Conference Reports

JEAN ROUCH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA
UNIVERSITY TOUR
10 to 25 September 1996

NOTE OF INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this final report is to provide:

• some background history of the development of the project
• an account of the actual tour
• a critical appraisal of the project as a whole
• a perspective on future projects.

NOTE OF APOLOGY

Due to the fact that all our correspondents do not understand French this report is presented in English. I apologize to our French correspondents for the inconvience.

For those correspondents receiving the report through e_mail, please note that for technical reasons French words will not have their regular accents.

MOTIVATION

The principal motivation for having organised Jean Rouch’s University Tour to Southern Africa was:

• to introduce the work of the filmmaker to film students and scholars in the fields of Anthropology, Dramatic Arts and African Studies through a series of screenings.
• to allow young filmmakers to spend individual time with Jean Rouch in order to benefit from his experience and share ideas with him.

NOTE ON FINANCIAL SUPPORT

Whilst all travel and accommodation costs were covered by the various participating institutions and per diems covered our local everyday expenses, I received no financing for the work and expenses involved in developing, organising and executing this project. My expenses involved international and local communications, international and local travel during the preparatory phase, general office running costs.

BACKGROUND

In 1984, I left South Africa for voluntary exile in France. Jean Rouch was one of the first people I met upon my arrival in Paris. I had never seenhis films and all I knew about him was a sentence read in a book on Direct Cinema accidentally found in the University of the Witwatersrand Library. According to Jean Rouch it is more interesting to film reality as provoked by the presence of a camera than to attempt to film it as it really is. As a musician and a performance artist, this idea had a tremendous impact on me. I decided that I wanted to work with Jean Rouch. In 1990 I completed a doctoral thesis under his supervision and subsequently worked with him in{plain various capacities of film making. For many years it has been my wish to introduce Jean Rouch, the person and his work, to young South African filmmakers and scholars.

In April 1994 Anne de Rougemont (Amis du Musee d’Art Moderne et Union des Arts Decoratif de Paris) and Patrick Bensard (Cinematheque de la Danse) visited South Africa and met with Professor Philippe Salazar of the University of Cape Town. The idea to invite Jean Rouch to South Africa emerged from their meeting. Toward the end of 1994 Prof. Salazar presented this idea to Laurent Deveze, the Director of the French Institute in South Africa (IFAS). In June 1995, the French Institute extended an invitation to Jean Rouch and myself to visit Southern Africa. Toward the end of 1994 I spoke to His Excellency, The Ambassador of France in Namibia, Mr. Frederic du Laurens and the Head of the French Mission for Cooperation and Cultural Action in Namibia, Ms Nicole Weil about the project. They expressed immediate interest and in conjunction with the Director of the Franco_Namibian Cultural Centre (FNCC), Mr. Jean_Pierre Clain, it was decided to extend the visit to Nambia and hence give the project a Southern African dimension.

PREPARATION

With the help of Francoise Foucault, curator of the Bilan du Film Ethnographique and longtime collaborator of Jean Rouch, I presented a programme of films to be screened and drew up an academic plan. These were submitted to the various partners.

In the interim I had started making contacts with colleagues at other Universities in Southern Africa, especially with Prof. Johan Van Wyk of the Centre for the Study of Southern African Literature and Languages (CSSALL) at the University of Durban-Westville. He responded with immediate enthusiasm and the CSSALL became a valuable organisational and fundraising partner throughout the preparation period of this project.

In February 1996, I spent three months in Southern Africa doing research. During this time, I visited the following institutions in view of preparing Jean Rouch’s University Tour: I met with academic staff to discuss the film and academic content of the visit, with technical staff whenever possible to check equipment as well as young filmmakers not affiliated to institutions to inform them of the forthcocming visit. Hereafter follows a list of the principal preliminary contacts made during my trip to Southern Africa:

Durban:

University of DurbanWestville (UDW):

Johan Van Wyk, Philippe Wade, Jannie Smit, CSSALL

Melveen Jackson, Head; Michael Nixon, The Music Department

Mr. Dees Naidoo, Audiovisual Media Centre

University of Natal, Durban (UND):

In a meeting with Prof. Butler-Adams, Executive Director of the Eastern Seaboard Association of Tertiary Institutions and Prof. Johan VanWyk, the former offered to coordinate our visit in Kwa-Zulu Natal.

Dr. Carol Muller, Ethnomusicologist, Dept. of Music.

Junaid Ahmed, Filmmaker and Producer

Cape Town:

University of Cape Town (UCT):

Prof. Philippe Salazar, French Department and Director of the Centre for Rhetoric Studies. Prof. David Coplan, Department of Anthropology, Ren’ee McClean, Department of Music.

Rashid Lombard, filmmaker, photographer and Director of Fine Music Radio, a community radio.

Abdurrahim Johnstone, Journalist and video poet.

Shamiel X, DJ and Director of Bush Radio, a community radio.

Freddy Ogterop, Directr of the Film Section of the Cape Provincial Library Johannesburg:

French Institute in South Africa (IFAS)

Alexandre de Clermont_Tonnerre, Film Delegate

University of the Witwatersrand (WITS):

Prof. Gerrit Olivier, Dean of Arts

Prof. Robert Thornton, Dept. of Social Anthropology

Windhoek:

The French Embassy in Namibia

His excellency, The Ambassador, Mr. Frederic Baleine du Laurens

The French Mission for Cooperation and Cultural Action in Namibia

Ms Nicole Weil, Head of the Mission

The Franco-Namibian Cultural Centre (FNCC):

Mr. Jean-Pierre Clain, Director

University of Namibia

Mr. Wolfram Hartmann, Head, Department of History

Ms Minette Mans, Department of Music

National Film Archives of Namibia

Mr. Everon Kloppers, Historical Research

Subsequent to this research trip, frequent contact was maintained with the above institutions and individuals. The central coordination for the project was run from Paris. This coordination implied constant contact between Paris and the various collaborating partners.and involved:

Film Programming

Organisation of copies from the Film Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE), Audecam (Cinematheque of the Ministry of Cooperation) and the Cinematheque de la Danse

Scheduling of dates between four cities and five independant university calendars

Travel and accommodation organisation

Press dossier.

Alexandre de Clermont_Tonnerre of IFAS collaborated on coordination between Universities within South Africa.

Johan Van Wyk and Philippe Wade of the CSSALL became actively involved in the organisation and fundraising for the project and Jannie Smit was responsable for publicity on the Durban-Westville Campus. Thanks to their efforts, the Centre for Scientific Development (CSD) of the HSRC became an important partner in making this project possible.

Prof. Butler_Adams chaired a meeting at which Philippe Wade (CSSALL) and Mikhail Peppas (Natal Technikon) amongst others were present in which coordination for the Kwa-Zulu Natal leg of out tour was organised.

Subsequent to this meeting, Mr. Mikhail Peppas and Mr. Alex Holt coordinated with Mr. Fr’ed’eric Dart, the Director of the Alliance Francaise who agreed to host a special screening and a cocktail in honour of Jean Rouch’s visit to Durban.

During this period, Alexandre de Clermont_Tonnerre of IFAS brought it to my attention that Prof. Keyan Tomaselli of the Centre for Cultural and Media Studies (CCMS) at the University of Natal would be interested in hosting a screening of Jean Rouch’s films at the Centre and Philippe Wade (CSSALL) coordinated with CCMS to make this possible.

Each Institution was responsable for internal organisation organisation and articulation of the programme. I supplied IFAS with a press dossier (photographs and clippings) for South Africa and FNCC for Namibia. The FNCC published a booklet and a poster on Jean Rouch’s visit to Namibia that coincided with the first Namibian Film Festival, organised by the Centre. Subsequent to our visit to Southern Africa IFAS published an article on the tour in their regular magazine. Most universities published an internal pamphlet advertising the event.

PARTNERS

I would like to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to the directors of the following institutions without whose support this project would not have been materialised:

Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres (MAE), France

D.G.R.C.S.T._ Direction de la Communication, Mme Veronique Godard, Chef du Bureau des Documents Audiovisuels. (Posted to NY since)

L’Institut Francais en Afrique du Sud (IFAS), Mr. Laurent Deveze, le Directeur; Mr. Alexandre de Clermont_Tonnerre, Responsable de l’audiovisuel.

Centre for Scientific Development (CSD), Human Science Research Council(HSRC), South Africa

Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres (MAE), France

Ambassade de France en Namibie, Son Excellence, L’Ambassader de France en Namibie, Mr. Frederic du Laurens.

Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres (MAE), Ministere de la Cooperation, France

Mission Francaise pour la Cooperation et l’Action Culturelle en Namibie, Ms Nicole Weil, Chef de Mission.

Ministere de la Cooperation, France

Centre Culturel Franco-Namibien, Mr. Jean-Pierre Clain, Le Directeur

AUDECAM, Cinematheque du Ministere, Ms Lenaour, Director

La Cinematheque Francaise

La Cinematheque de la Danse, Mr. Patrick Bensard, Le Directeur.

The University of Durban-Westville (UDW)

The Centre for the Study of Southern African Literature and Language, Prof. Johan Van Wyk, Mr. Philippe Wade, Mr. Jannie Smit

The University of Natal, Durban (UND)

The Centre for Cultural and Media Studies (CCMS), Prof Keyan and Ruth Tomaselli, Mr. Mikhail Peppas, Mr. Alex Holt, Ms Sue Govender, MsKubeshi Govender, Mr. Andrew Jones, Mrs. Dot Roome.

The Eastern Seaboard Association of Tertiary Institutions, Prof. Butler-Adams, Executive Director. Ms. Rekha Jhilmeet.

The Alliance Francaise in Durban, Mr. Frederic Dart, The Director.

The University of Cape Town (UCT)

Centre for Rhetoric Studies, Prof. Philippe Salazar

Department of Social Anthropology, Prof. David Coplan

The University of the Witwatersrand (WITS)

Department of Social Anthropology, Prof. Robert Thornton

The University of Namibia

The Department of Dramatic Studies, Prof. Bremer.

SPECIAL MENTION

I would also like to extend a word of thanks and appreciation to those who made such a special effort to receive us during our stay in Southern Africa. With a special mention to those who entertained us privately: Dr. Carol Muller who accompanied us to the Shembe village in Inanda, North of Durban; Mikhail Peppas, Alex Holt, Richard Bailey who kindly showed us Durban and made it possible for us to meet the South African poet, Prof. Mazisi Kunene of UND and Natal Technikon during the weekend of the 14th and 15th of September; Frederic Michel, the Director of the Alliance Francaise in Cape Town who showed us the magnificent sights of Cape Point; Alexandre de Clermont_Tonnerre who spent the day and the evening of Saturday the 21st of September showing us Newtown and Rosebank in Johannesburg; The Ambassador, Mr. Frederic du Laurens who took us to see the Katutura, one of the townships of Windhoek. It was during these visits that Jean Rouchstarted inventing a scenario for a film he wishes to make in South Africa.

FILM PROGRAMME _ CURATOR’S NOTE

This programme was designed to be an introduction to Jean Rouch’s work which consists of over a hundred films and covers some forty years of filmmaking. His work ranges from ethnographic to fiction and touches upon almost every possible register between the two disciplines.

“Les maitres fous” is often considered to be Jean Rouch’s masterpiece. It is an exceptional example at several different levels of the ways in which people represent each other.

“Ambara Dama, enchanter la mort” captures one of the highlights of the Dogon culture, a culture which Jean Rouch and Germaine Dieterlen have been studying for some thirty years and more if one takes into account the heritage left behind by Marcel Griaule whom they both collaborated with.

“Tourou et Bitti, les tambours d’avant” represents an exceptional example of a film on a possession ritual shot as a continuous sequence including effects of editing within a single shot (“plan s’equence”).

“Petit a petit” is Jean Rouch at the lightest of his being; a fiction film which is full of humour and satire and which constantly feeds off a reality with which Jean Rouch is obviously very familiar.

Patrick Bensard of the Cinematheque de la Danse kindly provided us with an extract showing the Savoy Ballroom Champions as filmed by Mura Dehn in “The Spirit Moves”. It includes a breathtaking example of the Lindy Hop which was inspired by Lindenberg who was the first pilot to cross the Atlantic by plane. We screened this film on an impromptu basis and needless to say it was received with joy similar to that it conveys.

Filming the Other: Around Jean Rouch’s Ethnography (Title proposed by Prof. Philippe Salazar)

All screenings were in 16mm optical sound format

Programme 1: 1h35

“Les maitres fous” by Jean Rouch

1955, 35 mn, 16 mm, colour, English ST

A study of the Haouka (Songhay) cult practised in the region of Accra. The title of the film refers to the word “haouka” which meansmaster of the wind, master of madness. The film evokes a colonial situation in which the masters, the Europeans were perceived as being crazy. The cult appeared in Songhay possession dances around 1927. It represents the officials of the British and French Armies and Administrations and shows how migrant workers resolve their adaptation to an urban environment through trance.

Copy Source: MAE

“Ambara Dama, enchanter la mort” by Jean Rouch and Germaine Dieterlen 1974, 60 mn, 16 mm, colour, French Version

A year after Ambara’s death, the Mask Society organises a “great Dama” during which the old masks are replaced by the new ones. Some sequences are shot in synchronous slow-motion in order to study the dances and the masks.

Copy Source: Audecam, Ministere de la Cooperation, Paris.

Programme 2: 1h42

“Tourou et Bitti, les tambours d’avant” by Jean Rouch 1971, 12 mn, 16 mm, colour, English Version

The fourth day of a possession ceremony in the village of Simiri in which the ancient drums, the “Tourou” and the “Bitti” are used. The participants are asking the spirit of the bush to protect their crops against grasshoppers. An old man is dancing when suddenly the orchestra stops playing; him and some other dancers go into trance. Filmed as a continuous sequence shot.

Copy Source: MAE

“Petit a petit” by Jean Rouch

1968-69, 90 mn, 16 mm, colour, English Version

Damour’e, Lam and Illo run an import-export company called a Petit with in Ayorou. They decide to build a block of flats and send Damour’e to Paris to see how people live in double-story houses. In the city he discovers the strange ways of living and thinking of the Parisian tribe which he describes in regular letters to his friends. They end up thinking that he has gone mad and send Lam to Paris to check up on him

Copy Source: MAE

SCHEDULE: 10 to 25 September 1996

DURBAN: 11/09 /15/09

Accommodation : Private Guest House

11/09: Arrival in the afternoon, technical visit checking film projectors, dinner with members of staff and students of CSSALL and CCMS.

12/09: Screening of Programme 1 at UDW:

The presentation of Jean Rouch’s films and the seminar at the Centre for the Study of Southern African Literature and Language at the University of Durban-Westville took place as part of a Research Feast Programme thatinvolved all the departments of the university.

On this occasion Jean Rouch and myself where introduced to a representative member of the Centre for Science Research who was one of the active partners making this tour possible.

Evening Screening of Les maitres fous at the Alliance Francaise in Durban followed by a cocktail hosted by the Director Mr. Frederic Dart and organised by Mikhail Peppas and Alex Holt.

13/09: Screenings of Programme 2 and seminar at the Centre for Culture and Media Studies at the University of Natal, Durban (UND). An extensive question and answer session with students followed the screening of Jean Rouch’s films.

14/09 Visit to Shembe village, Inanda. Dr. Carol Muller, Ethnomusicologist at the Department of Music of UND accompanied us on a day trip to the village of the Nazarite Baptist Church in Inanda.

15/09: Visit of Durban (Statue of Pessoa). Mikhail Peppas, Richard Bailey and Alex Holt showed us around Durban, the harbour and several historicalsights.

CAPE TOWN: 15_18/09

Accommodation: Visiting Lecturers’ Appartments, UCT

16/09: Courtesy visit to the Consul de France in Cape Town, Mr. Claude Berlioz, Screening seminar of Programme 1 at UCT, Centre for Rhetoric Studies.

The screenings and debate hosted by Professor Philippe Salazar involved UCT students of various disciplines as well as cinephiles such as Freddy Ogterop of the Cape Provincial Library and Abdurrahim Johnstone, video poet and journalist.

17/09: Screening seminar of Programme 2, under the auspices of the Dept. of Social Anthropology, Prof. David Coplan.

18/09: Visit to Cape Point and Groot Constantia Homestead. Frederic Michel, the Director of the Alliance Francaise in Cape Town accompanied us on a day trip to The Cape of Good Hope.

JOHANNESBURG: 18_22/09

Accomodation: University Residence, WITS

19/09: Screening at the Newtown Film School: Alexandre de Clermont_Tonnerre arranged a screening of Jean Rouch’s films at the Newtown Film School, an independant film school in Johannesburg.

Lunch WITS Club hosted by Prof. Robert Thornton.

Screening seminar at WITS hosted by Prof. Robert Thorton involved students from the Depertments of Anthropology, Drama and History. 20/09: am. Seminar at the Dept. of Anthropology with staff members and students of the Departments of Anthropology, Drama and History. Jean Rouch made an expose’ of his research and career itinerary.

Screening seminar at WITS hosted by Prof. Robert Thornton.

21/09: Visit of Newtown and Rosebank with Alexandre de Clermont_Tonnerre.

WINDHOEK: 22/25/09

Accommodation: Ambassador’s Residence

Mr. Jean-Pierre Clain, Director of the Franco-Namibian Cultural Centre and his assistant Ebba organised an extensive programme for our short stay in Windhoek.

22/09: Screening of young filmmakers’ films, FNCC. This programme involved filmmakers of the local film association showing us their films followed by a discussion of each film.

23/09: Visit to National Film Archives, Mr. Everon Kloppers of the National Archives showed us several of the films John Marshall made on the Bushmen of the Kalahari desert.

Screening Progr. 1 to filmmakers (FNCC). Jean Rouch’s films were in turn showed to the young filmmakers followed by a discussion.

24/09: am. Screening at the University of Namibia to Drama, Arts and History students hosted by the Departments of Fine Arts and Drama. The students responded very positively to Les maitres fous and many who missed the event requested an extra screening.

Mme Nicole Weil hosted a lunch in the presence of the Ambassador with members of her staff, filmmakers and staff members of the National Archives.

In the afternoon Jean Rouch met with young filmmakers on an individual basis discussing his work and issues related to his research as well their ideas.

Screening of Programme 2 at the National Theatre of Namibia. A large and varied audience attented this screening ofPetit a petit. At the end of a series of questions an elderly African gentleman raised his hand to speak and said: “I am very glad that you brought this film to Namibia. It is a film that brings people together. That is what we need here.”

25/09: Visit of Windhoek. The Ambassador, Mr. Frederic du Laurens accompanied Jean Rouch and myself on a visit to Katatura.

EVALUATION

Hereafter follows extracts of elements provided to our partners during the preparatory phase of the tour. I include it here in oder to provide a context for the evaluation of the project as a whole.

Filming the Other: Around Jean Rouch’s Ethnography

Keynote:

Jean Rouch would like to meet and exchange ideas with young film makers from Southern Africa. Film presentations should be informal so as to allow easy contact between the film maker and members of the audience.

Both Jean Rouch and Rina Sherman feel strongly about a film training initiative being an integral part of this trip. University Departments and Community and Training Centres should be encouraged to inform young film makers of the film screenings.

Furthermore, we feel it is important that the screenings of these films reach as wide an audience as possible. Ms. Basetsana Thokoane, Film Consultant with the Department of Arts and Culture could advise on education and audience reach issues.

Institutions were provided with complete information, including names and full contact addresses of other participating institutions as well as contact numbers for people not affiliated to institutions. This was done for publicity purposes in order to reach as wide a public as possible.

Cape Town: Publicity : Rachid Lombard of Fine Music Radio (Tel. 021- 480 3180, Fax: 021 -480 3174) and Shamiel X of Bush Radio (Tel. 021 -448 5450, Fax: 021 -448 5451) may be called on my behalf to publicise the screenings with the communities of Cape Town. Radio Zibonele in Khayelitsha, cf. Dave Coplan.

Durban: Publicity:Filmmaker, Junaid Ahmed has been active for many years in community work in Natal and has proposed to help organise community screenings in Natal. Junaid Ahmed: Tel. 031- 427 653 Fax: 469 0549 Cell: 082 444 6682.

Johannesburg: Publicity: The singer, Ms Mara Louw who is actively involved in artistic coordination for Gauteng Premier, Tokyo Sexwale, may be contacted on Rina Sherman’s behalf to advise on the inviting of Johannesburg artists for the Johannesburg screenings.

Throughout the University Tour Jean Rouch’s presence and the screenings of his films suscitated enthusiastic interest. A few students and professors reacted strongly to seeing the film Les maitres fous but then one has to remember that Marcel Griaule asked Jean Rouch to destroy the film when it was first shown at the Musee de l’Homme in the mid fifties. One also has to see this reaction in the general context of education in Southern Africa where the notion of freedom of expression to a degree remains to be fully explored. One can hope that in the future the first thing taught to students is to be able to see anything and to be able to discern for themselves.

At times one would have liked to have seen a broader audience in terms of culture and background. It is clear that imaginary paths between people and things will have to be recreated before people will find the ways leading to people and things formerly withheld from them by law.

It was very gratifying to have a young filmmakers come up to us and say: “This was one of the most important encounters of my life, thank you.”It would have been a good idea for us to have had more time. This would have enabled us to engage in in-depth discussions with scholars and filmmakers. We would also have liked to have had more films to show since Jean Rouch’s body of work is vast and varied.

FUTURE PROJECTS

I have for many years wanted to initiate a 16mm film workshop in Southern Africa. Today many film students throughout the world are being taught film on video which effectively means that they do not know what the film image look like. This method could be compared to art students being taught history of art from reproductions as opposed to seeing the original. The relative ease of use and accessibility of 16mm cameras makes it a viable form as opposed to 35mm.

The idea is to facilitate the birth of a voice, of a point of view; to accompany young film makers on the route of discovery of their own voices and the incredible wealth of untold stories that surround them.

Fellini explained his succes by saying that the reason why he was successful all over the world was because he never departed in any way from that which was most specific about him and hence he became universal.

Many Southern African film makers try to follow the Hollywood or the European route without realising that they possess an untapped wealth of story and experience. The main objective of a 16mm workshop would be to accompany young film makers in finding a way of their own to tell their stories.

Mention was made of this project throughout our tour and there where many favourable echoes. Mikhail Peppas and Alex Holt have explored the possibility in Durban and the idea was received favourably in several quarters of which Mr. Frederic Dart of the Alliance Francaise of Durban who offered to host such a workshop and Mr. Laurent Dev’eze of the French Insitute who expressed keen interest in the evolution of this and related projects. Prof. Philippe Salazar also responded positively to the idea of a 16mm film workshop in Cape Town.

Over and above the developments of new projects, calls for Jean Rouch to return were plenty during our tour and have not stopped since our return to France. After Jean Rouch’s return to France Mr. Malcom Purkey, the Acting Head of the Drama Department at Wits invited me to present Les ma’eetres fous again at WITS for students who did not see it the first time. Once again the theatre was full and the film was received with enthusiasm. Throughout the tour, Jean Rouch elaborated several possible scenarios for a film which he would like to make in South Africa, one of which would be about the historical heroes of Durban. Mikhail Peppas and Alex Holst offered to participate in the development of such a film.

CONCLUSION

Jean Rouch’s University Tour to Southern Africa was but a drop in the ocean; a beginning of many things that remain to be done. We are however very pleased that it was possible and happened so successfully with the enthusiastic participation of all involved.

The countries of the region of Southern Africa possess infinitely rich cultures. For many years I have been convinced that the key to the development of a culture is education in all possible forms. I had the opportunity to experience this many years ago when I taught music at the Federation for Black Arts (FUBA) in Johannesburg. However formal education alone is not sufficient to provide an individual with a sense of self. Emphasis needs to be placed on real and individual exchange between students and teachers. Hence I am pleased that we were able to have many small informal meetings with young filmmakers and scholars. I am pleased to have made this modest contribution and I hope that the opportunity to continue will present itself in the future.

Dr. Rina Sherman

Paris, 14 November 1996

ART CINEMATOGRAPHIQUE ARTISANAL

aka

LOW TECH FILM ART

4 rue Henri Moissan

75007 Paris

FRANCE

Tel. 01 45 56 92 01

Fax: 01 45 51 20 57

E-mail: 106312.456@CompuServe.COM rsaca@worldnet.fr

Name of grantee:
Keyan Tomaselli

Department :
Centre for Cultural and Media Studies, Durban

Conference :
Breaking the Boundaries: The Stirling Documentary Conference, University of Stirling, Scotland, 28-31 January 1999.

Title of Presentation :
“Grierson in South Africa” (co-authored with Edwin Hees, University of Stellenbosch.)

Status of Paper :
The draft paper was submitted prior to the Conference to the panel organiser, Dr Ina Bertrand, La Trobe University, Australia, who organised one of the two panels on Grierson.

REPORT ON PROCEEDINGS OF THE MEETING

General Purpose of the Meeting

The conference was dedicated specifically to the study of documentary film, TV, video, and new technologies, both historical and contemporary. The emphases were on the emergence of new types of TV documentary (eg., video diaries, docu-soaps, docu-drama), and the influence of new technologies such as the World Wide Web on form, content and reception. The blurring of the divide between fact and fiction was a key theme.

Two full sessions were devoted to an appraisal of the influence of Stirling-born John Grierson, a key facilitator of the British Documentary Movement of the 1930s and, indeed, internationally. Grierson was also consulted in one way or another during the late 1940s on the establishment of national film boards in Canada (which he managed for a while), India, South Africa, and he worked with a government unit in Australia. Grierson’s influence pervaded just about every presentation made at the Conference, whether historical or contemporary. I shall concentrate on this aspect of the Conference in my report, as it is Grierson’s work as a film maker, theorist and consultant to governments, which coincides with my own interest.

The Field Covered

The field was media studies, with specific reference to documentary. However, some papers on documentary on the World Wide Web were offered, as was Grierson’s key influence on early theories of public relations.

Countries and Institutions from which the Delegates were Drawn

Most of the delegates were British. Others came from Australia, Germany, Denmark, and the USA. Individuals from Italy, Switzerland, Israel, Finland and South Africa attended. Both academics and practitioners participated. Some had actually worked with Grierson, and one had worked in the Central African Film Unit established by Grierson. 110 delegates were recorded, with 85 being the largest attendance at a plenary panel. Amongst those participating were internationally seminal theorists and documentary film makers such as Brian Winston, John Corner, Michael Chanan, Alan Rosenthal, Roger Graef, Stepehen Peet, John Gray, and so on. These are some of the people who established and consolidated documentary film, TV and video as a field of analysis and aesthetic development internationally, from the 1930s to the present.

Highlights of the Meeting

Much of the discussion was on new forms of British TV documentary, made possible by new portable technologies permitting intimate subject- generated programming, and easy public access. This information was new to delegates from outside the UK. These are:

a) very short stories of a few minutes duration told by ordinary people videoing themselves ( Video Diaries, Video Nation).

b) Half-hour programmes where ordinary family and other units are videod by small professional crews in cin’ema v’erit’e style. These were labelled as `docu-soaps’ – documentaries on ordinary life and daily events which are generated in terms of the narratives of soap operas.

c) Continuously updated multimedia essays uploaded onto the Web.

d) Docudramas, where a true story is animated and reconstructed via narrative conventions.

e) Documentary journalism, which is the animating of the social within inquiry – a discourse of sobriety, as Bill Nichols describes it.

f) Other papers were on audience studies, legal issues, and script pitching. Faking of scenes in documentaries and the ethical and legal implications of these practices or errors on the part of documentary directors was discussed at length, in the light of a recent UK court decision.

John Grierson

Two sessions on Grierson discussed his influence on film makers in the UK, Australia and Denmark. His work for the South African government between 1949 and 1954 was discussed by myself from the longer paper prepared with Edwin Hees. Ab’e Mark Nornes’ work the reception in pre-War Japan of Paul Rotha’s seminal book, Documentary Film, to which Grierson had written a seminal introduction, discussed how the five separate translations had been rewritten in terms of the prevailing conservatively political Japanese perspectives of the time. John Gray, well into his seventies, who had worked with Grierson while at the GPO Film Unit, offered a theory of lyrical documentary, typical of the 1930s, and was engagingly interviewed on his experiences while working with Grierson. He iterated time and again that Grierson was not a film maker; rather that he was a facilitator, and a his most effective when advising governments. Like Nornes’s conclusion, Gray argued that it was Rotha and Cavalcanti who taught the theory and practice of film making within the British Documentary Movement.

John Corner described Grierson’s understanding of documentary as a “celebration of the real”, rather than offering inquiry, while Michael Chanon, drawimng on Jurgen Habermas theory of the public shpere, located grierson’s work as a form of communicative action within the public sphere. Two papers on the impact of the international Documentary Movement on Australian film, and one on Danish documentary, were offered. Grierson made a report to the Australian government on the possibility of the establishment of a government film production agency, but his report was ignored. Deane Williams presented a revisionist position, downplaying Groerson’s role in the eventual estab,ishment of the Films Division. he suggested that other influences, such as Harry Watt and Joris Ivens, were of similar if not more inflience Grierson never did work in Australia, despite his continuing influence on the work of Stanley Hawes, dealt with by Ina Bertrand. Finally, a paper from a PR scholar, Jaquie L’Etang, revealed the early public service origins (now often forgotten) of this field, and of the seminal influence of both Grierson and his boss, Secretary of the Empire Marketing Board, Sir Stephen Talents, on both the documentary movement and early PR theory.

The Grantee’s Presentation

My visit to Stirling gave me the opportunity of consulting the Grierson Archives at the University prior to the Conference. Here I found a number of unpublished documents on, and references to, his South African and African trips in 1949. The personal information gleaned filled the gaps in my own assessment of Grierson’s interpretation of the intentions of the new National Party government. The ambience of Stirling, the University’s Department of Film and Media Studies, and the conference, gave me a feel for Grierson’s pervasive influence and decisive impact on the theory and history of documentary film worldwide. This subjective information I included in my presentation. Previously, my relationship with Grierson was a purely analytical one, derived from reading his own writing and commentaries on him, studying the films he made, and those made about him. My presentation thus connected the personal and ideological dots, especially with regard to the rather intriguing relation between this radical and liberal Scotsman, and the emergent apartheid Afrikaner government. I tested my new-found ideas on the audience, and those who knew Grierson personally both confirmed my inferences, and related them to their own presentations. Briefly, Grierson believed that the new government had the will and energy to use film in the pursuit of democracy, one in which blacks would be eventually incorporated.

The experience was very helpful in revising my original analysis and adding subjective depth to what was until then a rather dry discussion of Grierson’s 1954 proposals for a South African national film board. Though my original study of Grierson had been published in CINEMA CANADA in 1985, the article failed to find a ready audience. (Perhaps the fact that the journal closed shortly after was a factor.) The Stirling Conference thus provided the ideal opportunity to: a) offer a revisionist version of my (and Hees’s) earlier analyses; b) connect with similar studies being conducted in Australia, the UK and Denmark; and c) find publication in a refereed theme issue on the topic. The Conference has thus animated previous research done by both Hees and myself.

The Conference was exceptionally well organised, and the host Department went out of its way to facilitate my research and other requests.

Contacts

Amongst the delegates were a number whom I have known for many years. These contacts were strengthened, and I was invited to contribute papers to various projects. It is my experience that cooperation of one sort or another emerges over the longer term when contacts made at conferences are actively maintained.

Publication

The longer paper (including Hees’s comparative sections which contrast Grierson’s proposals with those made by other South African committees) will be published along with some of Grierson’s archival material in a forthcoming issue of SCREENING THE PAST: AN INTERNATIONAL ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF VISUAL MEDIA AND HISTORY (ISSN 1328-975). This refereed journal is edited by Ina Bertrand, who organised one of the Grierson panels. The whole issue will be devoted to the topic of John Grierson and his international impact on documentary film. If invited, I will personally contribute a shorter version concentrating solely on Grierson to the envisaged conference book.

KG Tomaselli
Centre for Cultural and Media Studies
Durban 4041, South Africa
12 February 1999

Purpose of Conference

To bring together scholars and film/video makers studying visual communication, and scholars of how visual representations of, and by, cultures reveal aspects of culture, ritual, behaviour and ways of making sense.

The Field/s Covered

The Conference is the only one of its kind which attracts inter-disciplinary participation: sociologists, anthropologists, ethnographers, archival and museum personnel, cultural and media scholars, film and TV producers etc.

Over 280 participants attended, with over 90 papers scheduled. Participants came from numerous countries including the US, UK, Netherlands, Canada, Hungery, Slovakia, Austria, Israel, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Cameroon, Peoples Republic of China, Togo, Indonesia, Switzerland, Argentina, South Africa, and Australia.

Major thematic sessions included:

* Does the Native Still Exist?

* The Narrative Turn in Visual Anthropology

* Visual Ideology. Author and Authority: Specific Photographic Representations. Symbols for Communication

* Crossing the Border: Visual Documentation as Mediator

* Recent Directions in Visual Research

* The Family Photo as Data

* Does Every Picture Tell a Story?

* The Social Construction of Photographic Meaning

* Pictures of the Past: Preserving and Publishing Old Ethnographic Films

* Processing Visual data

* Documentary Filmmaking in Africa and Asia

* Image Democracy: Ramification of the Video Splash

* Orientalism Refracted: How People Represent Themselves in Ethnographic Film

* City Lights: Exploring the Urban frontier

* Historical Photographs in Ethnographic Collections; Re-use and Repatriation

* Teaching Visual Anthropology

Films screened came from Cameroon, Togo, Burkino Faso, Nigeria, Namibia and Egypt. Asian films shown were from Indonesia, Thailand, The Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Singapore.

Highlights of the Conference

Report on Plenary Session:
The Social Construction of Photographic Meaning

Chuck Suchar, chair of the session, set the scene with his comment that photographs are not given, but manufactured assemblages to which meaning is attached. “Photography helps us to see selectively regularities in the world and to find answers to theoretically grounded questions.” Just as geographers argue that real estate success is based on three criteria: ‘location, location and location,’ Suchar argued that a good documentary was driven by ‘theory, theory, theory.’

Douglas Harper’s study of the social history of a dairy farm community through photography provided a moment which eventually became the key to constructing historical understanding of this long disintegrated community. Using the sociological interview technique of photo elicitation, Harper examined personal histories through 200 of 67 000 photographs taken of ordinary everyday life by professional photographer, Roy Stryker, during the 1940s. The problem facing Harper was how to build meaningful interviews around the photographs through shifting from the specific photograph to the general emerging description, and then back to the specific. Working through photographic images with interviewees who lived and worked in the location selected, Harper aimed to elicit a ‘thick description’ of the social life of the time. Extreme patience on the part of the researcher sometimes resulted in surprising recollections, and unravelling of popular memories, where tragedy created enduring folk tales. Harper concluded: “The method is painstaking and works, when it does, for mysterious reasons. It draws the researcher into relationships in the field in which the subject is the teacher. The larger project defines a history built on the ethnographer’s sensitivity”.

Using Casablanca as an example, George Psathas offered a detailed analysis of a particular utterance in the film. Drawing heavily on Ian Jarvie’s Philosophy of the Film, Psathas rooted his example in its narrative content. A sociology of film would expose its social and cultural presuppositions. How does film achieve its intelligibility: how are meanings produced, achieved and constructed? Allied to sociology, would be a socio-logical analysis of meaning of a film text. This concentration of the film itself permits analysis of the embedded logic of a film’s actions.

In her engaging paper on the “Social Construction of Photographic Meaning”, Donna Schwartz offered a case study of the Superbowl spectacle and the political economy of the “currency of appearances” — how business manages images of reality, frames images of events, and protects its privileges of privacy and exploitation. One example of this is the ‘video news release’; more insidious is the “herd mentality” of conformity of expectations held by editors and public alike of what reality ‘looks’ like. The Superbowl, for example, induced an anticipation of photography, and ‘reality’ began to look like the pictures: “did we make these pictures or were they made before we even released the shutter?” How to penetrate this opaqueness, both in terms of the PR images and the practices by which they were made and ensured, was the task Schwartz set herself.

But dominant media can also be subverted, as when the American Indian Movement exploited the Superbowl media saturation to question the offensive use of dominant cultural symbols. Schwartz provided a number of such examples.

The three papers differed in emphasis: Harper’s tried to reconstruct social relationships by connecting the individual photographs with absent subjects (or recollected popular memories), both in terms of interviewees responses and what the picture framings excluded. In contrast, Psathas was only concerned with what was present inside the film text – what was absent was simply so as part of the socio-logic of the narrative. What is absent, he argued, is that which is nevertheless present as conventionally understood as what actually is assumed to have happened. The diegesis speaks for the pro-filmic event. Harper’s attempt to recover context contrasted with Psathas’s formalism which excluded elements beyond the narrative. Finally, Schwartz’s paper examined a slice of the commercialised appearance of the Superbowl through still photography, inextricably excluding the most influential of all media, television, from her analysis.

The other concerns voiced during the discussion related to Schwartz’s remarks on how the rich close off access to photographers and ensure the privilege of their privacy. This statement was questioned – how and when should privacy be protected? Perhaps all communities need to be able to control access to photographic invasion of their lives? But where does this leave the investigative photographer? What kinds of ethical practices should be developed to guide visual documentary scholars who try to break through the defensive lines of power and privilege? This crucial question was not resolved.

Report on Sessions on Documentary Film Making in Africa

African films tend to be explicitly political. They start from the social premise that the Community is IN the individual rather than that the Individual is in the community, as is the case with Western genre cinema.

By political, is meant the need to reconquer images — Western representations about Africa beamed back at us by international news agencies an cinemas. Critical African cinema is about the right of Africans to represent themselves. Jean-Marie Teno, a Cameroon film maker now living in Paris, manifests the task through the words of his narration in Afrique, Je Te Plumerai (1991) shown at the conference: “colonialism perpetrated cultural genocide”. The struggle of Africans is to overcome this genocide, and the feelings of inferiority that is caused. As one of his characters says: “Even when it comes to the number of seasons, we’re surpassed by Europe!”.

Most critical African film makers live in exile from their countries of origin. Repression, is one reason. The endless and time-consuming search for funding is another – sources are, paradoxically, mainly found in Europe, not Africa. Where they do exist in Africa, governments are the primary source, with all the implications of control that such sources represent. It is not by chance that many African films are unrelentingly critical of African governments, of their arrogant treatment of their own people, of their corruption, patronage and sycophantic deference to European ways. Even a film about soccer, Mr Foot by Teno, offers such criticism. The new élites empowered by the departing colonialists simply perpetuated the worst attributes of the previous colonial masters. Many African countries were no less free after independence than they had been prior to this state.

The only mention of class at the conference came from the sessions on African cinema. These occurred in the context of the modern African state which has disempowered indigenous culture. As a witness to his/her time, African film makers watch, record, probe and participate in struggles for democracy. The voice of the film maker is always clear. Fictions are preferred as documentary films, thought by governments to be about ‘truth’, tend to attract more severe censorship.

Funding problems within Africa have led to a degree of insecurity amongst African film makers. It can take years to raise adequate finance, and so the temptation is sometimes to cram as much into a single film as possible – the problem, I think, with Africa, Je Te Plumerai, which intertwines about five narratives into one.

But even here, such encoding derives from the theory of Third Cinema which holds that film makers should mobilise anything that works in educating the masses to the nature of their oppression under neo-colonialism. Teno uses documentary, re-enactments, news footage, humour, drama and music, and monochrome. Direct and indirect narration, dialogue and sub-titles reflect the oral emphasis of African culture. The result is an entertaining post-modernist political protest film.

While making use of Western-invented technologies, Third Cinema practitioners conform the technology to African themes, stories, forms of story-telling and cultural expression. The cinematic commentators are part of their societies, exploring everyday activities. The writer in Africa, for example, sits at her typewriter in the middle of a street, not in seclusion, in the isolation of the Western artist or litterateur. She is part of what she is writing about. This image raised questions about the nature of Africanicity and its emphasis on Being, on totality, on an integrated world not separated into dualisms – where the Western artist tends to hide away in seclusion while ‘creating’. This fragmentation is the result of Western philosophy dating back to Descartes, who separated the Object from its Subject. Can science, which derives from sets of dualisms calling themselves ‘disciplines’, get to grips with views of the world which have resisted fragmentation?

Ethnography may be inadequate to the task of reintegrating the Subject with the Object as it tends to separate the visible world of actual behaviour from the invisible spiritual realm, which remains real and concrete to their African subjects. They may make no distinctions between the material and the spiritual. It is not an accident that most early African philosophy was most sensitively recorded by European theologians. In visual terms, this task of recording and articulating African philosophies has fallen to African film makers. These elements are partly found in the oral nature that many African societies have sustained through the centuries of colonisation and Westernisation.

The orality of Africa comes through first person narrations such as in Mr Foot, about the trials of an aspiring soccer player, and performance styles overlaid on dialogue, unseen direct address critical or ironical commentary, made to speak across languages through sub-titles. The result is a uniquely African expression which is constantly changing, mutating and re-newing itself, as the film digs ever deeper into layers of original and colonial and neo-colonial-imposed meanings, practices and beliefs. In the process, Teno brings new light to the statement that “Black is the color of despair” and that the “color of success is white”. The racial categories of ‘black’ and ‘white’ are thus interchanged as sites of oppression.

Teno’s film, Africa, which shows how the original oral culture of Cameroon has been influenced by writing, is driven by the question of how to steer Africa out of its cultural vulnerability which has led to its apparent helplessness and internal repression by black élites who do the work of global capital.

But African directors, in decolonising Africa’s own images re-presented to them, face the problem of Hollywood-hooked audiences, escapist entertainment-seeking in their own countries. While African governments mostly ban films made by critical Africans, they become artistic fodder for First World film festival circuits. As such, the paradox of Third African Cinema is that its makers act as cultural intermediaries germinating styles and themes that are currently stored in exile, waiting for appropriate conditions to break before returning home. South Africa is one instance where its exiled film industry is now returning to its origin, its site of contestation, its victory.

But not all African cinema exhibits the tenets of Third Cinema, or coherent critical narrative, as we saw in Africa, Mr Foot, and Gaston Kabore’s Madame Hadou (1992). Nor should it. But it should at least be conscious of style and the implications of this for communication, reception, and mobilisation. While I was unable to see all the African films screened, two others demand some attention.

Whose Land (1991) bears many attributes similar to a generation of South African-made videos about ‘the struggle’. These are simply getting exposure and focus, rushing headlong into a dense verbal explanation, and forgetting about questions of critical and engaging style, reception and tactical use of video codes. The result is a static, uninteresting exposition on a very important topic. Few of the audience were persuaded to see this film to through to its end.

Fadwa el Guindi’s El Sebou, Egyptian Birth Ritual (1986), a very rich ethnographic description, perhaps evidences some of the problems of Africans living in the First World trying to communicate something about the Other when the film maker is no longer part of the Other. She has become a cultural intermediary, speaking from the perspective of the Other but in documentary codes not necessarily of the Other. Her invisible voice of authority ‘fixes’ this ritual in terms of Western perspectives and floods Western viewers with overwhelming exotic information and detail. This film certainly shows that the Community is In the individual, but it lacks the economy of the feature films that have made African cinema such a strong force in cinema studies.

The comedic singer (griot) in Teno’s film ironically puts the case for Africa:, “When Africans will make their own films I’ll go back to the movies”. Africans are making their own films. The range of styles across the continent is astonishing, while some lack style altogether. The real question is how to reach African audiences, and how to obviate state censorship.

My own paper, “The Post-Apartheid Era: the San as Bridge Between Past and Future”, was well received, and I got numerous requests for copies. My Jungian approach coincided with that taken by another paper during my session entitled “Visual Symbols of National Identity”, and provided an introspective psychoanalytic synthesis (collective unconscious) of Subject and Object when discussing ‘the Other’. This was in distinction to anthropologists who tended to project ‘the Other’ as a group, society, community beyond and different to themselves. Discussion of this tendency consumed many hours of discussion at this and other sessions, including plenaries.

Contacts Made

Numerous contacts were established with individuals, institutions and organisations, specifically:

i) I was invited to join the International Visual Sociology Association (IVSA) and asked to edit a special issue of its journal, Visual Sociology, on representations of Africa. I and my staff and students were also invited to submit articles to this journal on a regular basis, edited at the University of Florida. I agreed to connect IVSA with the Association for Sociology in South Africa, which does not yet have a working group in this area.

ii) I was invited to join the International editorial board of Yearbook of Visual Anthropology, to be published from Italy, and edited from the University of Florence, from 1992.

iii) I negotiated for my staff to give lectures at various universities from which some delegates were drawn, when they visit these countries.

iv) A number of delegates asked for permission to publish my working papers and conference papers in their respective journals/publications. These had been on display during the conference.

vi) I sold a number of publications (books, journals) written by myself and my colleagues. Purchasers indicated that they would be using these in their teaching. Others said they were already using them in their teaching.

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IVSA Newsletter is published biannually by and for members of the International Visual Sociology Association. Please direct inquiries to Iarfhlaith Watson, Department of Sociology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland. Telephone: +353 1 716 8569. E-mail: iwatson@ucd.ie

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