African Film and Literature

Adapting Violence to the Screen

Bibliographic Data

ID19922935
AuthorsLindiwe Dovey (0000-0001-6129-2236, corresponding author)
Year2009
Pages334
Publication date2009-12-31
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueAfrican film and literature (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherColumbia University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.7312/dove14754
OpenAlexW4234264029
Open LibraryOL22552713M
ISBN9780231147552
LanguageEN
Citations received32

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

African history and culture studies · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Cinema and Media Studies · History · Africa · in literature · In motion pictures · Motion pictures · Violence in literature · Violence in motion pictures

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