Epic Elements in Ceddo
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10220992 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Robert Cancel (University of California San Diego, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1985 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 3-19 |
| Publication date | 1985-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | A Current Bibliography on African Affairs (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0011-3255 • E-ISSN: 2376-6662 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/001132558601800102 |
| OpenAlex | W2273596036 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 5 |
While film and oral narrative performance are two distinct media, Ousmane Sembene of Senegal is uniquely gifted to play the role of a cinéaste/griot. In Ceddo, perhaps his most accomplished film to date, he uses several traditional narrative patterns, as well as developing the scope and pageantry of oral epic, to create an allegorical history of the confluence of Islam, Christianity, and the slave trade in a West African kingdom. Sembene also uses the conventions of cinema as well as the Wolof language to reach as large a Senegalese audience as he can. This essay describes the many devices of oral performance and cinema employed by Sembene to put across his message of caution and of popular, concerted activism on the part of the “common man (and woman).”
Aesthetics · Art · Christianity · EPIC · Islam · Literature · Movie theater · Narrative · Scope (computer science · African history and culture studies · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Caribbean and African Literature and Culture · Computer Science · History
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |