Theme and Plot Recycling in Nigerian Home Movies
Abstract
In August 2003, Nigeria witnessed a centenary of film exhibition in the country. It was in August of 1903, (Opubor and Nwuneli, 1979) that the first newsreel was exhibited at the Glover memorial hall in Lagos. Since then Nigeria has progressed in filmmaking especially as the 1970s witnessed a boost in firsts with the making of the controversial Kongi's Harvest (1970) as the first feature film of independent Nigeria, from Soyinka's play of the same title; and Amadi (1975) as the first film of indigenous language expression.
The film culture was beginning to find its footing when the structural adjustment down-turn dealt it a blow with the escalation of the dollar against Naira which ultimately paved the way for the home-video. This paper thus reflects on the journey so far and concludes that the absence of celluloid is in part a catalyst to the over flooding of the industry given that the production of home-video is cheap and requires little or no patience from the producers; and that the growth in the movie industry is merely numerical; thematically and by way of plot development, the words of a critic, "Once you've seen one, you've seen them all." (Osha, 1998; 50), is a pointer to the retrogression in the industry.
Again, since Tragedy is an imitation of persons who are above the common level, the example of good portrait-painters should be followed. They, while reproducing the distinctive form of the original, make a likeness which is true to life and yet more beautiful. So too the poet, in representing men who are irascible or indolent, or have other defects of character, should preserve the type and yet ennoble it.
- Aristotle
The mass media made their incursion into the country through the print medium in 1859. This was followed by the oldest electronic medium of cinema in 1903 and today, Nigeria is heir to nearly all the innovations in communications and information technology. The colonial masters were responsible through their missionaries for this experience. Throughout the period of colonialization 1859 - 1959, and before independence, the colonial masters controlled the media, including the cinema with which they made their incursion into the rural areas with the determined use of the mobile cinema vans. Today, the colonial masters are gone, the mobile cinema vans abandoned, celluloid filmmaking on recess and the home-video holds the reins. To what extent has the home video played the role of projecting the African/Nigerian image to the outside world by positively positioning it video graphically through good plot structuring and thematic relevance of locally made movies?
