"I, a Negro" depicts young Nigerien immigrants who left their country to find work in the Ivory Coast, in the Treichville quarter of Abidjan, the capital. These immigrants live in squalor ...
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Title: I, a Negro (1958)
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2 wins.
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Cast
| Credited cast: | |||
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Oumarou Ganda | ... | Robinson (Narrator) |
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Gambi | ... | Dorothy Lamour |
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Petit Touré | ... | Eddie Constantine |
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Alassane Maiga | ... | Tarzan |
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Amadou Demba | ... | Elite |
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Seydou Guede | ... | Le facteur |
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Karidyo Faoudou | ... | Petit Jules |
| Rest of cast listed alphabetically: | |||
| Jean Rouch | ... | Narrator | |
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Plot Summary
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Storyline
"I, a Negro" depicts young Nigerien immigrants who left their country to find work in the Ivory Coast, in the Treichville quarter of Abidjan, the capital. These immigrants live in squalor in Treichville, envious of the bordering quarters of The Plateau (the business and industrial district) and the old African quarter of Adjame. The film traces a week in these immigrants' lives, blurring the line between their characters' routines and their own. Every morning, Tarzan, Eddy Constantine and Edward G. Robinson seek work in Treichville in hopes of getting the 20 francs that a bowl of soup costs them. They perform menial jobs as dockers carrying sacks and handy labor shipping supplies to Europe. At night, they drink away their sorrows in bars while dreaming about their idealized lives as their "movie" alter-egos, alternatively as an FBI Agent, a womanizing bachelor, a successful boxer, and even able to stand up to the white colonialists that seduce away their women. These dream-like ...
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DramaCertificate:
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Details
Country:
FranceRelease Date:
1958 (France) See more »Also Known As:
Eu, um Negro See more »Company Credits
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Technical Specs
Runtime:
Sound Mix:
MonoColor:
Color (Eastmancolor)Aspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1
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Trivia
Shot on a lightweight 16mm Kodachrome camera without sound. The complete soundtrack had to be created in post-production. See more »Frequently Asked Questions
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Whatever the interest today in the lives of several menial workers in the late 1950s Ivory Coast or the background described of their city Abidjan, the abiding significance of director Rouch,s project in this and several other documentaries about Africa is the way he offered his subjects a full participation in the way they would be filmed.He was not your typical white European ethnographer observing and then telling us, often via condescending narration, what he thinks he sees.An approach,as demonstrated by non fiction works made before this, that can lead to misunderstanding and distortion.Instead Rouch asked the actors to tell him what they wanted him to shoot, allowed them to improvise, and followed them unobtrusively with just one camera and no additional crew.He also showed them the rushes and asked their advice on how to edit them.This was a remarkable step forward in the freedom with which documentaries could be made,if the filmmakers of the future cared enough to absorb the lesson.