The Cinema of Apartheid: Race and Class in South African Film by Keyan Tomaselli

What is it about?

In the introduction to this important book, Keyan Tomaselli, who teaches at the University of Natal and is founder and editor of Critical Arts, raises the point that because of scholarly concern in the more immediate issues of repression in South Africa, only a handful of scholars have examined the strategic ideological importance of South African cinema. In The Cinema of Apartheid Tomaselli not only provides a detailed and accurate history of South African cinema, but indicates how it has played a central role in attempts to legitimize apartheid, in part, by presenting it as "a natural way of life." Creative and dynamic filmmaking flourishes in an open political environment: thus, for example, the vigor of contemporary Australian cinema reflects the openness of that society. In South Africa there is an entirely different creative environment; one of censorship, control by the state through subsidies (different subsidies for black and white films) and by restrictive patterns of film distribution and of access to the industry. Indeed, the very existence of the South African feature film industry results from a state subsidy scheme introduced in 1956. The antics of the Publications Control Board (PCB) in the 1960-70s appeared ridiculous because of its puritanical emphasis on sex and nudity. Chairman of the PCB, Jannie Kruger, in 1965 banned the film Debbie because he believed that Afrikaner girls did not get pregnant out of wedlock. However, the cutting of a scene from the 1968 film Die Kanididaat, which raises the question whether "Coloureds" were Afrikaners, is indicative of the real purpose and significance of the Board. Tomaselli also discusses how restrictions by the financiers, both domestic and international, have resulted in bland and often racist feature films. "Where the state takes responsibility for balancing profits and losses, the strong possibility exists that it will eventually take control of the industry in question" (p. 29). Not only did the producers of films on Athol Fugard and Nadine Gordimer have to find other financial sources for the making of their films, but because they were ostracized by the local industry and hence unable to obtain local distribution, their commercial viability in South Africa was threatened.

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Why is it important?

Tomaselli's great contribution is his documentation of the intrusion of apartheid into the cinema arts. Tomaselli remarks that while a certain, though diminishing, degree of political criticism was tolerated for the white media aimed at white audiences, this latitude did not exist for black viewers. In regard to black films, the genres tolerated are on gangsterism, or ones that emphasize a return from urban to rural values. It is therefore not surprising that "no 'black' film made by a white company has ever been banned" (p. 69). Perhaps the most revealing statement by Tomaselli is that South African filmmakers believe that their films lie outside of politics and are merely forms of entertainment, while in fact, the films are susceptible to the propagandist intentions of the state. Tomaselli's chapter on the independent cinema is the most hopeful aspect of the whole book. This is an area about which little has been published and Tomaselli's chapter is most informative. His discussion of alternative film making with its emphasis on democratic structures and on ways which give the people control over the way they are represented is a valuable contribution. It is only at the grass roots level then that film breaks out of the apartheid "strait jacket".