NEWS
January 1, 2023 marked the centenary of the birth of Ousmane Sembène, the Senegalese novelist and filmmaker hailed as the “father of African cinema”.
Over the course of five decades, Sembène published 10 books and directed 12 films in three different periods. He has been celebrated for his beautifully crafted political works, which range in style from the psychological realism of Black Girl in 1966 to the biting satire of Xala (The Curse of Impotence) in 1974.
Since his death in 2007, Sembène’s pioneering status has been further cemented. But the sheer variety and richness of his work, his ability to reinvent himself as an artist, has often been overlooked. On the occasion of his centenary, it is worth looking at what made him such a remarkable creative presence.
THE NOVELIST: 1956-1960
Unlike many of his literary peers, Sembène did not come to write through the colonial educational system. In fact, he left school early and was largely self-taught. He was born in the minority community of Lebou in the Casamance region of southern Senegal. His father was a fisherman. He later moved to the colonial capital of Dakar.
After serving in the French army during World War II, he moved to France in 1946. Employed as a dock worker in Marseille in the 1950s, he developed a love of literature through the library of the communist-affiliated Confederation union. Labor General.
His first novel, The Black Docker (1956), consciously explores the difficulties faced by a working-class black writer seeking to become a published author.
Sembène’s most celebrated novel, God’s Bits of Wood (1960), is a fictionalized account of the 1947/48 rail strike in French colonial West Africa. A sweeping epic set in three different locations with a host of characters, the book illustrates Sembène’s Marxist and pan-Africanist vision of anti-colonialism. He believed that the overthrow of the colonial powers could best be accomplished through alliances between workers across national and ethnic divides.
God’s Bits of Wood is often described as a classic Sembène text, politically engaged and realist in style. It turned out to be the high point of his exploration of literary realism.
In 1960 he returned to Africa after more than a decade in Europe to tour a continent emerging from colonial domination. He stated that, sitting on the banks of the Congo River, looking out at the packed crowds, most of whom he could not read or write, he experienced an epiphany. If his novels were inaccessible to many Africans, the cinema was the answer. And so he set out to become a filmmaker.
Novelist and filmmaker: 1962-1976
After studying film in Moscow, Russia, Sembène directed his first short, Borom Sarret (The Wagoner), in 1962. Depicting a day in the life of a humble wagon driver, the film offers a stinging critique of the failures of independence in Senegal. , presented as the transfer of power from one ruling elite to another. Like most French-speaking African countries, Senegal gained its independence in 1960. For the next two decades, it would be ruled by the Socialist Party, led by the poet Léopold Sédar Senghor, who sought to maintain close political and cultural ties with France.
Sembène’s first novel, The Black Docker (1956)
Cover of the documentary Sembène! (2015), co-created by Samba Gadjigo
Sembène’s first feature film, Black girl (1966)
Novel, Le Docker noir (Black Docker) by Ousmane Sembene
The black girl by Ousmane Sembene
Between 1962 and 1976, Sembène published four books and directed eight films, works of incredible aesthetic diversity. In fact, this can be classified as the richest period of artistic productivity of any African writer or director in the post-colonial era. He scored a number of groundbreaking firsts for a black African director: first film made in Africa (Borom Sarret), first feature film (Black Girl) and first film in an African language (Mandabi).
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He began to gain international renown, but there were few opportunities to see his work at home. Mandabi (The Money Order), for example, won an award at the Venice Film Festival but was not released in Senegal, where it was criticized by the government for presenting a negative view of the country.
Between 1971 and 1976, Sembène made his most ambitious film trilogy: Emitaï, Xala and Ceddo. Each was driven by strong stories.
But most important to Sembène was a film’s ability to condense social, political, and historical realities into a series of searing images. These often blurred the boundaries of space and time.
In Ceddo, several centuries of history collapsed in the life of a Senegalese people, leading to a power struggle between animism, Christianity and Islam. The latter asserts his dominance through the barrel of a gun, a controversial stance in a country that was more than 90% Muslim at the time. Ceddo was banned by Sembène’s archenemy, Senghor. He wouldn’t make another movie for over a decade.
Wild to Late Bloom Years: 1976-2004
After spending a decade largely in the creative wilderness, Sembène experienced a late bloomer beginning in the late 1980s.
This period saw him reach a new generation of audiences. His later works were less aesthetically ambitious, but no less powerful.
Moolaadé (2004) was a scathing denunciation of female genital mutilation in rural West Africa. In it, the forces of change oppose conservative and patriarchal authority.
sembene today
Since his death, we have learned more about Sembène’s life and career through the painstaking work of his biographer, Samba Gadjigo, who co-created the documentary Sembène! (2015).
Those unfamiliar with Sembène should pick up a copy of God’s Bits of Wood or find recent DVD editions of classics like Black Girl and Xala (whose opening sequence is, in my opinion, one of the best five minutes in all of cinema). African). My personal favorite is his tragicomedy Mandabi, recently re-released in a restored copy.
Sembène’s films remain important today, not only because of the current relevance of many of the social and political issues they dealt with, but also because he was able to create a cinematic language that spoke powerfully to audiences around the world.
He forged a career that spanned five decades as many of his contemporaries struggled to make more than a handful of films. That creativity and longevity helped shape African cinema in complex ways: Contemporary directors may follow in Sembène’s footsteps or choose to reject his politically engaged style, but his legacy cannot be ignored.
Murphy is Professor of French and Postcolonial Studies at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. This article was first published on The Conversation
