I Turned Away and She Was Gone: A Play

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Absences, exclusivities and utopias: Afrikaans film as a cinema of political impotence, 1994 - 2014

This thesis develops a conceptual and theoretical framework within which to position contemporary Afrikaans cinema as a cinema of political impotence. Afrikaans cinema is first located within the tensions of democratic post-transitional South African society and linked to the identity politics of being identified as 'Afrikaner' or 'Afrikaans speaking'. The thesis provides a critical overview of film scholar Thomas Elsaesser's studies of (New) German Cinema and Hollywood, identifying key notions such as double occupancy to inform the study's vocabulary, and discussing how certain cultures have responded to traumatic events in which they were complicit. The thesis then links Elsaesser's studies to Fredric Jameson's views on political cinema and the political failures of postmodernism. This conceptual and theoretical framework identifies and problematises the neoliberal structures that guide much of Afrikaans filmmaking, and offers a historical overview of key moments and figures in South African (primarily Afrikaans) filmmaking in order to demonstrate that there Afrikaans cinema

Screening the church: A study of clergy representation in contemporary Afrikaans cinema

he church-funded CARFO or KARFO (Afrikaans Christian Filmmaking Organisation) was established in 1947, and aimed to ‘[socialise] the newly urbanized Afrikaner into a Christian urban society’ (Tomaselli 1985:25; Paleker 2009:45). This initiative was supported and sustained by the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), which had itself been part of the sociopolitical and ideological fabric of Afrikaans religious life for a while and would guide Afrikaners through tensions between religious conservatism and liberalism and into apartheid. Given Afrikaans cinema’s ties with Christian religious and political conservatism, we explore the role – even the centrality – of the Afrikaans church in cultural activity before 1994, and then after 1994. Here, Afrikaans church is an inclusive term that brings together various denominations of Afrikaans-speaking churches, but which mainly suggests the domination of the DRC. After establishing the role of the Afrikaans church in the way described above, we move towards the primary focus of our study: exploring the representation of clergy in the contemporary Afrikaans film Faan se Trein in order to describe certain theological implications of this representation. With reference to Faan se Trein, our article notes and comments on the shifts that have occurred in clergy representation in Afrikaans cinema over the past decades. Osmer’s four tasks of practical theology, namely, descriptive, interpretive, normative and strategic are used for theological reflection. With due contextual reference to Afrikaans film dramas such as Broer Matie [Brother Matie], Saak van Geloof [A Matter of Faith], Roepman [Stargazer], Stilte [Silence], Suiderkruis [Southern Cross] and Faan se Trein, we arrive at some preliminary conclusions about the representation of clergy in mainly contemporary Afrikaans cinema

The moving image : contemporary film analysis and analytical psychology

The cinematic experience is often an emotional or ‘felt’ experience. In the aftermath of the film, it is challenging to indicate precisely how I was guided to react emotionally to the film. This study presents an investigation of the emotional cinematic experience from a Jungian critical reading. Jungian theory introduces a model of the psyche as consisting of, amongst other constructs, the collective unconscious and the archetypes. These archetypal contents manifest visually as symbols. These symbols guide the reader of the filmic text towards an emotional cinematic experience by activating, in particular, the archetype of the Self. Based on a review of the available scholarship in Jungian theory and film, this dissertation develops a Jungian conceptual framework consisting of notions and concepts that can describe, articulate and examine the psychological dynamics of an emotional cinematic experience. In a demonstration of how a Jungian approach to the text can highlight the dynamics of the emotional cinematic experience, the study presents a critical reading of M. Night Shyamalan’s films The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs. Using the Jungian practice of amplification, the study focuses on notions of the archetypal (contents and manifestations, particularly the archetype of the Self); individuation motifs; notions of the Apocalypse; and alchemical symbolism, all framed within an approach proposed by Jungian dream analysis. The symbolic aspect of film imagery is constructed by archetypal contents and individuation motifs that emphasise the emotional cinematic experience Based on the critical reading of Shyamalan’s film, this dissertation concludes that the emotional cinematic experience can be examined with specific reference to the emotional cinematic experience as ‘guided’ by the filmic images’ symbolic aspect. The Jungian framework developed by this study can be used to effectively investigate and articulate the emotional cinematic experience.Dissertation (MA (Drama and Film Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2007.DramaMAUnrestricte

Ons sal antwoord op jou roepstem : Steve Hofmeyr and Afrikaner identity in post-apartheid Afrikaans cinema

This article argues that Steve Hofmeyr’s Afrikaner identity, an identity he performs across various media platforms, including a selection of feature length Afrikaans films, is a paradoxical hybrid of Afrikaner exceptionalism and claims to victimhood. The exceptionalism and self-imposed victimhood are engaged in an across-media dialogue, as Steve Hofmeyr’s social media and political activist persona speak to his participation in three Afrikaans language films: Pretville (Korsten, 2012), Platteland (Else, 2011) and Treurgrond (Roodt, 2015). Hofmeyr’s presence foregrounds and exacerbates an already problematic ideological context in which attempts at multiculturalism are rendered moot by the conservatism in these films, especially where land – the farm – is concerned. While Pretville invents a 1950s South African town that fails to correspond to any inhabited reality of that time, Platteland offers an Afrikaans musical-western wherein Hofmeyr dominates as patriarch. Finally, the attempts of Treurgrond at raising farm murder awareness are nullified through casting Hofmeyr as a farmer facing a land claim, given Hofmeyr’s active campaigning against an alleged Boer genocide.This article, specifically section two on Afrikaner identity, draws on the author’s doctoral research on the political impotence of contemporary Afrikaans language cinema in a study titled, Absences, exclusivities, utopias: Afrikaans films as a cinema of political impotence, 1994–2014 (2015).http://www.journals.co.za/ej/ejour_comcare.htmlam2016Dram

The cinema of Willie Esterhuizen : the quest for sex and hegemonic masculinity

In this article I critically discuss how Willie Esterhuizen's films explicitly present an affirmative heteronormative hegemonic masculinity despite numerous queer, destabilising possibilities that threaten such dominant masculinity. I read Esterhuizen's films in terms of their consistent safe-making of homoerotic possibilities. To show how hegemonic heteronormative masculinity features across Esterhuizen's film oeuvre, his comedies Lipstiek Dipstiek (1994), Poena is Koning (2007), Vaatjie Sien Sy Gat (2008) and Stoute Boudjies (2010) will be investigated in this regard. In this investigation, I will discuss how Esterhuizen's films: present a narrative foregrounding a quest for sexual intercourse as an integral part of post-apartheid white masculinity; utilise notions of anality (as mostly based in farting and verbal references to defecation) in relation to masculinity; point to a masculinity of (bodily) control; present various moments of homosociality and even homoeroticism in the relationships between male characters that threaten heteronormative masculinity but are, in the end, consistently trumped by hegemonic masculinity.http://www.imageandtext.up.ac.za/am2014gv201

Screening the church: A study of clergy representation in contemporary Afrikaans cinema

The church-funded CARFO or KARFO (Afrikaans Christian Filmmaking Organisation) was established in 1947, and aimed to ‘[socialise] the newly urbanized Afrikaner into a Christian urban society’ (Tomaselli 1985:25; Paleker 2009:45). This initiative was supported and sustained by the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), which had itself been part of the sociopolitical and ideological fabric of Afrikaans religious life for a while and would guide Afrikaners through tensions between religious conservatism and liberalism and into apartheid. Given Afrikaans cinema’s ties with Christian religious and political conservatism, we explore the role – even the centrality – of the Afrikaans church in cultural activity before 1994, and then after 1994. Here, Afrikaans church is an inclusive term that brings together various denominations of Afrikaans-speaking churches, but which mainly suggests the domination of the DRC. After establishing the role of the Afrikaans church in the way described above, we move towards the primary focus of our study: exploring the representation of clergy in the contemporary Afrikaans film Faan se Trein in order to describe certain theological implications of this representation. With reference to Faan se Trein, our article notes and comments on the shifts that have occurred in clergy representation in Afrikaans cinema over the past decades. Osmer’s four tasks of practical theology, namely, descriptive, interpretive, normative and strategic are used for theological reflection. With due contextual reference to Afrikaans film dramas such as Broer Matie [Brother Matie], Saak van Geloof [A Matter of Faith], Roepman [Stargazer], Stilte [Silence], Suiderkruis [Southern Cross] and Faan se Trein, we arrive at some preliminary conclusions about the representation of clergy in mainly contemporary Afrikaans cinema

A South African Romeo and Juliet : gender identity in Minky Schlesinger’s Gugu and Andile

This article examines how gender identity is represented in a filmic adaptation of Shakespeare’s play text Romeo and Juliet within South Africa’s postcolonial context, thereby positioning identity politics as crucial in the decolonial project. This article focuses on Minky Schlesinger’s South African adaptation of Romeo and Juliet titled Gugu and Andile (2009). Schlesinger’s film is compared to Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet (1968) and Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996) to comparatively contextualise and sharpen an analysis of gender identity in Schlesinger’s film. In our analysis of the selected films we examine the mise-en-scène in each film to establish how the films comment on, subvert or maintain certain gender identities.http://www.journals.co.za/content/journal/iseasosaam2018Dram

Screening the church : a study of clergy representation in contemporary Afrikaans cinema

The church-funded CARFO or KARFO (Afrikaans Christian Filmmaking Organisation) was established in 1947, and aimed to ‘[socialise] the newly urbanized Afrikaner into a Christian urban society’ (Tomaselli 1985:25; Paleker 2009:45). This initiative was supported and sustained by the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), which had itself been part of the sociopolitical and ideological fabric of Afrikaans religious life for a while and would guide Afrikaners through tensions between religious conservatism and liberalism and into apartheid. Given Afrikaans cinema’s ties with Christian religious and political conservatism, we explore the role – even the centrality – of the Afrikaans church in cultural activity before 1994, and then after 1994. Here, Afrikaans church is an inclusive term that brings together various denominations of Afrikaans-speaking churches, but which mainly suggests the domination of the DRC. After establishing the role of the Afrikaans church in the way described above, we move towards the primary focus of our study: exploring the representation of clergy in the contemporary Afrikaans film Faan se Trein in order to describe certain theological implications of this representation. With reference to Faan se Trein, our article notes and comments on the shifts that have occurred in clergy representation in Afrikaans cinema over the past decades. Osmer’s four tasks of practical theology, namely, descriptive, interpretive, normative and strategic are used for theological reflection. With due contextual reference to Afrikaans film dramas such as Broer Matie [Brother Matie], Saak van Geloof [A Matter of Faith], Roepman [Stargazer], Stilte [Silence], Suiderkruis [Southern Cross] and Faan se Trein, we arrive at some preliminary conclusions about the representation of clergy in mainly contemporary Afrikaans cinema.This article is published in the section Practical Theology of the Society for Practical Theology in South Africa.http://www.hts.org.zaam2019Dram