Introduction

A reader turning to this chapter might ask what part film plays in a history of postcolonial literature, and so it is perhaps necessary to begin by explaining that the focus here is not on postcolonial film per se, but on the relationship between film and writing in postcolonial contexts. A topic as expansive as this makes it impossible to adequately historicize each context; however, the term ‘postcolonial film’, in contrast to the more widely used ‘world cinema’, does provide a sense of historical and thematic scope in that it refers to a form of filmmaking that has been impacted by, or that responds to, colonialism and imperialism. Building on Ato Quayson’s definition of the postcolonial in the introduction to these volumes, this chapter works with the claim that ‘If the wide variety of writing that critics and readers group under the label “postcolonial” has anything in common, it is an awkward reliance on imperial remainders.’ Although film has been introduced in very different ways in different colonial and postcolonial contexts, similarities in motivations and effects may be found. In West Africa in the early 1900s, the French used film as a form of cultural colonization, as a tool within their general policy of assimilation of local people to French ways of life; in India the British exploited the economic potential of film, attempting to inculcate British taste so as to bring large financial returns to the empire; in Mexico, film arrived almost a century after political independence from Spain, when the country was under the dictatorial control of Porfirio Díaz, who did not hesitate to exploit the medium to build his own reputation and enforce his policies and ideologies.