Beyond Casablanca: M. A. Tazi and the Adventure of Moroccan Cinema

Conclusion: Future Flights of the Bumblebee

Conclusion Future Flights of the Bumblebee Introduction: Closing Questions Early in our talks, sitting across from me on the sofa in his study, Tazi had encapsulated the central paradox of Moroccan filmmaking by comparing it to the flight of the bumblebee, saying, “according to the laws of aeronautics, it’s impossible for that insect to fly. But bumblebees fly just the same! That’s just the way it is for our cinema . . . we can’t make films but, just the same, we make films!” Moroccan and other Third World cinemas operate today in very turbulent conditions, marked by significant national events and by farreaching developments on a world scale in technology, economics, politics, and culture. There is little consensus about the deeper implications of these developments: some will argue that nowadays, across the globe, we all communicate easily and almost instantaneously with one another, that we are increasingly living in one “global village” (a phrase Tazi often uses, but always sardonically); others counter by saying that while these “globalizing” trends may well ease some paths of communication, they hinder or even obstruct others, and that creators in peripheral locations have ever-growing difficulty communicating with publics both within and across national borders, as they face competition from internationally produced and distributed works that have immense financial backing. In these circumstances, what is the likelihood that Tazi, other Moroccan filmmakers, and Third World filmmakers in general will be able to continue to produce films and Conclusion 303 that these films will “fly” toward their own national and perhaps even international audiences? To explore these and related questions we need to assess Tazi’s work, which means looking more closely at the style and appeal of his films and at his directorial practice, many aspects of which shed light on broader issues of Third World filmmaking and creative activity . Following this, we will turn to examine the prospects for Moroccan cinema and its place within the global film industry. Questions on these three levels—a film career and the films that mark it, the national context within which these are (largely) carried forward, and the global industry that has so great an influence on them—extend those with which we opened this book and that have shaped it from beginning to end.1 However, these questions were not set up prior to or even at the outset of this research project but emerged as the project proceeded, in the course of a specific encounter between anthropologist and filmmaker , each carrying with him his own blend of individual, professional , and societal interests. Before we turn to discuss Tazi’s work, we should therefore explore the disciplinary context of this project and the way in which the encounter has influenced the outcome. Anthropology, Filmmaker, Anthropologist A mere forty years ago, an anthropological study such as this one would not have been possible: not only was the independence of Third World countries in its early days and Moroccan filmmaking not yet born but, on a more modest level, the discipline of anthropology paid little, if any, attention to the creative aspects of film and the audiovisual. However, in the past two decades anthropological concern with these subjects has grown, in part related to a major reorientation in the discipline that involves (but is not limited to) deepening interest in (1) expressive activity (an outgrowth of what used to be called the “anthropology of art”), (2) industrial societies (where the relationship and distinction between “high culture” and “popular culture” are posed), (3) “popular culture” itself (related to the two expanding fields of “cultural studies” and “media studies”), and (4) the notion of culture as a “text” (encouraging anthropologists to look at cultural products, such as films, much as they might look at myth, ritual, or any of the more “traditional” objects of anthropological study). In this context, it is only natural that the study of au- 304 Beyond Casablanca diovisual fiction (whether in cinema, television, video, or other), of the worlds it conveys and the worlds from which it issues, would expand too.2 In addition, over the past two decades, anthropologists have frequently raised questions of “reflexivity” that call for a questioning of their discipline and their role within it: How is an anthropological text constructed? How does it “represent,” give voice to, incorporate the presence of the “other” and the “self”? What is the nature of...