Egypt Cinema and Revolution

8/3/2019 Egypt Cinema and Revolution

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Egypt: Cinema and Revolution

E L L A S C H O C H A T

Like other major Third World film industries such as those of India,Mexico and Brazil, Egyptian cinema has a long tradition (70 years)with a production often amounting to 50 films a year. It has gaineda dominant position within the Arab World, managing to break throughlanguage barriers by familiarizing other Arab countries with itsparticular dialect. Once Egyptian cinema became independent itwas perceived as troublesome by the colonizers in the neighbouringArab countries. The French in the Maghreb, for example, formed a"special department" on African problems that was "responsible forsetting up a production centre in Morocco whose official missionwas to oppose the influence of Egyptian cinema."1The political-economic realities in the colonies that led to theemergence of "Third Worldism" after World War II is the substancethat forms the psycho-cultural structure of the "underdeveloped"societies. Hence, writing on the evolution of a national cinemain Egypt implies the necessity of revealing its correspondenceswith periods of political significance, i.e. the 1952 revolution.Despite the fact that thirty years have passed since Nasser ledthe Free Officers movement and seized power on July 23, 1952, onlyin recent years has it become possible to outline the revolution'srepercussions for Egyptian cinema. Although some traditional genressuch as the sentimental melodrama remain dominant today, anothercinema has emerged, built on the foundations laid in 1952. Thisnew cinema is characterized by an attempt to tackle the politicaldilemmas and social problems of contemporary Egypt. Directorssuch as Salah Abu-Seif, Youssuf Shahine, Tawfiq Salah and laterAli Abdul-Haleq, Shadi Abd el Salam as well as critics such asSamir Farid, Sami al-Salamony, Hashem al-Nahhas (members of"The New Cinema Collective") contributed to the development of apolitically conscious cinema.My purpose here will be to examine the consequences of the 1952revolution for the orientation and structure of the film industryas well as in the films themselves. I will focus on the firstdecade under Nasser's regime which undoubtedly led to the gradualdecolonization and de-westernization of Egyptian cinema. Althoughfilm makers criticized Nasser's regime, especially after his deathin 19702, it is clear that the development of a self-consciousnational film industry can be traced to the Free Officers Movementrevolution of 1952.In order to comprehend the changes that took place in Egyptiancinema it is necessary to outline the state of the pre-revolutionaryCKitlcU KnU Vol 2 No 4 22


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industry. As in almost every Third World country, the Egyptianfilm industry was initially controlled by foreigners, primarilyItalians, who directed the local film makers toward a commercialcinema devoted to profits and entertainment based on the Hollywoodmodel. It was not by chance that Egypt's film industry was calledthe "Hollywood of. the Orient". The European control of the filmindustry was merely one dimension of the political-economic regime,whereby the British, Greeks, Italians and French dominated Egyptiantrade and industry. Egyptians rarely owned commercial or indus-trial companies. Despite the granting of formal independence in1 9 2 2 , the British retained real political and economic control ofEgypt until the early 1950's. The constitution of 19 April 1923declared Egypt a sovereign, free and independent state whose religionwas Islam and whose official language was Arabic. Personal libertywas guaranteed but the liberty of the press (including the cinema)was limited "for the protection of social order". All public andmilitary employment was restricted to nationals of the country,except where otherwise provided for by law - a reservation requiredto allow for the continuing role of British officials.From the beginning the cinema played out the conflicts generatedby the colonial situation, and the pro-Western orientation of thecinema persisted even when Egyptians had become part of the theindustry. Fearing that the audience would tire of seeing importedfilms, some producers, such as the Italian, Signore de Lagrane, andlater the Italo-Egyptian Cinematographic Company (with the Bancodi Roma as a partner), tried to produce films with local scenes tostimulate the interest of Egyptian audiences, e.g. Signor Osato'sS h a f L ^ e J L B a . d a . w l ( T f e e R e . d o u . l n ' i H o n o u J i ) a n d El Z o u h o u K e . 1 K a . t e . l a .(.FataJt Flouie.Ju') , both of 1918. These first films produced in Egyptreflected a very shallow comprehension of the religious traditionsand customs of the Egyptian population. For example, El lotxhcui e . 1Ka.te.la. offended the Islamic community by garbling several phrasesfrom the Koran. A more severe case occurred in 1925 when a Germanfilm company tried to produce a film entitled T h e . Vnophet, withMuhammad as the main character. This plan shocked the Islamicuniversity, El Azhar, since the Moslem religion prohibits repre-sentation of the Prophet. As a result, the film was never made.The period between official independence and the 1952 revolutionwas marked by social turmoil and political struggle. The Europeanproducers and film makers, unconcerned with Egyptian problems,avoided subjects that critically addressed the political situation.Gradually, however, Egyptians were gaining positions within theindustry as investors and technicians. Some film companies andstudios were established by Egyptians. One of the first majorcompanies, Misr Company for Acting and Cinema, was established in1927 by Misr Bank; Lama Studio was established in 1936, Wahbi Studioin 1939 and so forth. However, these companies maintained theEuropean colonial tradition, creating a "neo-colonial" cinema thatparalleled the neo-colonial political situation. They producedfamiliar genre films, safe in terms of censorship and commercialprospects, especially the sentimental melodramas. The critic,Gallal El Sharkawi, summarized the plots and ethos of such filmsas follows:

Love always takes pride of place, spiced with base seduc-tion, rape, adultery, prison, nurder, suicide and madnesswith- a background of brooding tragedy for the sympatheticvictim. If we consider the 1945-46 season as an example,Cn.it4.iMt K/U& Mot 2 No 4 23


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we find in the 23 melodramas, out of a total of 52 films:9 girls seduced, 2 rapes, 3 suicides, 2 attempted suicides,2 cases of madness.3Superfluous oriental songs and 'dances were often introduced intosuch melodramas. In the comedy revues^anotherpopular form, stereo-typical characters fell into farcical misunderstandings which ledthe plot into cabarets and music halls as a pretext for the in-clusion of colourful songs and dances, tailored to the talents ofsinging stars such as Abdel Wahab, Um Kulthum, Farid al-Atrosh,Lila Murad, Nadra, Munira el Mahdiya and others.One exception was Kamal Selim's El Azlma (.Ve.e./uni.na.-Lon, 1939which was the first realist Egyptian film to influence the laterpost-revolutionary film makers. The hero, Mohamad, is a youngEgyptian who rebels against the goals of a traditional education,which encouraged careers in government service. He decides tobuild his own business during a period when business was dominatedby foreigners. Life in the streets is presented realisticallyand contemporary Egyptian social problems form the source of theaction. The film implicitly expresses the urban bourgeoisie'sdiscontent with foreign intervention as well as their will toestablish their independence by assuming control of trade andindustry.Censorship, officially instituted by the Palace and the EnglishEmbassy in 1914 and administered by the Ministry of the Interior,heavily favoured the production of traditional genre films. Itforced directors to abstain from criticizing foreigners, govern-ment officials and religious institutions. It went so far as toforbid cinematic presentation of conflicts between peasants andland-owners, references to nationalist politics or a favourableportrayal of nationalist or socialist ideas either in the pastor in the present. Laihe.e.n, made in 1938-39, offers a dramaticexample of the severe code. Produced by Studio Misr, with arelatively high budget of 20 000 pounds sterling, as a patriotichistorical picture, the film was suppressed because it portrayedan oppressive medieval tyrant. Censorship would not toleratecriticism of state authority or of monarchical government evenat a distance of many centuries because of implicit analogiesbetween past tyranny and the contemporary regime. Another caseof censorship involved Bahiga Hafez's Llla Bint al-Sahaita {.Ilia.,Vau.gh.te.il o{ the. Ve.a/it, 1937). The film, which dealt with thesuccessful Arab struggle against the Persians and their brutalanti-Arab ruler, Kisra, was banned despite its big-budget pro-duction values. Thus government censors, well aware of thedangers of controversial political issues, hampered the develop-ment of an independent nationalist cinema. The tendency of profit-orientated producers was to avoid contemporary subjects close toeveryday Egyptian experience precisely because they ran a greaterrisk of censorship.Along with Egypt's political struggle towards complete independencecame clashes over culture and manners. While the intellectualsof Cairo's Al Azhar university, a prestigious centre of Islamicthought, reacted with hostility toward the new Western ideas intro-duced by Egyptian writers and thinkers, ordinary Egyptians werefascinated by clothing fashions and European customs. Even moreserious questions arose over the status of women, polygamy anddivorce. The urban bourgeoisie was selectively adopting Western

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habits and values, using the movies as an avenue by which to movetoward these goals. The cinema, besides being a means of classexpression, shaped the general consciousness of the urban popu-lation.5 With the outbreak of World War II the already strongprofit orientation of Egyptian cinema was exacerbated by thenou.ve.aut nlc.he.4 who became powerful as a result of their serviceto the Allies. The paradoxical situation of the Egyptian bourgeoisiemade their aspirations somewhat schizophrenic. They resentedWestern domination yet envied Western lifestyles, technology andpower. The two historically possible solutions for the colonialdilemma - assimilation or revolution - were thrust before Egyptiansociety. But before reaching the stage of revolution, i.e. ofstripping the colonizer of his power, the urban bourgeoisie firsttried to transcend their colonial situation by assimilation, i.e.by moulding themselves in the colonizer's image:

The first ambition of the colonized is to become equal tothe splendid model of the colonizer who suffers from noneon his deficiencies, has all rights, enjoys every possessionand benefits from every prestige and to resemble him to thepoint of disappearing into him.6

Nasser himself speaks of these widespread feelings of inferiorityin The. VhJLLo&ophy o Revolution.The cinema also gave indirect expression to these feelings. Thetraditional genres, though basically maintaining and respectingthe Moslem faith, catered to the public demand for more up-to-dateclothes, furniture and music. The presentation of sophisticatedcharacters and upper class glamour indirectly exalted Europeanmanners while implicitly denigrating Arab ways. A sprinkling ofcasual French phrases, for example, was thought to give an elegantair to conversation. These attitudes are not surprising when weremember that French was spoken at court and among the elitegenerally while Arabic tended to be reserved for insults.The predilection for Western music, songs and dances also reflectsthe pro-Western orientation and the native inferiority compleximplicit in Egyptian cinema. It is important to examine thisform since singing and dance have often held a special place inArab cinema generally and in Egyptian cinema in particular. Nota single film season passed without several musical productionsand, indeed, statistics point to a predominance of musical filmsin certain periods. The first Egyptian talkie was a musicalEnihode.t el fuad (The Song o the. He.a)it, 1932), directed by theItalian Mario Volpe, for which the producers, the Benna Brothers,gathered a group of Egyptian stars led by Nadra, the celebratedsinger.A close examination of the structure of the music in the musicalreveals that the Westernization had occurred even in well-established Egyptian-Arab art forms such as music. In additionto the obvious difference in vocal style between Arab and Westernmusic, Arab music also has more tonal scales than Western music.Efforts were made by musicians such as El-Shoujahi, Hajaje El-Zahir and Khayrat to turn popular melodies into modern formsinfluenced by European music. A striking example of this influenceon Egyptian cinema is the case of the composer-singer Muhamad AbdelWah ab. In his first film , El Wanda, e.1 Balda (.The. White. Roie.,

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1933-34), directed by Muhamed Karim, he introduced the new stylein the art of composi tion. As the critic Salah Ezzedi ne ex pla ine d,in these films the duration of each song was cut as muc h as t hr ee -quarters without thereby losing any of its ap pe al . Ab de l Wah absuperimposed the quick beat of European dance music on the orientalbase of Arab musi c. He also used a diversity o f mus ica l ins tru -ments, with each film emphasizing a "new " ins tru men t. Far ria elAtrash also used Western instr umen ts, parti cularl y the pi an o. The"takht," the traditional oriental e nsemble (a small g roup of musi-cians, each one with a different musical instrument), was seldomused in the films . Rather one finds Western scorin g and i nst ru-mentation with a rapid beat and lig ht, short so ng s. Initi allyintroduced as intermittent attraction s in fil ms, songs and danc escame to form an integral part of the act ion . Alo ng with bel lydancing, the films introduced more or less Western -styl e theat ric aldancing. Sania Gamal, who accompanied Farid el Atra sh's s on gs ,for example, tended to move toward a mor e figu rativ e We ste rn form.The pre-revolutionary inferiority complex was refl ect ed in otherways as well. Instead of inviting Egyptian authors to produceoriginal scenarios, or adapting Egyptian literature to the scr een ,producers found an easier and cheaper wa y: "El- Ikt iba s", ada pta tio ns,sometimes amounting to plagiarism. West ern films or nov els we readapted to local conditions without ackn owle dgem ent. Seifec hineShawkat, a Hungarian-Turkish director who settled in Egy pt , wasnotorious for using this method. Fil ms, plays or nove ls suc h asWatetloo Rn.id.Qe., Camilla, Pygmalion, Le.i Uiieiablet and othersappeared on Egyptian scre ens , usually under new t itl es: Wate.JilooBfiidtjz became Vaima {i Qatbi (Alwayi in My Hea/t,1945) , Pygmalionbecame Baia al Tu^ah (.The. Apple, Vendon.). Sometimes the same sourcewas an inspiration for diff erent pr odu ct ion s, as in the case ofCamille., which was produced four times with different casts: Lilawith Lila Morad, Ahd al Hua (The. Pe.tiod o^ Love.) wit h Miriam Fakhral-Din, Salam alal Hubab (Greeting* to the. Love/Li) with Sabah andAihk al Rah (The. Love. o Soul) with Nagla Fathi. The adap tatio nsand plagiarizatio ns of this period indicate not only the comm erci alorientation of Egyptian ci nem a, but its general rel uct anc e to userich native sources whether from my th , theatre or lit era tur e.One of the few exceptions was Mohamed Karim's ada pta tio n ofMohamed Hussein Heikel's novel, Zeinab, in 1930. The no ve l,written in 1910, deals with the psychological confli cts with in aland-owner torn between his love for the poor village girl, Zeinab,and his ambition to marry the daughter of a rich bou rge ois fami ly.It is only after the revoluti on that cinema turned mo re frequ entlyto native sources and engaged well- know n Egy ptian aut hors as scre en-writers. The political dependency of E gypt , in other w or ds , par a-lleled its mental dependency on Western cu ltu re, unde rmini ng anystrong national identity on the scr een . A diso rien tate d cine macould not easily adapt the more engaged pre-re vol uti ona ry lite ra-ture. In addition , the censors considered literatu re les s dange rous ,no surprise in a country wher e illiteracy reached 7 54 . One cel e-brate d example is Tawfiq al-Haki m's Aoudat al-kuh (.The. Soul Regained),published in 1933. The no ve l, adapted for the scree n by Abu -Se ifonly in 1969, portrayed Egyptian national identity as humilia tedby British domination and suggested that it could be rede emed throughthe struggle of all classes against the colo nial ists . Th e pr e-revolutionary cine ma, unfortu nately, smothered by melo dram as andmus ical s, could offer no sim ilar call to arms. The beginnin g of arevival had to await the political action of the Free Officersmovement.Critical Anti Vol 1 No 4 26


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The revolution of 1952 which established a new era in Egypt formspart of the post World War II decolonization of the Third World:in Indochina, France was defeated at Dien Bien Phu in 1954; thesame year witnessed the beginning of the Algerian war for indepen-dence. In Iraq, the revolution of 1958 overthrew the Hashemitedynasty set up by the British. As Fanon points out:International events, the collapse of whole sections ofcolonial empires and the contradictions inherent in thecolonial system strengthen and uphold the native's com-bativity while promoting and giving support to nationalconsciousness.7

The ideology of the Egyptian revolution, like that of other nation-alist revolutions in the Third World, crystallized around the con-cept of anti-colonialism. The movement's leaders, a relativelysmall class of petit-bourgeois nationalists, were united in theirdetermination to win genuine political independence, modernizethe economy8 and achieve a more equitable distribution of wealth.Agrarian reforms were undertaken, limiting agricultural landholdingto 200 acres and over one million acres were appropriated from therich and distributed among peasant land-owners. The Suez Canaland foreign property were nationalized and the educational systemwas made more democratic.Nasser's regime marks a turning away from Western domination and aresurgence of national Arab culture. It was the reaction againstthe West that shaped the cultural, social and political structureof Nasser's regime. He rejected Western culture, including Marxism,arguing that Arab nationalism could not accomodate internationalor atheist ideology. The exaltation of traditional cultural values,Islam and nationalism, was the means of restoring dignity and powerto Egypt. The Egyptian personality, for example, was defined bythe writers Taha Husayn and Tawfiq al-Hakim as the synthesis of thepharaonic past, Arabic language and Islamic religion, while thewriter Muhamad Hasanen Haykal emphasized the pan-Islamic notion of"divine unity". This process of cultural rediscovery is common inthe countries victimized by colonial de-culturization and tryingto rebuild a national identity. In the words of Fanon:

The passionate search for a national culture which existedbefore the colonial era finds its legitimate reason in theanxiety shared by native intellectuals to shrink away fromthat Western culture in which they all risk being swamped.Because they realize they are in danger of losing theirlives and thus becoming lost to their people, these men,hotheaded and with anger in their hearts , relentlesslydetermine to renew contact once more with the oldest andmost pre-colonial springs of life of their people. 9Although the revolution did not produce a complete transformation,it energized cultural life in Egypt. Cinema became part of theinitial stages of nation-building, whose ideology criticized colonialattitudes. The nationalist ideology, as conveyed by the cinema,aimed to provide the people with an interpretation of reality thatclaimed to transform them from traditional subjects to active citi-zens. Therefore, the cinema, as a vehicle of the new ideology, hadthe role of producing solidarity and identity among the masses.Considering the cinema as an influential means of propagatingCiUtX.o.al k)tti Vol 2 No 4 2 7


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culture and national ideas among the pe op le , the state took imp or-tant measures to reorganize the industry. The -cinema wa s na tion al -ized and the state had nearly complete control over the diffe rentbranches of the film industry, which previously had be en inprivate hands. Although censorship continued under Nas ser 's regimeits nation d' line, was quite different. On the one ha nd , it enc our -aged directly political as well as historical fi lm s, but on theother it exercized a double standard si nce the prese nt reg ime waspresumed exempt from criticism. Local productio n had to hav escripts approved by the Censorship Depar tment . The cen sor shi paffected foreign productions and especially those with politicalimplications. The Ministry of the Interior censored import ed pi c-tures with subversive ideas (i.e. communism), films ridiculingMoslem religion and Arab pres tige , films showing Afro- Asi an peop leas inferior and films about Israel or Jews. Even films using pro-Zionist stars and technicians such as Elizabeth T ay lo r, Danny Ka ye ,Otto Preminger, and Paul Newma n, wer e b ann ed.The state established the Supreme Council for the Protection ofArts and Lette rs, and later in 1957 the Organi zati on o f Co ns ol i-dation of Cinema was set up by the Ministry of National and Cul-tural Guidance, with an annual budget of 1 500 000 Egy pti an po un ds .Its purpose was to raise artistic and technical stand ards and strengthenthe national film industry by encouraging the pre sen tat ion of Egy pt-ian films inside Egypt and opening new markets for distributionoutside Egypt (apart from the other Arab countries). It offeredinvestment capital and secured bank guarantees for producers, builtmore movie theatres throughout the coun try and par tic ipa ted inco-productions to help distri bution. Some examples of the co -productions are Hazaz il Ka.ki.ita. (It Happe.ne.d in Cain.o), a HungarianEgyptian co-production and kla. Shatl e.1 Nil (On the Nile. Bank) , aJapanese-Egyptian co-pro ductio n. Annual awards or priz es we re givenfor the best direc tion, produc tion and so forth. In ad di ti on ,taxes were imposed on imported films in order to raise funds fornative production, strengthen the distribution network and procurethe latest technology. A protect ionist system of quo tas was estab -lished, requiring that one week out of four be reserved for the pro-jection of Egyptian films. These me as ur es , toget her wit h the increasein the national production, led to a drop in imports from 431 filmsin 1955 to 294 in 1958. In 1959 the government est ablis hed theHigher Institute of Cinema, whose purpo se was to edu cate a n ewgeneration of film makers and technic ians. In 1963 the E gypt ianGeneral Organization, which was a fusion of the cinem a orga niza tionwith that of Radio and TV, established its control over the ma jorstudios of the past , which were now state owned: Mi sr , Jal al , Arabicand Nahh as. The public sector in cin ema , which was in fact an ex-tension of the state control over the nation alized ind ust ry, t rainedin its institutions script writers and offered a chance to filmmakers and actors to study abroad.The faults of the Nasser regime were also reflected in the filmindustry. The revolution of 1952 was not a revo lution by thepeople, but that of an elite acting in the name of the pe op le . Therevolution did not effect a radical chang e in the political andsocial structure through genuine redis tributio n of we al th or thetransfer of power from one order or class to ano the r. Th er ef or e,as pointed out by the Egyptian critic Qussai Samak, the publicsector in cinema was not created in response to a shared des ireof the people and the leadership to radically transform the domi-nant culture and change the state of the art and indu str y. It was

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mer ely a con tinu ati on of the process of bureaucrati cally reshapingthe stat e secto rs along the lines of what was described as'ArabSocialism' in the'character of National Acti on'. Like the Egyptianstat e as a wh o l e , conc epts from the private sector still controlledthe cinema in the public se cto r, but under a new organ izati on. Inoth er wo rd s, wit hin the framework of the Egyptian GeneralOrganization of Cinema the old struggle continued between theveteran producers and directors who gained their power from connec-tion s and experi ence in the indu stry, and the young generation whower e strug gling to produce a different cinema.Despite the faults of the public sector, its importance was aboveall in its support of the new generation which had not had thech ance to demonstrate its abil ities in the pre- revo lutiona ry period.The new film make rs trained in the public sector were given theoppo rtun ity to work in the General Organizatio n of Cin ema, andinde ed some of the best Egypti an fi lms appeared in the late 60'sund er the auspic es of the publi c se cto r, such as Shahin's Al And(The Land'), Abu Seif's Al Kahlua. Tha.la.tln (Cal/io 30 ) , HenriBarakat's Kl Hajiam (.The. Sin), Hussein Kamal's Al Bonitagl (The.?o&tma.n~) and Shad i Abde l Salam's Al Uoumla (The. Uu.mmy') .The revolut ion immediately and direct ly influenced the chosenthemes of Egypt ian films. Veterans like Badrak han, for example ,inco rpor ated the new natio nalis t gospel into their fil ms. The filmsof the younge r film mak er s, besides criticizing the former regime,dre w in spir atio n from conte mpor ary eve nts such as the Palestine Warof 19 48 , the revolu tion of 1952 , the nationalization of the SuezCana l and the Sue z War in 1956 and the Alger ian struggle for inde-pendence. (The Egyptian mov eme nt, in fact , anticipated a similarpr oce ss in Alg eri a with the rise of Cinema Moudj ahid af ter thelib era tio n, whi ch was concerned mainly with films about the recentpa st .) Scre en crit icism of the former regime emphasized its socialinju sti ce, portr aying the exploitation of peasants by land-ownersand their stru ggle agai nst the monop oly of land and ma rk et s, e.g.Shahine's neo-realist social subject Se.ua. ill 11ad/.(A Struggle.In the. Valle.y, 1953), or Ahmed Dia-Eddine's Atdona. e.1 Khadna (Ou.1G-teen Land, 1956), which develops a love story between a peasantand his wife, recounting their struggle to save enough money to buytheir land only to find that no-one will sell.This crit icis m o f the f ormer regime was natur ally accompanied byfilms prai sing the revolut ion, e.g. Ahmad Badrakhan's Allah Maana(God With UA, 1954-55), writ ten by the journalist and writ er IhsanAbd il Kud dus , which celebrate s the Egyptian revolution and chroni-cle s the Egyp tian role in the Palestine War of 1948. The filmclo ses on a critic al n ot e, pointing to the pligh t of the soldiersbe tr ay ed at the front by poor equipment and bad leade rship.Izzeddine Zulficar's Rudda Qalbl (Give. tie. Hy He.ant Back, 1957)described the hard life of the Egyptian peasant before the revolutionand the import ance of that revolution in brin ging ref orm, distr ibu-ting land, granting opportunity and justice to the ma sse s.The re were also an increased number of patriotic anti-colonial filmscele bra ting the transf ormat ion of the people from objects of historyinto sub jec ts, participa ting actively in histo ry. Some examplesare Hussein Didky's Vaicut e.1 litama/i (Vouin with lmpe.)ilallim, 1953),Henri Barakat's VI Baltouna Ragoul (A Han In 0u.it Houie., 1961), andIbrahim Hilmy's Kilo Tl6&a via Tl&ialne. (Kllome.tie. 99, 1955). Otherfilms celebr ated the Palestine War: Niazi Mustafa's Sama/ia Slnal

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(The Datk Gill o& the. Sinai, 1958), Kamal el-Cheikh's A/id e.1 Salem(Land o Peace, 1955). Later films depicted the Suez War of 1956,such as Niazi Moustafa's Sajine. Abou Zaabal (Abou laabat, Px.iAone.1,1956), Izzeddine Zulficar's VoKt Said (1957) and Has sa n el Imam'sHub mln NaJt/i (fieiy Love., 1957)'.Some films presented general Arab issues reflecting the ideologyof Arab unity. Such films , promoting Arab soli dar ity , and p ortrayingstruggles outside Egypt, derived from Nasser's posi ti on as the symbolof radical pan-Arab nationalism and its aspiration to Arab unity.In the Third World, Nasser had established himse lf as a major leaderdeeply committed to the anti-colonial str ugg le, esp ecia lly throu gh-out the Arab countries and in Africa. This com mit tme nt is reflectedin the portrayal of the Algerian struggle for indepen dence in Shahine'sGamlla Bohiaid of 1958, a film which thematical ly ant ici pat esPontecorvo's Battle 0& Alglcii (1966). The film concerns anAlgerian girl commando, Gami la, who was tortured by the Fre nc h.Shahine's long sequences of tortu re, suffering and re sis tan ce becamea symbol for Arab solidarity with the coura geous Al ge ri an freedo mfighters.As in other Third World count ries , the desire for lib era tio n wasnot simply a question of politica l independ ence b ut also of re -asserting cultural tradit ions. Without such atti tude s tow ardsone's past, together with active and concre te invo lveme nt in thepresent and planning for the fu tur e, one is condemne d to wh atMemmi calls the colonized's loss of memory:

As long as he fthe colon ized^t olerat es col oni zat ion ,the only possible alternatives for the colonized areassimilation or petrification. Assimilat ion bein grefused him ... nothing is left for him but to liv eisolated from his age . He is drive n back by col on i-zation and, to a certain extent, lives with that situa-tion. Planning and building his future are forbidden.He must therefore limit himself to the pr es en t, and eventhat present is cut off and abstract.We should add that he draws less and less from his p ast.The colonizer never even recognized that he had one ...the colonized seems condemned to lose his memory. 10

Consequently, historical and religious films celebr ated the end ofthe 'negative my th' of the colonized thr ough r einf orce ment ofEgyptian tradition and cult ure. Among the first reli giou s filmswas Bllal, Muezzin el Raiul (Balal, the P/topfeet'4 Muezzin, 1952-53)by Ahmad al Touk i, and Shahine's II Ha.ie.li Salah-e.l-Vin (1963),dealing with Saladin, the determined leader of Mosle m arm ies whofought against the invading crusa ders. He restored Jerusalem toIslam, weakening the European posi tion in the Ne ar East and improvedEgypt's political and economic situat ion. The fil m, by prai singpast Arab exploits, implicitly suggests the inversion of powerthrough history (the Arab relationship wi th the Eur opea n coloni zerswas unique , after all, in the respect that it had do min ated certainregions of Europe, such as Ib eria, and had enjoyed mil ita ry vic -tories over the West).At the same time, the revolution also influe nced a rti sts to gobeyond traditional forms. One of the noti ceab le ten denc ies wasthe rise of realism, reflecting a desire to explore the concrete

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problems of the Egyptian people. There were precedents inEgyptian literature for this kind of realism in the 1930's, whenwriters Taha Hussain and Tawfiq el Hakim established realismthrough a more colloquial Arabic; later, in the forties and beyond,Neguib Mahfuz contributed to a realistic literature springing fromthe daily experience of the Egyptian people and helped create adiction based on everyday life. In the cinema, a similar processoccurred after 1952, and althoughmost of the films produced inthe first decade of the revolution are marked by political naivete,illusionism, and revolutionary romanticism, some also explore thenew alternatives created by the revolution. This realist trend inthe cinema is demonstrated especially in the films of Salah Abu-Seifwho had assisted Kamal Selim in At Az-ima. (Pe-te-tm-tna-fctoiO as wellas Youseef Shahine.Like similar movements in Third World Cinema, such as Brazil'sCinema Novo and India's New Cinema, Egyptian post-revolutionarycinema was partially inflected by Italian neo-realism. The filmicportrayals of social themes drawn from Egyptian life were usuallyshot on location, unlike the studio-shot offerings of pre-revolutionary cinema. Songs and dances were relegated to the musi-cals and the traditional tendency toward melodrama was mini-mized. . Abu-Seif's films focused on urban problems such assexual oppression and capitalist exploitation. In his film El Oita-ha.&&an (Fo/temen ftaaan, 1952), the hero, Hassan, initially rejectsthe alley where he grew up; his experiences in the outside world,however, convince him that he cannot abandon his own. Shot in analley in a poverty-stricken district of Cairo, the film portraysthe routine habits of the people who lived there, their speech,their manners and their gestures.Also Shahine showed deep concern for the ambient reality of theeveryday Egyptian. His Bab e . 1 Haded (I/ton Gate., 1958) filmed inCairo's railway station known as the Iron Gate, deals with thesexual frustration and oppression of a crippled newspaper vendor,Klnawi, within the framework of the harsh realities of life inthe station where the workers must struggle for their livelihoodand their rights.After the revolution, more Egyptian novels were adapted to thescreen and more Egyptian writers worked as screenwriters, e.g.Naguib Mahfuz. Most of these adaptations, unfortunately, reliedtoo heavily on the literary text and created what is known as the'literary mentality of the Egyptian cinema', e.g. Hassan el-Imam'sadaptation of Mahfuz's Ath-Thalathlyya (TKitogy). In any casesuch adaptations indicate a new will to search for Egypt's authenticsources in national talent rather than adopting Western formulae.Changes also occurred within traditional genres such as the musical.After 1952, music became more patriotic and combative. Traditionalfolklore became a major source of inspiration in the process ofdefining the 'authentic' nation. Most compositional techniquessought their inspiration in regional songs and dances. A celebratedsinger-actor of this new era was Abdel Halim Hafez who, withMuhammad El Mougi and Kamal el Tawil as composers and Morsi GamilAziz and Salah Shahine as lyric writers, formed the new mode ofexpression in the musical. Abdel Halim Hafez's films expressed thelocal traditions and his love songs were authentically Egyptian,hardly incorporating the modernized form.C x . l t i c . a l A / i t A Vol Z No 4 31


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In conclusion: the reorganization of the industry and the changesin the films themselves contributed to the development of a distinct-ively national film culture. As a result of the 1952 revolution,the transition towards a decolonized cinema paralleled the politicaltransition, suggesting that the nation is the substance for culturalrenewal since political independence lies at the foundation of adynamic and vibrant culture, thus illustrating the connectionbetween culture and politics stressed by Fanon . in The iil)Le.tche.do& the. ianth:

The condition for its existence is therefore nationalliberation and the renaissance of the state ... A non-existentculture can hardly be expected to have bearing on reality,or to influence reality. The first necessity is the re-establishment of the nation in order to give life to nationalculture in the strictly biological sense of the phrase. 11

NOTES AND REFERENCES1 Hala Salmane, Simon Hartog and David Wilson (eds}1976:AlgtiianCj.ne.ma, British Film Institute.2 One of the most famous films critical of Nasser's regime wasThe. Ballet ii Stilt in Uy Pocfeei(1973), scripted by IhsanAbdel-Quddous and directed by Hussan el-Din Mustafa. A heroof the October War, after carrying out his duty successfullyon the Canal Front, saves one bullet for the enemy at home,i.e. the man who raped his girlfriend and whom the filmassociates with the Arab Socialist Union.3 Sadoul, Georges 1966: The. Cinema In the. Alab Coantiizt,Unesco, Paris ; and specifically "History of the U.A.R.Cinema" by Galal Al-Sharkawi, p 89* Paradoxically, this Egyption historical film was directed bya man who knew no Arabic, the German, Fritz Kramp.5 The cinema was mainly an urban medium and the ie.tta.hi (peasants)who formed about 654 of the population had little access to it.6 Memmi, Albert 1967: The. Colonize.it, and the. Colonize.d , BeaPress, Boston, p 1207 Fannon, Frantz 1968: The. Wnetc.he.d o$ the. EaAth, Grove Press,New York, p 2388 As G. Chaliand notes in Revolution in the ThiKd Would, theFree Officers saw modernization essentially as a matter oftechnology, for unlike their Chinese, North Vietnamese andCuban counterparts, they were socially and culturally conser-vative, and despite occasional lip-service to 'socialism', the

1952 revolution rejected class struggle or any profound socialupheaval.9 Fannon op.cit. pp 209 - 21010 Memmi op.cit. pp 102 - 10311 Fannon op.cit. pp 244 - 245Critical AKti Vol I Ho 4 32

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Egypt Cinema and Revolution