Reassemblage: From the Firelight to the Screen (1983) - full transcript
A short film which documents the lives of women in a rural Senegal.
Scarcely twenty years were enough
to make two billion people
define themselves as underdeveloped
I do not intend to speak about
Just speak near by
A film about what?
A film on Senegal;
but what in Senegal?
The Casamance.
Sun and palms.
The part of Senegal...
where tourist settlements flourish
In Enampore,
Andre Manga says his name is listed,
in the tourist information book.
Above the entry of his house,
is a hand-written sign which says?
"Three hundred and fifty francs"
A flat anthropological fact.
In numerous tales...
Woman is depicted as the one...
who possessed the fire.
Only she knew how to make fire.
She kept it in diverse places.
At the end of the stick she used
to dig the ground with,
for example.
In her nails or in her fingers.
Reality is delicate.
My irreality and imagination...
are otherwise dull.
The habit of imposing a meaning...
to every single sign.
She kept it in diverse places.
At the end of the stick she used to dig the ground with,
for example.
First create needs, then, help.
Sitting underneath the thatched roof...
which projects well beyond the front wall...
of his newly built house,
A Peace-Corps Volunteer
nods at several villagers,
who stop by to chat with him.
While they stoop down besides
him and start talking,
he smiles blankly,
a pair of headphones over his ears...
and a Walkman Sony cassette
player in his lap.
"I teach the women ho to grow
vegetables in their yard;
this will allow them to have an income"
he says and hesitates before he concludes:
I am not always successful,
but it's the first time this has
been introduced?
into the village."
It's the first time this has?
been introduced into the village.
Woman is depicted...
as the one who possessed the fire.
Only she knew ho to make fire.
What can we expect from ethnology?
The land of the Sereer people.
The land of the Manding and
the Peul people.
A film about what?
My friends ask.
A film on Senegal.
But what in Senegal?
I feel less and less...
the need to express myself.
Is that something else I've lost?
Something else I've lost?
Filming in Africa means...
for many of us...
colorful images,
naked breast women,
exotic dances and fearful rites.
The unusual.
First create needs, then, help.
Ethnologists handle the camera...
the way they handle words.
Recuperated, collected, preserved.
The Bamun, the Bassari, the Bobo.
What are your people called again?
An ethnologist asks a fellow of his.
In numerous tales.
Diversification at all costs.
Oral traditions thus gain...
the rank of written heritage.
Fire place and woman's face...
The pot is know as a universal symbol...
for the Mother, the Grand-Mother...
the Goddess.
Nudity does not reveal...
the hidden.
It is its absence.
A man attending a slide show on Africa...
turns to his wife and says...
with guilt in his voice...
"I have seen some pornography tonight".
Documentary...
because reality...
is organized into an explanation of itself.
Every single detail is to be recorded.
The man on the screen smiles at us
while the necklace he wears,
the designs of the cloth he puts on,
the stool he sits on,
are objectively commented upon.
It has no eye,
it records.
"A fine layer of dust covers
us from head to toe.
When the sandstorm comes",
says a child,
"we lay on our mat with our
mother's headscarf
on our face and wait until
it goes away".
The omnipresent eye.
Scratching my hair,
or washing my face,
became a very special act.
Watching her through the lens.
I look at her becoming me...
becoming mine.
Entering into the only reality of signs...
where I myself am a sign.
The land of the Bassari and the Peul people.
Early in the morning.
A man is sitting with his little girl
on his lap
next to the circular stone hut
built after the model of a Bassari house.
A Catholic white sister comes up to him...
and blurts out:
"It's only 7am.
Your little girl is not that sick.
How many times have I told you...
our dispensary is closed on Sunday?
Come back on Monday".
An ethnologist and his wife gynecologist...
come back for two weeks to the village
where they have done research in the past.
He defines himself as a person who
stays long,
long enough in a village,
to study the culture of an ethnic group.
Time, knowledge, and security.
"If you haven't stayed long enough in a place,
you are not an ethnologist"
He says.
Late in the evening,
a circle of men gathers in front
of the house where the
ethnologist and his wife gynecologist stay.
One of the villagers is telling a story,
another is playing music on
his improvised luth,
the ethnologist is sleeping...
next to his switched-on cassette recorder.
He thinks he excludes personal values.
He tries or believes so...
but how can he be a Fulani?
That's objectivity.
Along the Senegal River,
the land of the Sarakhole and
the Tukuleur people.
I come with the idea...
that I would seize the unusual...
by catching the person unawares.
There are better ways to steal I guess.
With the other's consent.
After seeing me laboring with the camera,
women invite me to their place,
and ask me to film them.
The habit of imposing...
every single sign.
For many of us...
the best way to be neutral and objective,
is to copy reality meticulously.
Speak about.
K-about.
The eternal commentary that escorts images.
Stressing the observer?s objectivity.
Circles round the object of curiosity
Different views from different angles.
The abc of photography.
Creativity and objectivity...
seem to run into conflict.
The eager observer collects samples...
and has no time to reflect...
upon the media used.
Scarcely twenty years were enough,
to make two billion people define...
themselves as underdeveloped.
What I see is life looking at me.
I am looking through a circle in a circle of looks.
115 degrees Fahrenheit.
I put on a hat...
while laughers bursts out behind me.
I haven't seen any women...
wearing a hat.
Children, women and men...
come up to me claiming for gifts.
A van drives in the dust road,
greeted by another boisterous wave of children.
"Gift, gift" they all yell...
while the car stops under the shade of a tree.
A group of tourists stepped out...
and immediately start distribution cheap candies.
Just speak near by.
A woman comments on polygamy:
"it's good for men... not for us.
We accept it owing to the force
of circumstances.
What about you?
Do you have a husband all for yourself?"
to make two billion people
define themselves as underdeveloped
I do not intend to speak about
Just speak near by
A film about what?
A film on Senegal;
but what in Senegal?
The Casamance.
Sun and palms.
The part of Senegal...
where tourist settlements flourish
In Enampore,
Andre Manga says his name is listed,
in the tourist information book.
Above the entry of his house,
is a hand-written sign which says?
"Three hundred and fifty francs"
A flat anthropological fact.
In numerous tales...
Woman is depicted as the one...
who possessed the fire.
Only she knew how to make fire.
She kept it in diverse places.
At the end of the stick she used
to dig the ground with,
for example.
In her nails or in her fingers.
Reality is delicate.
My irreality and imagination...
are otherwise dull.
The habit of imposing a meaning...
to every single sign.
She kept it in diverse places.
At the end of the stick she used to dig the ground with,
for example.
First create needs, then, help.
Sitting underneath the thatched roof...
which projects well beyond the front wall...
of his newly built house,
A Peace-Corps Volunteer
nods at several villagers,
who stop by to chat with him.
While they stoop down besides
him and start talking,
he smiles blankly,
a pair of headphones over his ears...
and a Walkman Sony cassette
player in his lap.
"I teach the women ho to grow
vegetables in their yard;
this will allow them to have an income"
he says and hesitates before he concludes:
I am not always successful,
but it's the first time this has
been introduced?
into the village."
It's the first time this has?
been introduced into the village.
Woman is depicted...
as the one who possessed the fire.
Only she knew ho to make fire.
What can we expect from ethnology?
The land of the Sereer people.
The land of the Manding and
the Peul people.
A film about what?
My friends ask.
A film on Senegal.
But what in Senegal?
I feel less and less...
the need to express myself.
Is that something else I've lost?
Something else I've lost?
Filming in Africa means...
for many of us...
colorful images,
naked breast women,
exotic dances and fearful rites.
The unusual.
First create needs, then, help.
Ethnologists handle the camera...
the way they handle words.
Recuperated, collected, preserved.
The Bamun, the Bassari, the Bobo.
What are your people called again?
An ethnologist asks a fellow of his.
In numerous tales.
Diversification at all costs.
Oral traditions thus gain...
the rank of written heritage.
Fire place and woman's face...
The pot is know as a universal symbol...
for the Mother, the Grand-Mother...
the Goddess.
Nudity does not reveal...
the hidden.
It is its absence.
A man attending a slide show on Africa...
turns to his wife and says...
with guilt in his voice...
"I have seen some pornography tonight".
Documentary...
because reality...
is organized into an explanation of itself.
Every single detail is to be recorded.
The man on the screen smiles at us
while the necklace he wears,
the designs of the cloth he puts on,
the stool he sits on,
are objectively commented upon.
It has no eye,
it records.
"A fine layer of dust covers
us from head to toe.
When the sandstorm comes",
says a child,
"we lay on our mat with our
mother's headscarf
on our face and wait until
it goes away".
The omnipresent eye.
Scratching my hair,
or washing my face,
became a very special act.
Watching her through the lens.
I look at her becoming me...
becoming mine.
Entering into the only reality of signs...
where I myself am a sign.
The land of the Bassari and the Peul people.
Early in the morning.
A man is sitting with his little girl
on his lap
next to the circular stone hut
built after the model of a Bassari house.
A Catholic white sister comes up to him...
and blurts out:
"It's only 7am.
Your little girl is not that sick.
How many times have I told you...
our dispensary is closed on Sunday?
Come back on Monday".
An ethnologist and his wife gynecologist...
come back for two weeks to the village
where they have done research in the past.
He defines himself as a person who
stays long,
long enough in a village,
to study the culture of an ethnic group.
Time, knowledge, and security.
"If you haven't stayed long enough in a place,
you are not an ethnologist"
He says.
Late in the evening,
a circle of men gathers in front
of the house where the
ethnologist and his wife gynecologist stay.
One of the villagers is telling a story,
another is playing music on
his improvised luth,
the ethnologist is sleeping...
next to his switched-on cassette recorder.
He thinks he excludes personal values.
He tries or believes so...
but how can he be a Fulani?
That's objectivity.
Along the Senegal River,
the land of the Sarakhole and
the Tukuleur people.
I come with the idea...
that I would seize the unusual...
by catching the person unawares.
There are better ways to steal I guess.
With the other's consent.
After seeing me laboring with the camera,
women invite me to their place,
and ask me to film them.
The habit of imposing...
every single sign.
For many of us...
the best way to be neutral and objective,
is to copy reality meticulously.
Speak about.
K-about.
The eternal commentary that escorts images.
Stressing the observer?s objectivity.
Circles round the object of curiosity
Different views from different angles.
The abc of photography.
Creativity and objectivity...
seem to run into conflict.
The eager observer collects samples...
and has no time to reflect...
upon the media used.
Scarcely twenty years were enough,
to make two billion people define...
themselves as underdeveloped.
What I see is life looking at me.
I am looking through a circle in a circle of looks.
115 degrees Fahrenheit.
I put on a hat...
while laughers bursts out behind me.
I haven't seen any women...
wearing a hat.
Children, women and men...
come up to me claiming for gifts.
A van drives in the dust road,
greeted by another boisterous wave of children.
"Gift, gift" they all yell...
while the car stops under the shade of a tree.
A group of tourists stepped out...
and immediately start distribution cheap candies.
Just speak near by.
A woman comments on polygamy:
"it's good for men... not for us.
We accept it owing to the force
of circumstances.
What about you?
Do you have a husband all for yourself?"