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Dovey, Lindiwe (2009) African Film and Literature: Adapting Violence to the Screen. New York: Columbia University Press.

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Abstract

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.

Item Type: Authored Books
SOAS Departments & Centres: Departments and Subunits > School of Arts > Department of the History of Art & Archaeology
Legacy Departments > Faculty of Languages and Cultures > Department of the Languages and Cultures of Africa
Legacy Departments > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Centre for Media Studies
Subjects: P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN1990 Broadcasting
ISBN: 9780231519380
DOI (Digital Object Identifier): https://doi.org/10.7312/dove14754
Date Deposited: 29 Apr 2009 13:04
URI: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/id/eprint/7246

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