African Art in Movies

Wednesday, 05 March 2025 11:42

African Art in Movies

Authored by Donna Pido

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African Art in Movies

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Editor's Subject: QUERY: African art in movies
Author's Subject: QUERY: African art in movies
Date Written: Sat, 18 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Sun, 18 Mar 2006 08:47:32 -0500

This is a bit off the subject of African art in Man Ray's photos, but

I always take note of African art objects that appear in the

background in Hollywood films.

My collection covers the 30s to the 80s. If anybody is interested I

can put a list together.

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Editor's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Author's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Date Written: Sat, 18 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Sun, 18 Mar 2006 15:47:07 -0500

I've also found myself taking note of the placement of African art in

certain Hollywood films, and I'd be very interested in any list that you

could put together. Thank you for offering to do so.

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Editor's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Author's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Date Written: Sat, 18 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Mon, 19 Mar 2006 11:17:36 -0500

I would also be interested in a list of films incorporating African

art, especially those from the 1920s and '30s. Issues raised by

these films are very much related to my project on Man Ray, since its

main concern is with representation. I'm also looking for related

European films from this period. It would be interesting to compare

them with the Hollywood films.

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Editor's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Author's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Date Written: Sat, 18 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Mon, 19 Mar 2006 11:19:36 -0500

I have noted since the 70s and maybe even the 60s african objects in

TV shows: Checkmate (1960s), for example, had an Ndengese king figure

in the hallway of the detective agency, if I remember correctly. Of

course, Third Rock from the Sun had an awful akuaba on the Mary's

(Jane Curtin) shelf. Will on Will and Grace has a pretty bad one as

well. And who could not notice the atrocities spelling out "pedantry"

in the living room of Frazier?

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Editor's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Author's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Date Written: Sun, 19 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Mon, 19 Mar 2006 11:23:00 -0500

I would like that!

I remember very clearly a scene from 'Pillow talk', seen years ago.

Doris Day, playing an interior decorator, tries to create an interior

that is as ugly and repulsive as possible for her opponent (Gary

Grant?). As a crowning achievement she places, with a mischievous

smile, an African statue (Baule?) in the centre. Quite interesting

that in this time frame (fifties) in popular American culture,

African art is seen as the absolute opposite of taste and beauty.

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Editor's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Author's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Date Written: Sun, 19 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Mon, 19 Mar 2006 15:50:56 -0500

"Bell, Book and Candle" was, of course "set" in the gallery of Julius

Carlebach.

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Date Written: Sun, 19 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Mon, 19 Mar 2006 15:51:57 -0500

A Spike Lee film around 1990 had a poster from the African Reflections

exhibition (American Museum of Natural History) on the wall in someone's

office. I don't remember the name of the film.

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Author's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Date Written: Sun, 19 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Mon, 19 Mar 2006 15:53:52 -0500

Well, of course in "Bell, Book, and Candle," Kim Novak (a witch) runs a

gallery specializing in African art. At the end, after she gives up her

powers for the love of Jimmy Stewart, the African art is gone and her

gallery has been transformed into a shop selling floral arrangements made of

sea-shells.

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Author's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Date Written: Sun, 19 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Mon, 19 Mar 2006 20:15:39 -0500

The only one I know from that time period is the large Ekoi head in the

Wizard of Oz (1939). But I'd love to se a fuller list...

(Behind the Professor (Wizard), inside his wagon, where he is

pretending to tell Dorothy's fortune-before a tornado whisks her away

to Oz - MWC, Editor)

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Editor's Subject: ANN: Art for Humanity
Author's Subject: ANN: Art for Humanity
Date Written: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:50:17 +0200
Date Posted: Tue, 20 Mar 2006 10:07:18 -0500

Art for Humanity

SA Human Rights Day 21/03/06

In this issue: please click on the links;

News:

http://www.afh.org.za/Newsmar06.php

Arts, Culture & Human Rights in Limpopo

AFH - Art as Social Development

'Women for Children' Project:

http://www.afh.org.za/NewsChildrensRightsmar06.php

National Lottery supports 'Women for Children'

Public Response to Airport billboard

Kara Walker billboard update

'Women for Children' Poetry Translations

Archbishop speaks out on child abuse in South Africa

'Break the Silence' Project:

http://www.afh.org.za/NewsBreakSilencemar06.php

'Break the Silence' artist mourned

Online research links for 'Break the Silence'

'Images of Human Rights' Project:

http://www.afh.org.za/NewsImagesHumanRightsmar06.php

AFH Endorsers Rule the World

Support Human Rights in South Africa

Art for Humanity

(formerly Artists for Human Rights)

c/o Fine Art

Durban Institute of Technology

City Campus

Box 953

Durban 4000

South Africa

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Editor's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Author's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Date Written: Sun, 19 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Tue, 20 Mar 2006 10:09:36 -0500

It would also be an interesting thing to know where the various

'African Art props' came from. Did local dealers supply them or were

they part of the 'props department' that various studios had. As

many films were made before the developed interest in African Art per

se or the advent of the runner trade were these authentic objects or

simply Hollywood views of what an African sculpture would look like.

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Editor's Subject: African Art in Movies: REPLY
Author's Subject: African Art in Movies: REPLY
Date Written: Mon, 20 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Tue, 20 Mar 2006 10:17:08 -0500

Thanks for the interest. Apparently HAVING the list and FINDING it are two

different things. It isn't a very long list and is drawn only from my small

collection of movies (approximately 1200 titles).

The following is off the top of my head and I promise to search for

the list and the rest.

Lassie Come Home - Cross River head mask, Ibibio?

Pillow Talk - Ivorian figure (which others have also noted)

Rear Window - Kikuyu Dancing Shield

Lust in the Dust - Tharaka arm band passing as native American

A forties black and white detective flick in an office behind a night club

(title to be recalled) small dark figurines on the side board, possibly

40's Kamba tourist pieces

Annie Hall - the ciondo that launched that basket form into American

culture.

There are only four or five others that I know of with African

objects unconnected to the story (but can't recall at the

moment).

Some others in which the objects have a connection to the story are:

The Quest for Fire - Samburu milk pot and Gogo circumcision mask

Trader Horn - fabulous footage of Kikuyu, Luo and Kamba dancers

Stanley and Livingstone - background people in traditional dress but also

California folk in fake costumes

King Solomon's Mines - (Deborah Kerr) real Maasai and Tutsi people

Sheena - (gag) assorted real ornaments and artifacts jumbled up

The Air Up there - also real people and a Cameo appearance by Kirati

Lenaronkoito!

Out of Africa - beaded ornaments copied from old pictures and museum

collections by Donna Pido, some of which also appear in The Color Purple.

Some of these props were diverted from the properties storage and sold to

tourists as old stuff during and after the shooting of The Color Purple.

There's more, so hold on but don't hold your breath.

I don't recall seeing a Chiwara anywhere but that doesn't mean there

aren't any.

Maybe others can add to this list. It seems we've already started a

list for TV which is good. And, by the way, we also see The Young

and the Restless, The Bold and The Beautiful and The Days of Our

Lives here in Kenya so we do know what the evil Stefano is up to (but

it won't get us into Harvard) and how Nicholas and Sharon's marriage

is going - at all times.

Best regards and apologies to all.

Donna

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Editor's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Author's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Date Written: Mon, 20 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Tue, 20 Mar 2006 10:21:23 -0500

And for the record -

The footage of Turkana people in The Constant Gardener confuses

Lokichogio, on the western side of the Lake in North Turkana with

Loiengalani on the eastern side so that it looks like North Turkana

people dress like the heavily Samburu-influenced Turkanas and Elmolo

of the Eastern side. A picky detail perhaps but there is so much

visual confusion everywhere, especially between Maasai and Samburu,

that maybe it's best to be on record about it now rather than leave a

mess for future scholars.

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Editor's Subject: African Art in Movies: REPLY
Author's Subject: African Art in Movies: REPLY
Date Written: Mon, 20 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Tue, 20 Mar 2006 11:43:58 -0500

These are two very negative examples of indirect and direct

connections of African art to movies:

1) Tears of the Sun

In perhaps the most horrendous scene in this most condemnable movie, where

women are being raped and having their breasts cut off by the (Muslim?)

rebels, there is a fleeting, but intentional in my opinion, shot of a

tallish (generic?/Igbo Ikenga-like?/Central African?) sculpture in the

corner of the dark hut.

2) Many years ago I accidentally found myself watching a mini-horror movie

of a woman who was getting ready to go out on a date and the small

nkisi-like figure (read 'voodoo') that someone had given her as a gift,

gradually becomes 'animated.' It starts moving around her apartment and

confusing her, and the movie ends with the figure eventually attacking her

by the throat and killing her.

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Editor's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Author's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Date Written: Mon, 20 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Tue, 20 Mar 2006 15:43:25 -0500

A Luba Buli-style figure has prominent placement in the company president's

office in "Desk Set," with Katherine Hepburn & Spencer Tracy.

************

From: Soppelsa, Robert T

1: I tried for years to find something even remotely "real" in

Frasier Crane's African art...no luck.

2: On an early episode of "The Jeffersons," the couple who live

upstairs from them present them with a housewarming gift: an

"authentic Baule (pronounced ba-ool) ancestor figure." I can't

remember what it looked like, beyond being fairly small and

apparently wooden.

************

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I believe Rosalind Hackett is referring to "The Intruder" (2000) with

Charlotte Gainsbourg and Nastassja Kinski.

************

From: "Karen Milbourne" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;

My favorite unlikely placement is the Buli Master bowl figure in

"Desk Set" with Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. It has no

connection to the plot, Tracy goes up to the company director's

office to discuss his new super computer and there she is...

************

From: Steven Nelson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;

There are also those films with African architecture in them. For example,

the 1941 film "Road to Zanzibar" has a "Mousgoum village" which was the site

of a cannibal raid.

************

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In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Mrs. Summers is a dealer in "tribal" art, both

African and pre-Columbian, which occasionally turns up in the background or

incidentally in the plots. In one episode at the beginning of Season 3,

"Dead Man's Party," she brings home an African mask of some sort that

possesses people and turns them into zombies.

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Editor's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Author's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Date Written: Mon, 20 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Tue, 20 Mar 2006 17:52:42 -0500

The Momella Giraffe Preserve (also called Momella Lodge), was the site for

Hatari, a John Wayne movie filmed in 1960 just north of Arusha at the foot

of Mount Meru. When I stayed there in 1991 to conduct a training program on

HIV/AIDS with educators and health workers, the main building was at the end

of a long unpaved road off the main highway. At the time, very simple,

small free-standing cottages (bedroom and bathroom) were available for

guests a little distance from the main building.

Today, as I look at the website, this appears to be called Hatari Lodge, and

billed as a "luxury bush hotel."

The main building is featured in the movie, along with its long bar. Hatari

the movie was run frequently on videotape at the request of guests.

************

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On the current TV show "Las Vegas" I believe there is a Benin style ivory tusk

behind the desk of Ed Deline, the casino's director.

Re: the Buffy episode... I just saw that one again the other day. The mask

that causes all the trouble is a Nigerian mask (no cultural group or context--

it looks non-specific and generic). Buffy's mom hangs it on her bedroom

wall. Whenever its eyes glow red, it raises the dead, animal and human, and

attracts them all to the Sommer's house so that a zombie will put the mask

on. Once a zombie puts the mask, it becomes an embodied demon. Which, of

course, wants to kill everyone and tries to do so until beheaded by Buffy (no

other way to remove the mask).

************

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Since some recent films have been noted - I'd like to add Spike Lee's

Bamboozled for both African sculpture (in the office of the white TV

executive) and, of course, for African American 'memorabilia'. An

even newer film Duma features a curing ritual with a mask-like mud

poultice (although it's not clear where this takes place except that

its close to the Okavango River, so presumably Botswana).

Maybe we can get another discussion going on Art Historians writing

novels set in Africa -John Canaday, former art critic for the NY

Times, wrote in the 1940s and 1950s, under the pen name Matthew Head,

seven crime novels, three set in Africa, and based in part on his

experience in the Congo. Two titles are indicative - The Cabinda

Affair and The Congo Venus. And, of course, there is Robert Brain's

Kolonial Agent.

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Editor's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Author's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Date Written: Tue, 21 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Wed, 21 Mar 2006 07:41:45 -0500

I didn't imagine that there would be so much interest! Thanks for Tears of

the Sun, Desk Set and Trilogy of Terror, The Spike Lee film, none of which I

have.

This leads us to the HUGE list of contrived African costumes and objects

like the one in Trilogy of Terror. I collect the films but haven't tried to

list them yet. I can extrapolate from my big list and then others can add,

if there's interest.

Thanks also for Momella Giraffe Reserve. I have it on now to look for

artifacts hanging on the walls. The colonial interior and furniture look

very authentic except that there are no holes in the table cloth. There is a

Maasai-like shield and spears on the wall but they aren't clear enough to

tell more than that. Elsa Martinelli wears a set of Kisonko Maasai collars

when she dances with a group of Ilarus who are wearing their own clothes.

Do we also expand the list to include landmarks, buildings and interiors?

If so, there's

Out of Africa - the exterior is really Blixen's house but the interior is a

set with two levels; Muthaiga Club

White Mischief - shot partially in the Rocco House on Lake Naivasha,

MacMillan library as the Law Courts Building, Muthaiga Club, Djinn Palace

Constant Gardener - British High Commission, old colonial house, real

Kibera, real Elmolo houses

and many others for East Africa that I haven't tried to list yet - but will.

THEN, there's the vast sea of Nollywood interpretations of both African and

non-African cultures. Cases in point are One Dollar, Osuofia in London and

Abuja Connection which are the only ones I have with me here. The pink bunny

slippers in One Dollar also appear in a spoof of Dances with Wolves in Hot

Shots.

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Editor's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Author's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Date Written: Tue, 21 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Wed, 21 Mar 2006 07:47:17 -0500

Here is a list of films from my collection that either take place in Africa,

or interpret African culture in various ways. A few also interpret

non-African culture through African eyes. I have left out some with

Diaspora material (like Birth of Nation) but kept others in for no good

reason other than Africa related iconography (like Live and Let Die). I

also left out Constant Gardener because I don't have it, but I did put in Roots

because I remember it. So much for consistency.

I tried attaching the file in its original Excel format in case

others would like

to use that format to add more entries but that isn't working.

*********************************

Sorry, H-AfrArts cannot accept attachments and

columns don't come out very well in email messages.

Remember that there is a separate H-Net List,

H-AfLitCine which deals with African film in general.

H-AfrArts is especially concerned with visual culture

in films, and perhaps architecture which is not covered

elsewhere and is very interesting in its own right.

MWC-Editor/Moderator

*********************************

I have never kept a record of the directors which is an embarrassment

so if anybody wants to add that as a yet another column I would be

grateful. Maybe also a separate column for country of origin?

We have a book on film about Africa somewhere in the quagmire here. It

purports to have a complete filmography related to Africa but there are lots

of omissions. I don't remember the title, so if anybody is familiar with

that book, please tell me - also the color of the spine. If I find it

first, I'll tell you.

Title Date

Cast Comment

A Good Man in Africa 94

A Night in Casablanca 46 Marx SEE Casablanca and Play it

Again Sam

Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy 55 ab and cost

farce

Abuja Connection voodoo, costumes

Africa Screams 49 Ab cost Africa interp

African Queen, 51 bogart Africa interp afi 17

Air Up There 94 Bacon Samburu, Kirati

Beat Street 84 Chong Afr interp

Beau Geste 39, 66 North Africa

Black and White in color 77 Benin?

Black Orpheus (french) 59 Mello, Dawn Africa, Greek

Black Orpheus ( portuguese) 59 Yoruba religion and

symbolism

Blackhawk Down 90s? Somalia

Bongo early 40s 1 Bongo cartoon in the Congo

Born Free 66 elsa, Travers Kenyan scenes

Breaker Morant 79 Australian, South Africa

Bwana Devil 52 Stack Africa

Call Me Bwana 63 Hope Africa interp

Carry on Up the Jungle nd crazy fakery

Casablanca 41 Bogart, Bergman afi 2

Cleopatra 63 Taylor gagg!

Color Purple 89? Goldberg, Glover Africa interp my

beads

Coming to America 88 Murphy interpretation of African

royalty

Congo 95 Curry very fake

Cry Freedom 87 Kline, Washington Africa

Cry the Beloved Country 57 Poitier Africa

Death on the Nile 78 Davis, Farrow Egypt

Egyptian 54 red wig Africa

ER in Africa late 90s? Wylie Congo

Ernest Goes to Africa 90s? very ersatz

Exorcist II 77 Blair, Burton, Jones fantasy of Afarica

Ghost and the Darkenss 96 Douglas Kenya

Gladiator 2001 Crowe, Honsu N Afarican scenes

Gods Must Be Crazy I 81 race Botswana

Gods Must be Crazy II 89 race Botswana

Gorilla at Large 54 Africa?

Gorillas in the Mist 88 Weaver poachers speak Kikuyu

Greystoke 84 Tarzan Gabon

Hatari 66 Wayne, Buttons Tanzania

Heart of Darkness 94 Malkovich Congo

I Dreamed of Africa 0 Galman Kenya

Ipi Tombi 80s? Africa

Jewel of the Nile 85 turner, Douglas North Africa

Jit 90s Africa, Zimbabwe

King Kong 32 Wray Africa interp

King Solomon's Mines 50 Granger, Kerr Maa, Tutsi africa

Kitchen Toto 87 Mahinda race realtions, v accurate

Kolormask 85 Adambo, Klumpp ist Kenyan feature

Lion King 94 Disney Africa soc comment

Lion King II nd backgrounds

Live and Let die 73 Moore Jame Bond

Lord of the Flies 90 Getty Harry Hook

Lord of the Flies (early) 63 Ghana

Love Brewed in an African Pot nd ersatz Afarica

Mighty Joe Young 49 (98) Uganda

Mississippi Masala 92 Tagore race, Africa Uganda

Mogambo (Red Dust Remake) 53 Gable, Gardner, Kelly

Africa, Kenya, congo

Mummy's curse 44

Mummy's Hand 40

Murder on the Orient Express Finney et al African

family in train station

Naked Prey 66 Wilde South Africa

Nun's Story 59 A Hepburn Congo

One Dollar cross cultural interpretation

Osuofia in London cross cultural

interpretation

Out of Africa 85 Redford, Streep Kenya

Pie Pie Blackbird nd baker

Play it Again Sam 72? Allan Casablanca takeoff

Primitivism 90's gunshot art gunshot art soc comment

Princess Tam Tam 35 Baker Africa in cactus patch

Quest for Fire 81 Chong Pearlman Samburu milkpot< Maasai

hairdo, Gogo ersatz mask

Red Dust 33 Harlowe, Gable also on 135

Revenge of the Zombies 43 Carradine African interp

Road to Zanzibar 41 Hope, Crosby farce

Roots 70s contrived African costumes

Sarafina 92 Goldberg, Khumalo Africa soc comment

Serpent and the Rainbow 88 Allman Africa interp

Shaft in Africa 73 roundtree Ethiopia

Shaka Zulu nd Cele South Africa

Sheena 84 Tucker, Bagaya filmed in Kenya

Sheik 21 Valentino

Sheltering Sky 90 Winger, Malkovich Morocco

Snows of Kilimanjaro 52 Peck Gardner race relations

Something of Value 57 Hudson, Poitier soc comment

Son of the Sheik 26 Valentino soc comment

Stanley and Livingstone 39 Tracy real Afaricans and fakes

Stormy Weather 43 Horne, Bojangles African production

numbers

Tarzan and His Mate 34 Weismuller

Tarzan and the Lost city 98

Tarzan Escapes 36 Weismuller

Tarzan finds a son 39 weismuller

Tarzan silver Screen King ? Weismuller

Tarzan the Ape Man (AF) 32 Weismuller, O'Sullivan

Trader Horn 31 Carey, Booth Kenya, Kik, Maa, Kamba, Luo

Trader Hound nd dogs spoof of T Horn

Trading Places 83 Murphy Ackroyd African character on train

Up the Sandbox 72 Steisand fantasy sequence in Kenya

White Hunter Black Heart 90 Eastwood african

interp

White Mischief 88 Scaachi, Dance Kenya whites

White Zombie 32 Lugosi

Wind and the Lion 75 connery, Bergen N Africa

Zombies 57? Palmer

Zulu 64 Caine South africa

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Editor's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Author's Subject: African art in movies: REPLY
Date Written: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 19:53:39 -0500
Date Posted: Wed, 21 Mar 2006 07:47:51 -0500

The most interesting use of an African art object that I know of is in

Ousmane Sembene's Le Noire de... It is a 60 minute film from the early

60's. It tells the story of a young Senegalese woman in Dakar who gives a

mask as a present to her French employer. When she is later brought

to work as a maid in France and finds herself trapped in an

apartment, the mask becomes her connection back home. It gets even

gloomier later. The mask is a

leitmotiv that runs through the film.

The film is available in the US as The Black Girl from New Yorker Films. It

is now available in DVD bundled with another early Sembene film Borom

Sarret.

****************

From: "Doris, David" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;

BELL, BOOK AND CANDLE (1958, directed by Richard Quine), in which a

grey-flanneled Jimmy Stewart plays a publisher who wanders by chance

(or was it... destiny?) into an art gallery somewhere down in NYC's

Greenwich Village. There he meets hottie gallery-owner Kim Novac who,

as it turns out, is A WITCH. Hilarity ensues. So does romance: Novac

is so smitten by Stewart that she's willing to sacrifice her special

powers to win his heart away from his hoity-toity Sutton Place

fiancee.

Oh, and you'll NEVER guess what sort of Art it is that so VERY

generously appoints the shelves and walls of the bewitching Ms.

Novac's bohemian gallery!

Don't miss Ernie Kovac's wacky turn as a schlubby anthropologist. It's a gem.

****************

From: "Donna Pido" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;

I'm adding Tears of the Sun to my list. The other for-TV film you describe

was part of Trilogy of Terror starring Karen Black. I saw that figure as a

bad imitation of a 30's Kamba image of a Maasai, so did not put it on my list

- but I will now.

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Editor's Subject: African Art in Movies: REPLY
Author's Subject: African Art in Movies: REPLY
Date Written: Tue, 21 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Wed, 21 Mar 2006 13:45:01 -0500

The recent 2005 LORD OF WAR starring Nicholas Cage as gun runner Yuri

Orlov has a scene in which Yuri meets the cruel military dictator of (Cote

d'Ivoire or Liberia?) in his palace office...it is furnished with many

beautifully carved Cameroon stools.

**************

From: "Roberts, Allen" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;

Just in case we run outta gas on this one, there's always Bollywood and,

among other issues, its curious effects on Indian people of African descent,

who in two cases I am aware of, have reinvented their "authentic" costuming

and performance arts to match their lurid characterization in movies, so as

to be able to sell their entertainment services as "primitives" at weddings

and other local events. Nollywood would be another rich field to explore in

some of these same ways.

**************

From: Steven Nelson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;

There's a 1994 book by Kenneth M. Cameron, entitled "Africa on Film,"

(Continuum Press, NYC) which includes a filmography listing American and

British films from as early as the 1910s that take place in or in some way

focus on Africa.

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Editor's Subject: African Art in Movies: REPLY
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Date Written: Tue, 21 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Wed, 21 Mar 2006 13:45:01 -0500

The recent 2005 LORD OF WAR starring Nicholas Cage as gun runner Yuri

Orlov has a scene in which Yuri meets the cruel military dictator of (Cote

d'Ivoire or Liberia?) in his palace office...it is furnished with many

beautifully carved Cameroon stools.

**************

From: "Roberts, Allen" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;

Just in case we run outta gas on this one, there's always Bollywood and,

among other issues, its curious effects on Indian people of African descent,

who in two cases I am aware of, have reinvented their "authentic" costuming

and performance arts to match their lurid characterization in movies, so as

to be able to sell their entertainment services as "primitives" at weddings

and other local events. Nollywood would be another rich field to explore in

some of these same ways.

**************

From: Steven Nelson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;

There's a 1994 book by Kenneth M. Cameron, entitled "Africa on Film,"

(Continuum Press, NYC) which includes a filmography listing American and

British films from as early as the 1910s that take place in or in some way

focus on Africa.

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Date Written: Tue, 21 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Wed, 21 Mar 2006 15:25:47 -0500

Hello. Very interesting discussion. No one has mentioned the

terrible 2005 movie Sahara. It was playing on Air France when I was

on my way to Mali but even so, I couldn't get all the way through it.

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Date Written: Tue, 21 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Wed, 21 Mar 2006 15:25:47 -0500

Hello. Very interesting discussion. No one has mentioned the

terrible 2005 movie Sahara. It was playing on Air France when I was

on my way to Mali but even so, I couldn't get all the way through it.

H-AfrArts

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Date Written: Tue, 21 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Thu, 22 Mar 2006 12:28:51 -0500

Here is one more upsetting example:

Last Thursday's forensic psychology thriller (tv drama) on BBC America "Sea

of Souls" featured a gory Shango cult in the UK that cut strategic body

parts out of unfortunate live victims for healing purposes. Needless to say

there were Shango images on walls etc in their ritual locations. While the

victims were black the perpetrators were white. There was even reference to

the ritual murder of the Nigerian boy who was found limbless and headless in

the Thames some years back.

To my friends who have expressed concern about my viewing practices, this

was all in the line of duty. Someone's got to do it (ie track and contest

the negative representations of Africa available to the viewing public).

Perhaps I have a penchant for this... but other than that I 'm fine, thank

you!

******************

From: "Donna Pido" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;

Going back to the posting about how African art objects get into movies

the Baule (?) piece in Pillow talk and the Kikuyu shield in Rear Window look

far too good for any serious collector to have lent for a movie production.

The Shield, in particular, is just décor in James Stewart's apartment. It is

never referred to in any way in the story yet it's right there in you face.

I have tried contacting various studios via the Internet from here but

either the sites don't have a facility for making

contact, or they don't respond.

It would be interesting to follow up from a more strategic location than

Nairobi.

*******************

From: "Anitra Nettleton" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;

There was a wonderful French language movie whose English title was "Black

and White in Colour", on the art movie circuit, I think in the 1970s. In it

a pair of French Catholic missionaries engage in an exchange of artefacts

with the "natives", of plaster Madonnas for wooden "idols". One of the

missionaries surreptitiously weeds out the better works while ostentatiously

throwing the 'rubbish" on a bonfire. Looks like it was set in Cote d'Ivoire,

and was heavily satirical.

*******************

From: Leigh Collier <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;

I know it's a recent one but I noticed some large

Zulu baskets in the movie 'Lemony Snicket's

Series of Unfortunate Events'

The three children go and stay with their Uncle -

played by Billy Connelly - in the large living

room area there are what looks like two large

Zulu baskets with diamond patterns on them, as

far as I know, the type traditionally used in

wedding transactions.

Interesting topic!

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Date Written: Wed, 22 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Thu, 22 Mar 2006 13:26:18 -0500

Have enjoyed reading what my colleagues REALLY do in their spare time

and surprised that I can actually offer another title: "Sanders of

the River" which stars Paul Robeson in a role he wished he'd never

taken.

As it sort-of deals with the Niger River, Martha Anderson & I tried

to figure out a way we could include it in the Ways of the Rivers

exhibition.

Anyway, it's true classic, and, of yes, there is "African art" in it.

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Date Written: Wed, 22 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Thu, 22 Mar 2006 14:58:58 -0500

There are Dogon-esque motifs in the doors and architecture of the "city" in

Tim Burton's "Planet of the Apes" (2001).

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Date Written: Thu, 23 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Fri, 23 Mar 2006 13:08:18 -0500

There's always the north Africa - sci-fi connection to be made. I'm not

thinking of particular examples other than the famous Matmata bar-room scene

in Starwars, along with the Tunisia city name of Tataouine.

And then there's the debate over Ethiopia's Gondar cum Tolkien's

Gondor. I'm not remembering what they did architecturally with that

in the films.

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Date Written: Wed, 22 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Fri, 23 Mar 2006 13:31:53 -0500

Around 1993, McDonalds did a commercial with African art that "danced" when

people weren't watching. A Namshi figure was featured.

Star Trek occasionally included African art. I remember in Deep Space Nine,

the character played by Avery Brooks, Benjamin Cisko, wore a long vest made

of Kuba raffia pile cloth. It was his leisure wear when building a solar

sail boat with his son.

*****************

From: susan vogel <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;

The current issue of African Arts includes a piece by me illustrated

with a still showing Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart surrounded by

"Primitive" art in Bell Book and Candle. I talk about the popular

view of African art in the 50s and 60s as, sexy, cool and

mysteriously exotic -- in a word, exciting. I argue that that African

sculpture now is generally viewed as praiseworthy, old, valuable,

respectable museum art -- and, like classical antiquities, slightly

boring.

Sadly, Susan Vogel

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Date Written: Thu, 23 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Fri, 23 Mar 2006 13:52:48 -0500

This is slightly off the subject, but the film "The Ghost and the

Darkness" called for 50 Maasai warriors. In fact, 30 Samburu moran were

flown to South Africa from northern Kenya to act in the film; lions were

imported from France, Canada and the US; and acres of savanna grass were

hand-planted.

For an inside view of making this film see Kelly Askew

"Striking Samburu and a Mad Cow: adventures in Anthropollywood" in Off

Stage/On Display, Intimacy and Ethnography in the Age of Public Culture,

(ed) Andrew Shryock 2004

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Date Written: Thu, 23 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Fri, 23 Mar 2006 13:52:48 -0500

This is slightly off the subject, but the film "The Ghost and the

Darkness" called for 50 Maasai warriors. In fact, 30 Samburu moran were

flown to South Africa from northern Kenya to act in the film; lions were

imported from France, Canada and the US; and acres of savanna grass were

hand-planted.

For an inside view of making this film see Kelly Askew

"Striking Samburu and a Mad Cow: adventures in Anthropollywood" in Off

Stage/On Display, Intimacy and Ethnography in the Age of Public Culture,

(ed) Andrew Shryock 2004

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Date Written: Sat, 25 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Sun, 25 Mar 2006 17:25:20 -0500

"La Notte" (1961) by Michelangelo Antonioni comes to mind, where

Valentina (Monica Vitti) performs an "exotic" dance surrounded by

African artifacts.

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From: "Jerry Jacob" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;
List Editor: "H-AfrArts [Conner]" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>';document.getElementById('cloak30f2845cc7d5c494b208cef72722dbaa').innerHTML += ''+addy_text30f2845cc7d5c494b208cef72722dbaa+'<\/a>'; ;
Editor's Subject: African Art in Movies: REPLY
Author's Subject: African Art in Movies: REPLY
Date Written: Sun, 26 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Tue, 27 Mar 2006 08:30:15 -0500

One more addition to the list is the 1992 film "Deep Cover" Victoria

Dillard launders drug money through her Ethnic Art Gallery. Prominent

in the film is the Gallery's mostly African stock with a few Asia

Pacific pieces thrown in. The film is currently in rotation on HBO.

African too, is the art scattered around undercover cop/drug

dealer, Laurence Fishburne's swanky condo. One lovemaking scene is

filtered through the horns of an Antelope on a Chi Wara.

***************

From: "Sidney Kasfir" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;

Re Michelle's citation of Kelly Askew's article on making "The Ghost

and the Darkness" in 1995-96 with 30 Samburu moran.

One of those Samburu was (is) my husband. I too have published an

article about it, as well as their earlier participation in the 1993

Kevin Bacon basketball movie, "The Air Up There:"

"Slam-dunking and the Last Noble Savage", Visual Anthropology

(special issue on images of pastoralists)15 (3), 2002: 369-386.

In fact there was a much more extravagant Hollywood film," Mogambo,"

in 1953, with Clark Gable, Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly, filmed at

Archer's Post in Samburu District (then part of the Northern Frontier

District) with 1,000 Samburu warriors as extras. They were paid in

red silk cloth, spears, and a stupendous daily meat ration, all

organized by the legendary District Commissioner Terence Gavaghan.

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From: Kate Wininger <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;
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Editor's Subject: African art in Movies: REPLY
Author's Subject: African art in Movies: REPLY
Date Written: Sun, 26 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Tue, 27 Mar 2006 11:43:33 -0500

In La Promesse the woman from Burkino Faso has a

a wooden sculpture that is broken in the course

of the story. I wasn't able to identify it.

*******

LA PROMESSE D: Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne; with

Jérémie Renier, Olivier Gourmet, Assita

Ouedraogo, Rasmané Ouedraogo. (R, 97 min.)

Which of our traits are socially ingrained and

which are genetically imbued? And what about

morality, that most personal of all

characteristics? How is it acquired, adapted,

shed, and reconfigured?

The Belgian film La Promesse, by the brothers

Dardenne, presents an opportunity to observe

these issues up-close while presenting the story

of 15-year-old Igor (Renier), a boy facing an

unexpected moral quandary. He's caught between

obedience to his single-parent father Roger

(Gourmet) and a nagging inkling that what his

father is asking him to do is morally suspect.

His father's law is the only rule he knows, yet

an unforeseeable accident sets in motion a whole

series of events that causes Igor to question his

father's absolute authority.

Roger's livelihood comes from trafficking in

illegal aliens, whom he provides with doctored

papers, subsistence shelter, and off-the-books

employment in exchange for hefty cash fees and

other forms of human barter. Roger is training

Igor to follow in his footsteps, an

apprenticeship that involves forgery, deception,

and petty thievery, and is predicated on the

exploitation of foreigners and other strangers.

At 15, Igor is stumbling through the vague

twilight years between childhood and adulthood.

He works daily for his father instead of

attending school, but most of all wishes to spend

time working on his go-kart and playing with

other boys his age. And although Roger's tyranny

of the boy borders on the abusive, it is also

clear that feels sympathy and tenderness for his

son. Then one day during a police raid, one of

the illegal workers falls to his death and Igor

finds himself torn between his instinct to report

the accident to the police and his father's

insistence on hiding the evidence.

The dilemma is complicated by the growing

compassion Igor discovers for the worker's wife

Assita (Assita Ouedraogo) and her young baby.

Assita is a self-assured immigrant from Burkina

Faso, someone whose otherness is starkly apparent

to Igor. But as he comes to witness the emotional

brutality of the situation in which she finds

herself, Igor comes to realize that father may

not always know best. The film's staging of the

final father-son confrontation puts a

successfully memorable spin on an age-old

dramatic conflict. The film's tightly framed and

often hand-held camerawork keeps the story's

focus on Igor's point of view.

La Promesse is a penetrating coming-of-age story,

one that argues that adulthood begins with the

emergence of moral convictions. (11/7/97)

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From: Kathleen Bickford Berzock <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;
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Editor's Subject: African Art in Movies: REPLY
Author's Subject: African Art in Movies: REPLY
Date Written: Mon, 27 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Tue, 27 Mar 2006 11:45:51 -0500

Did any body else catch Sherlock Holmes, The Case of the Silk

Stockings with Rupert Everett?

Here in Chicago, it aired on Masterpiece Theatre last night. In one

scene Holmes remarks on the African masks in the sitting room of

Watson's American fiancee, a psychoanalyst. He identifies one as

"West African" though it appeared rather generic to me. They then

discuss the "sexual fetishism" manifest in the crimes Holmes is

investigating. Implied is a connection between what the masks

symbolize, "fetishism", and sexual deviance.

Elementary, my dear Watson.

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From: "Lisa Aronson" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;
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Editor's Subject: African Art in Movies: REPLY
Author's Subject: African Art in Movies: REPLY
Date Written: Mon, 27 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Tue, 27 Mar 2006 17:09:39 -0500

There's a wonderful, but infrequently shown, episode of Twilight Zone

about a man who after going to Zaire to appropriate African-owned land

for some American construction project is plagued by a "voodoo fetish"

that eventually kills him in the form of a ferocious tiger that leaps

from the bedroom.

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From: "Robin Poynor" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;
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Date Written: Mon, 27 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Tue, 27 Mar 2006 17:41:14 -0500

A student just told me of a scene from Mission Impossible in which

the villain's home is decorated with vigango. I have not seen the

film so I do not know if that is entirely correct.

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Editor's Subject: African art in Movies: REPLY
Author's Subject: African art in Movies: REPLY
Date Written: Mon, 27 Mar 2006
Date Posted: Wed, 28 Mar 2006 08:38:07 -0500

This is producing such great anecdotal data, I wonder if it could all be

brought together into a single database...maybe a Wikipedia entry?

**************************

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Wikipedia: a project to produce a free content

encyclopedia that could be edited by anyone, formally

began on 15 January 2001 as a complement to the

similar, but expert-written, Nupedia project. It has

since replaced Nupedia, growing to become a large

global project. As of 2006, it includes millions of

articles and pages worldwide, and content from

hundreds of thousands of contributors.

MWC-Editor/Moderator

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Additional Info

Publication Year: 2020
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Donna Pido

Donna Pido is an American anthropologist with 5 decades of professional experience in jewelry and product design. She holds a PhD in applied Anthropology from Columbia University in New York. She has assembled and deposited several collections of Kenyan material culture in American and European museums and has written extensively on Maasai art among other topics related to esthetic production in Kenya. She has been teaching design at TUK since 2012 and is also the former chair of the College of Arms in the Office of the Attorney General. Prof. Pido is an active member of the Kenya Quilt Guild and the Kenya Embroiderers Guild.

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