RIP Ousmane Sembene

The remarkable Senegalese novelist, filmmaker, essayist, and political activist Ousmane Sembene died June 9th at age 84. Sembene was the first African born black person to direct a European feature film (the magnificent La Noire de...) in 1963 and directed the first feature film made in Africa (Mandabi) in 1968. His novels include Black Docker (Le Docker Noir), God's Bit of Wood (Les bouts de Bois de Dieu), and The Last of the Empire (Le Dernier de l'Empire). Prior to his literary career he was a dock worker in Marseilles and became Trade Union Leader of the dock workers. This led him to become an extremely important member of the French Communist party until his return to Senegal in 1960. His first novel, Le Docker Noir, has remained a crucial work of anti-racist working class literature.

Rarely has an individual so excelled in two such demanding and diverse art forms as Sembene. He managed to write masterful novels, novellas and short stories in both French and Woolof, making major contributions to both French and Pan-African literature. He also created an utterly unique filmic language. In 1993 the great American film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum made a list of what he considered to be the twelve greatest living narrative filmmakers in an essay on the career of Michelangelo Antonioni. He listed Antonioni, Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson, Federico Fellini, Samuel Fuller, Jean-Luc Godard, Hou Hsaio-Hsein, Stanley Kubrick, Akira Kurosawa, Nagisa Oshima, Alain Resnais and Ousmane Sembene. I list all twelve because it is notable that in the US Sembene has remained virtually unknown and undistributed. Uncompromisingly critical, brave, and ideologically rigorous, he exemplified everything positive and hopeful about humanity. His writing and films not only often were banned, but his life and the life of his comrades and family were constantly in danger. He fought all these forces with equal critical rigor; the imperialists, the capitalist bosses, the misogynist fundamentalists, the narrow minded ethnic cleansing nationalists, the satanically pragmatic neoliberals. He also created narratives and characterizations that helped us understand how people came to these sad positions - the structural conditions, the personal choices, the psychological ramifications of oppression and repression.

Sembene will be missed. I can only hope that more of his work will finally find DVD release in region 1. Many of you may be familiar with Sembene because of his final film, 2004's Moolaade. I can not urge you enough to seek out one of his films and/or writings if you are not already acquainted with his work.

Ousmane Sembene

Thanks for this. I will look for his work.

The International Herald Tribune ran a detailed retrospective of his work earier this week. It was fascinating. I'm somewhat embarassed to say that I'd never heard of him before, but I will be filing his name away in my head, in the hope that an opportunity to see his work will come my way before too long.

I feel ashamed that I've not been at all exposed to his work. Can someone recommend a good place to start with him (in any medium)?

I would just start at the beginning, I suppose. Le Docker Noir (first novel) and La Noire de... (first film) can be found with just a little effort. Netflix has the only three films of his that are on region 1 dvd at the moment (La Noire De..., Mandabi and Xala).

Thanks. Looks like my local video store has Black Girl, Mandabi and Xala, so I'll start from there.