10 Things I Learned: Black Girl
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Senegalese master Ousmane Sembène was already a celebrated novelist before becoming a filmmaker. His decision to direct was fueled by his recognition of cinema as a “political tool,” one that could rally the masses against a depicted social injustice, and reach audiences that a book, which depends on the literacy of its potential readers, could not.
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Sembène was, to his very last days, a stalwart Marxist. His understanding of class conflict germinated while he worked on the docks in France during the forties. In 1950, he joined the French Communist Party.
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Having received a scholarship to the Gorky Film Institute, Sembène studied film from 1962 to 1963 in the Soviet Union under the tutelage of director Mark Donskoy (The Childhood of Maxim Gorky) and derived much of his knack for creating politically charged images from that experience.
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Sembène was inspired to make Black Girl after reading about the death of a young black woman in a brief newspaper article, whose terseness left the identity of the victim inscrutable. His goal was to bring this depersonalized story to vivid life.
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Sembène’s work often features female protagonists, because he considers women to be an essential part of social revolution. He has said, “When women progress, society progresses.”
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The filmmaker discovered M’Bissine Thérèse Diop while she was being photographed in Senegal. After he told her the story of the film, she was intrigued and agreed to play the part of Diouana, more to experience something new than to make a serious foray into acting.
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Diop was attending art school with an interest in dressmaking at the time, and most of the clothes worn by Diouana in the film are in fact Diop’s own. She has said that every night, after shooting stopped for the day, she would go home to make dresses.
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Robert Fontaine, who plays Monsieur in the film, was Diop’s acting professor in art school.
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According to Diop, she came up with the idea to stage Diouana’s suicide in the tub, as well as the idea of using medicinal syrup from the pharmacy as prop blood. “At least art school was of some use to me!” she says.
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Black Girl won immediate acclaim upon its release, garnering international awards and announcing a distinctive cinematic voice from Africa. In 1967, this success led to Sembène earning a position as the first Cannes juror from that continent.
