Auteuring Nollywood , livre ebook

edited by
AUTEURING NOLLYWOOD
Adeshina Afolayan
Critical Perspectives on the FigurineAUTEURING NOLLYWOOD
Critical Perspectives on
THE FIGURINE
AUTEURING NOLLYWOOD
Critical Perspectives on
THE FIGURINE

edited by
Adeshina Afolayan
UNIVERSITY PRESS PLC
IBADAN
2014University Press PLC
IBADAN ABA ABEOKUTA ABUJA AJEGUNLE AKURE BENIN
CALABAR IKEJA IKORODU ILORIN JOS KADUNA KANO
MAIDUGURI MAKURDI MINNA ONITSHA OSOGBO OWERRI
PORT HARCOURT WARRI YABA ZARIA
© Adeshina Afolayan 2014
First Published 2014
All rights reserved
ISBN 978 978 069 828 7 (Limp)
ISBN 978 978 069 829 4 (Cased)
Published by University Press PLC
Three Crowns Building, Jericho, P.M.B. 5095, Ibadan, Nigeria
E-mail: unipress@universitypressplc.com
Website: www.univ.comFor Funmilayo Afolayan:
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to a fevered brain…WKLV
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FOREWORD
Irapada (Redemption) and Araromire (The
Figurine), Kunle Afolayan has already established himself as a
success has been all the more spectacular for being so immediate,
character to his sudden prominence as a director. At the present
moment, as Nollywood struggles through its latest crisis, his success
bigger budgets and includes as part of its basic strategies theatrical
specimen of an exotic phenomenon of African popular culture.
is what Tunde Kelani has always done. There is an obvious
Afolayan got his start as an actor playing the young prince in
Kelani’s Saworoide and Agogo Eewo. (Of course, Afolayan was born
vi
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uncommon level of artistry and a slow, deliberate, careful approach
deliberately stayed out of it.
Both also distinguish themselves by the wide ambit of Nigerian
as Kelani has always drawn on actors from several traditions not
only for their individual talents but also to suggest a blending, a
broad cultural alliance; in The Figurine Afolayan casts stars with
and gives the painter and performing artist Muraina Oyelami, who
and Adebayo Faleti. Oyelami’s paintings and posters are a crucial
museum of archaeology and modern art is a recurrent point of
reference. Afolayan expresses his own generation’s urban culture
in the edgy fashion designs, interior decoration, architecture, and
The Figurine
habitually showcases what money can buy but often without
Mosebolatan
(directed by Ade Love and shot by Tunde Kelani) and Orun Mooru y Ola Balogun) which featured a performance by King
vii
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cultural ambition, of course, but so is an ambitious imagination.
Nigeria’s cultural energies; one could contemplate this with more
joy if Nollywood engaged more fully with the wider Nigerian
artistic heritage instead of merely superseding it.
mindedness and moralism that are so characteristic of Yoruba
culture. Irapada
structure rather than something preached about: the strongest,
are the friendships across ethnic lines; code-switching is constant,
though there are also a couple of scenes that play around strong
linguistic barriers, as if to draw attention to the problem that is
and green after the rains, with little or no hint of the communal
(Perhaps the Hausa businessman’s treachery and violence towards
to illustrate basic human lessons: be humble in the face of fate;
trust your friends; listen to your mother; don’t let masculine pride
it is central to the protagonist Dewunmi’s father’s story as well as
his own.
magnetism are settled, married, enmeshed early and deliberately