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OUSMANE SEMBENE

Ousmane Sembene was born in 1923 in a village known as Ziguinchor, which is located in the province of Masmance South Senegal. Sembene prior to his film career was in the midst of WWII and post WWII madness; Sembene was classified as a citizen of French West Africa and in 1944 was called to active duty to free France of its German rivals. Following the war Sembene would eventually move to France to live in the Mediterranean city of Marseilles and enroll in the most powerful left wing worker’s union in France following the war. After breaking his back bone in 1951 Sembene was free to dive deeper into his passion for film, all kinds of literature, involvement in political movements and the study of political ideologies like Marxism.

While Sembene was evolving into a politically driven creative artist ultimately producing poems, books, and films, the film world was evolving as well. Following the war art cinema came about in the 1950s geared toward evading traditional Hollywood filmmaking. The art cinema was heavily fueled by the technological advancements that occurred within the film business. Manufacturers managed to make cameras much more portable giving directors the ability to make films without relying so heavily on a tripod, the cameras now included viewfinders, and the film stock required less light for reasonable exposure. As a result of such technological advances there was also many changes in filming techniques. The techniques that were popular during the 1960’s, which was Sembene’s introduction to film include the use of panning shots, close-ups, the development of shot-reverse-shot exchanges with long lenses, discontinuous editing, shooting on location, and the use of very long takes.

Sembene in response to his circumstances, living through WWII and its effects on Africa decided that creating for the sake of commercial success was not his goal. Through being driven by his political views of the world and a desire to bring about change Sembene has become widely recognized as the “father of African cinema”. Evident in Sembene’s work was his passionate stance on artists dedicating themselves to creating change which makes him stand out as an auteur, “Sembene told the Tunsian film critic Taha Cheria: ‘In this part of the world (Africa), there is one thing we must recognize: filmmakers carry a mission and, more generally, the artists the one who prepares a revolution, the one who incites it….Through his work of analysis, clarification, unmasking, and denunciation, the artist arouses in his people’s consciousness the clear conviction that revolution is necessary and possible’”. Sembene used cinema to explore themes such as colonialism, tradition, capitalism, patriarchy, religion, Africa finding its true identity, and abuses of power within society. Sembene was also recognized for many of his films focusing on female protagonists, Sembene was clearly a great supporter of feminism and creating positive progressive images of African women. Sembene quite importantly was the first African director to use African languages in his films including Wolof and Diola two Senegalese languages, and Bambara a language spoken in Eastern Senegal. Sembene was unafraid to cover the very tough controversial topics while straying away from the commercial Hollywood style of filmmaking, many of his film were censored and banned by former president Leopold Senghor’s regime.

In terms of techniques Sembene’s filming style can be mostly likened to Italian Neorealism. Sembene was not very concerned with making big time major commercial movies with Hollywood budgets. Sembene would make his films in a relatively cheap manner in comparison to the Hollywood market. Semebene similar to Neorealsim style was fond of shooting on location, using small nonprofessional cast, and dubbing in the sound for the films. As a result of multiple techniques similar to the Italian Neorealist films Smebene’s work has a very documentary style aesthetic even when it is a fiction work. Sembenes filmography includes work that is considered classic, especially in Africa. Sembene’s notable work includes “Black Girl” (1966), “Mandabi” (1968), and “Xala” (1975).

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