Mediating transcendence: popular film, visuality and religious experience in West Africa
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Issue Date:
2008-07
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Abstract:
Since the 1990s the popularity of locally produced video films has steadily spread across West Africa. In this paper I explore and explain several factors that I trace back to aspects of culture and tradition that I consider conditional for this unprecedented success. Rituals and theatrical aspects of traditional religion find their expression in entertaining aspects of film-watching and in the visuality of film. I argue that African cultures are not only oral but also eminently visual. African visuality focuses on the perception of patterns and meaning rather than on realistic representations. An example of this can be found in special effects that are used to communicate the presence of transcendence in popular films. Such films have become an integral part of urban African culture and help to maintain an integrated worldview where modernity, Christianity and traditional religion all have their distinct, but nonetheless tightly linked spheres. Film generally mediates religious experience to its audiences and acts as a transcendent mediator between the local or traditional and the global or modern.
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Preprint
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Entry Number:
50092