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157 t e n New Jack African Cinema Dangerous Ground; Cry, the Beloved Country; and Blood Diamond bennetta jules-rosette, j.r. osborn, and lea marie ruiz-ade it is a truism that actions speak louder than words. in the case of film, action cinema has the power to override dialogue and deconstruct plot structure through the shock value of violence, explosion, and conflict. the violence itself becomes an anthropometric narrative actor as well as an agent of change. in this context, new Jack African cinema treats Africa at once as a liminal space, a purgatory from which to escape, and a potential utopia. this genre, which has its roots in Hollywood action films and Hong Kong martial arts cinema, uses the agency of explosive violence to mask genuine African social problems. it has one foot in Hollywood and the other on the African continent, melding a variety of Hollywood cinematic devices with a cinema of resistance. Although conventional plot structures such as quest, vengeance, and coming of age are incorporated into new Jack African cinema, peak events involving violence overshadow all other narrative concerns and devices. new Jack films trace their origin to Mario van Peebles’s 1991 film New Jack City, starring wesley snipes and rapper ice-t. As spin-offs of the blaxploitation genre of the 1970s and Hollywood action films of the 1980s, these films are closely related to the larger genre of ’hood films.1 Manthia diawara states that ’hood films, exemplified by John singleton’s 1991 Boyz N the Hood and other commodities related to the global spread of hip-hop culture, “are an expression of poor people’s desire for the good life” (1998, 238). drugs, crime, and male-oriented popular culture are centerpieces of these films, in which hip-hop and rap stars emerge as cinematic heroes. Paul smith points out that pulp genres, such as spaghetti westerns and new Jack action films, are mutable (1993, 20). new filmic genres often disguise older ones by making 158  b e n n e t t A J u l e s - r o s e t t e , J . r . o s b o r n , A n d l e A M A r i e r u i z - A d e referential allusions to the past or remaking new films in vastly different settings that evoke the superficial appearance of new genre types.2 thus, boer trek films in the colonialist south African genre discussed by Peter davis operate as disguised westerns (1996, 128–30). similarly, ice Cube transports the American new Jack genre to Africa in Dangerous Ground (1997).3 Although new Jack African films partake of this genre mutability, they are characterized by certain basic operating principles: (1) new Jack African films displace the locus of crime and destruction from the Us inner city to African urban and rural sites. (2) within these sites, the films manipulate time and space to create internal moments of actualization, reconstruction, and reconciliation. bar scenes are often deployed in this manner. (3) traditional African communities are presented as twilight zones within idyllic fantasies and are often iconized through the figure of the African mother. Even the shooting styles, focus, and lighting of village scenes, along with the b-roll intercuts, may be muted in order to convey the impression of a vague and waning traditional community. (4) Conventional social interactions across genders and generations are also muted and manipulated in order to open up new pathways for their transformation. (5) Peak events center on conflict, explosion, and mass destruction so that the possibility of an alternative reality may be introduced to resolve the conflict. (6) After the explosion, this alternative reality may never actually be attained. it remains virtual, but it is alluded to through Hollywood-style cinematic suture devices that allow the antihero to save the day, often through death or extreme sacrifice.4 while there are genuine heroes and villains in new Jack films, their identities are flawed, reworked, and transformed through violent peak narrative events. within these narrative and genre conventions, new Jack films deploy truncated and ironic dialogue, which contributes to the pulp-like quality of the scenario and reinforces the anachronisms and interpersonal conflicts highlighted by the manipulation of time and space. truncated dialogue may also make characters appear one-dimensional as they navigate the fault lines of new Jack cinematic deconstruction and destruction. However, these one-dimensional characters are actually multilayered, thereby concealing the depth of...

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