epic, and comedy and satire. The last section of the book comprises an extensive bibliography of research conducted on African cinema and literature, a Sembène filmography up to 1976, and statements by numerous scholars about Sembène as the leading African filmmaker. In the third chapter, “The Africanness of Sembène’s Film Language,” Pfaff dealt with the issue of language in Sembène’s films. She started by quoting Sembène: “We have had enough of feathers and tom-toms.” In response to this quote, Pfaff stated, “[Sembène is] alluding to the way in which Africa has been described by many non-African directors who would rather show cheap exoticism than tackle themes of Africa’s historical and social reality.” Pfaff’s observation illustrates how Sembène’s films are informed by the sociocultural context of Senegal and Africa. She went on to remark that in addition to directing, Sembène also served as “scriptwriter, producer, and editor, the dominant creative force of his films.”²²

David Murphy’s Sembène, Imagining Alternatives in Film and Fiction (2001) is an analysis of both Sembène’s films and literary works. In it, Murphy strove to explain Sembène’s re-reading of Africa’s past, his critical gaze into African culture, and his unique interpretation of modernity in Senegal. Sembène’s political discourse, his representation of women, and his attacks on colonialism and neocolonialism in Emitaï, Ceddo, and Camp de Thiaroye feature prominently in the book. Of the book’s seven chapters, four focus exclusively on films and two discuss Sembène’s