teaching tsotsi: notes

TEACHING TSOTSI / JUDITH GUNN / BFI JULY 2010 1

contents

2 About Tsotsi

3 Awards

4 Biographies

5 Context

6 ‘Thug’

7 Activity: Protagonist/Antagonist

8 Narrative

9 Activity: Narrative Viewing Sheet

10 Themes

12 Audience

13 Industry

14 Teaching Tsotsi: Scheme of Work

16 Tsotsi mindmapTsotsi mindmapTsotsi

17 Stereotypes

Teaching Tsotsi


About Tsotsi

Set in contemporary Johannesburg, in the township of Soweto – where, post-Apartheid survival is still a diffi cult and fraught process for many South Africans, who struggle to get out of poverty. Tsotsi traces six days in the life Tsotsi traces six days in the life Tsotsiof a ruthless young gang leader whose life of crime brings him to a crossroads that involves his own self discovery as a caring human being.

Tsotsi is a gritty and moving Tsotsi is a gritty and moving Tsotsiportrait of a typically angry young man who is alienated from family, friends and the world around him. He has no access to the new South Africa so he seeks to take it with violence and threat.

The fi lm is a psychological thriller in which the protagonist is compelled to confront his

TsotsiDirected by Gavin HoodWritten by Athol Fugard

CastTsotsi: Presley ChweneyagaeButcher: Zenzo NggobeBoston: Motusi MoganoAap: Kenneth NkosiMiram: Terry PhetoFela: ZolaJohn: Rapulana SeiphemoPumla: Nambitha MpumlwanaSoekie: Thembi NyandeniZuma: Percy MatesemelaSmit: Ian Roberts

The UK Film & TV Production Company PLC

Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa

The National Film and Video Foundation of SA

Moviworld (in association with)

Tsotsi Films

Presley Chweneyagae: Tsotsi

own brutal nature and face the consequences of his actions. It puts a human face on both the victims and the perpetrators of violent crime and is ultimately a story of hope and a triumph of love over rage.

The fi lm is both violent and thoughtful, it refl ects the reality of living in the slums of Soweto but it also offers glimpses of the new South Africa as it struggles with the widening gap between the haves and the have nots – in a land where the colour of your skin is no longer the defi nition of your character.


Presley Chweneyagae, Nelson Mandela, Terry Pheto: by Helen Kuun, Sterkinekor

ACADEMY AWARDBest Foreign Language Film of the Year (2006)

BAFTA 2006 NominationThe Carl Foreman AwardFilm Not In The English Language.

Pan African Film and Arts Festival 2006 AwardJury Prize for Best Feature

Santa Barbara Film Festival 2006 AwardAudience Award

Thessaloniki Film Festival 2005 AwardIndependence Day section, Greek Parliament’s Human Values Award

Denver International Film Festival 2005 AwardAudience Award

Cape Town World Cinema Festival 2005 AwardCritics Jury Award

St. Louis International Film Festival 2005 AwardAudience Choice Award

Los Angeles AFI Film Festival 2005 AwardAudience Award

The Toronto International Film Festival 2005 AwardPeople’s Choice Award

The Edinburgh International Film Festival 2005 AwardThe Michael Powell Award For Best New British Feature

Film Standard LifeAudience Award

Speech by Gavin Hood, director of Tsotsi, accepting the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year (2006)

“God bless Africa. Wow. I have a speech, it’s in my pocket, but that thing says 38 seconds. But mine’s way too long. Go to tsotsi.com and there is a huge long list of people. Because I’m accepting this not for myself. This is for best foreign language fi lm. It is sitting right there to start with. Please stand up Presley Chweneyagae and Terry Pheto. My two fantastic young leads. Put the cameras on them, please. Viva Africa. Viva. I’ve got ten seconds. Ten seconds

I just want to thank my fellow nominees who I’ve become deep friends with. We may have foreign language fi lms, but our stories are the same as your stories. They’re about the human heart and emotion. It says please wrap. Thank you so much. Thank you to the Academy. Thank you.”

AWARDS


BiographiesAthol Fugard – WriterTsotsi is the only novel ever Tsotsi is the only novel ever Tsotsiwritten by the prolifi c playwright Athol Fugard. Written in the early 1960’s around the time of his fi rst stage success, The Blood Knot, and set in the 1950’s, it remained unpublished until 1980, by which time plays of Fugard’s like Boesman and Lena, Sizwe Banzi is Dead and Sizwe Banzi is Dead and Sizwe Banzi is DeadMaster Harold and the Boyshad become big international stage successes.

Gavin Hood – DirectorAfter graduating with a degree in law in South Africa, Gavin worked briefl y as an actor before heading to the US to study screenwriting and directing at UCLA.

Gavin returned to South Africa where he got his fi rst writing and directing work making educational dramas, Gavin won one Artes Award (a South African Emmy) and was nominated for another.

In 1998 Gavin made his 35mm fi lm directing debut with a 22-minute short called The Storekeeper. The fi lm went on to win thirteen international fi lm festival awards including the Grand Prize at the Melbourne International Film Festival in Australia.

Next he won a Diane Thomas Screenwriting Award for his fi rst screenplay, A Reasonable Man. The script was inspired by a case of ritual murder. Judges included Steven Spielberg, Michael Douglas. At the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, Gavin was named by Variety as one of their “Ten Directors To Watch.”

Gavin has gone on to direct X-Men Origins: Wolverine, in production is Tough Trade and a little trivia is that he took a brief role as bad guy Anubis in the TV series Stargate SG1.

Gavin Hood

Presley Chweneyagae – TsotsiPresley has had no formal drama training. Prior to landing the lead role of Tsotsi, he acted in school plays and in community theatre projects. He has performed in a number of productions for North West Arts (now known as the Mmabana Arts Foundation) and appeared in A Midsummer Night’s Dream(as Puck) and in the play Cards at the Grahamstown Arts Festival. He made his TV acting debut in 2000 in Orlando for SABC TV. Tsotsi is his fi rst feature fi lm.


ContextScramble for AfricaIn one of the more sour ironies of European and African history, the justifi cation for what became known as the “Scramble for Africa” was the attempt by the British and others to stamp out slavery, a trade that they, themselves had indulged in since the 16th century. Between 1562 and 1807 European ships took more than 11 million people from the continent of Africa. Even so, as late as 1870, only 10% of the land mass was occupied and held by European countries.

David Livingstone was someone who combined those ideas in his own personal philosophy of Africa. He believed that the only salvation for the African continent were the three “C’s”: civilisation, Christianity and commerce, and since then

South Africans, as “apart-hate” because pronounced thus; its true meaning is exposed. It refers to the philisophy of separation, which, in theory, meant that different cultures could live side by side without interference. In practice, it meant the subjugation of the black majority to the will of the white minority. The black majority could not decide where they lived, what they owned (only in Sofi atown could blacks own their own property). They did not have access to good jobs, to certain parts of the city, or the land or to good water fountains,

demonstrations fed the battle against apartheid

In 1990 Nelson Mandela was released from prison and was soon to take his place as president of South Africa, majority rule had come at last to South Africa.

Why is this relevant?While most people would accept that any good fi lm should be able to stand up to examination because of its ability to communicate beyond its localised themes, it is also

true that almost every text is a product of the infl uences that shape its culture. The original story of Tsotsi of Tsotsi of was set in the late 1950s, at the height of the injustices of apartheid. The fi lm, however, is set in a post-apartheid

South Africa which allows the modern Tsotsi the opportunity to represent themes that are common to many young people and black young people around the world, but it is, nevertheless a fi lm born of the history of Africa and more specifi cally South Africa.

For more go to http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/8508592.stm

Nelson Mandela: LSE LIbrary CC

bus rides or toilets.Throughout the Sixties,

Nelson Mandela and other members of the African NationalCongress, founded after the Boer war and formed into the ANC in 1923 were imprisoned on

Robben Island and for 27 years the trade sanctions, sport and music bans and

commerce, if not Christianity, has dominated the rich countries’ relations with African countries, almost always to the detriment of that resource rich continent.

ApartheidThe word “apartheid” is, in fact, pronounced by most


‘Thug’Stereotypes and TsotsiIn the opening sequence of Tsotsi the audience is presented Tsotsi the audience is presented Tsotsiwith a classic stereotype. The scene opens as Tsotsi, fl anked by three others, marches down the street. The close up is on his face, a low angle to signify his power. He is clearly in control, he is not, however a tribal stereotype, his clothing and his look, are those of any urban young man, only the language gives away the location.

Tsotsi is every bit the black urban stereotype, an angry young man, a thug – a thug by nature and a thug by name for that is the meaning of Tsotsi. His very name conjures up a South African stereotype that covers the gangs of the shanty towns, young men who run feral in the streets of the townships and who raid the more genteel areas of suburbia.

In addition Tsotsi is a very familiar stereotype, despite the fact his home is Soweto, despite the fact that this is an African story. This is not the story of an African child soldier, this is not the story of a starving child, this is the story of a thug, a thug whose sophistication and violence could be found in almost any inner city of any country. Tsotsi, as he is portrayed in the fi lm, could be as much at home on the streets of Baltimore in The Wire as he is in Soweto. The universal themes of crime and youth

poverty are secondary to colour and nationality.

Moreover Tsotsi the novel, Tsotsi the novel, Tsotsiwas written as a representation of an already established stereotype. The zootsuited thugs that ranged the townships in the 1950s drew their identity and their type from American fi lms.

The stereotypes in Tsotsibreak down further though, so that in the end they are no longer stereotypes but stories of individuals that the fi lm portrays with great

It’s All in the NameThe name Tsotsi means “thug” and in a strange irony it has its roots in cinema representations. In his autobiography The Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela remembers and defi nes the tsotsisas fedora-wearing gangsters, who imitated the roles of James Cagney and Charles Laughton, in the fear inducing gangster noirs of the 1930s, 40s and 50s. It is even thought that the word is a version of the word “zootsuit” the name

for the wide-shouldered double-breasted suits of the American gangster. It may also be related to the words “ho tsotsa” which means to make sharp, not too distant from our own collocation to “look sharp”. Whatever the derivation, the word is not only a name for the individual, but in true representational style, it defi nes the individual and symbolises a generation. The universal theme of gangsters and crime, weaves into the specifi cs, not just of the African continent, but of the South African nation and its post-apartheid adjustments, as it struggles to reconfi gure its nation as multi-cultural, multi-coloured and multi-tribal.

Many of the names given to the characters also indicate their character and, to some Butcher, Boston, even Soekie and Aap hint at their background and thus at their character.

understanding and compassion. The principle of Tsotsi is to Tsotsi is to Tsotsireveal to its audience that no thug or tsotsi, is a nameless human being and Tsotsi’s name is David.

It is in the characterisation of individuals that, what appears to be the stereotypical representation, becomes a character. It is also in challenging the assumptions that people have about stereotypes that more is learned about the individuals.


The Gang: Left to right – Aap,Tsotsi, Butcher, Boston

ActivityUse this chart to defi ne the characters of the standard protagonist and antagonist. Then chart how Tsotsi represents them both.

Protagonist Antagonist Tsotsi


Linear Narrative A western element in the narrative of Tsotsi is that it is a Tsotsi is that it is a Tsotsilinear narrative. It is a simple tale that starts at the beginning and ends with the end of the story. The fi lm uses fl ashbacks but they are signifi ed simply, so that there is no confusion of narrative structure, in that respect Tsotsi is a western, or Tsotsi is a western, or Tsotsimainstream Hollywood fi lm. Even in the book by Athol Fugard, Tsotsi himself, narrates his own life in a linear style. Tsotsi sees himself as going from one point to the next.

‘Tsotsi had always thought about life as a straight line, as undeviating as the one he had taken earlier in the evening in following the beggar from the railway terminal, as infl exible as the railway tracks that swept past him, leaving no choice but to be carried where they went.’ P.120

The TT MovieThere is a trade description of a certain kind of linear narrative that to spare the blushes of innocent youth I have renamed here. If you do not want to know the original name, skip the next few sentences. In its original form, as told to me by a screenwriter it was described it as the “arsehole movie”. It takes the form of a race against time (hence my title TT, or Time Tension movie). The narrative suggests that somewhere (as described to me) in Africa, a

man is in trouble, he has a cork stuck somewhere embarrassing. The cork is going to explode in twenty-four hours. There is only one man in the world that can remove that cork, and he (of course) is in Los Angeles. The fi lm is the story of how the man, the protagonist, journeys to Africa and removes the cork successfully. It is one of the standard plots and once students can recognise it there are an number of fi lms, TV shows even books that adhere to that principle – the obvious example being the television series 24.

Northern StoriesLike the northern lights, a lot of the story telling we are used to in western culture, which, it must be said, has its roots in the Unities of Time, Place and Action, as posited by Aristotle – who defi ned a classic narrative as one that combines all these elements to produce a unifi ed narrative, linear in its content. “Once upon a time” is the onset of many a fairy tale, in the traditions of European narrative.

The Crime Against the BodyWhile linear stories are accessible and common to the European narrative the

signifi cance of that narrative can be augmented by a basic understanding that other cultures sometimes have a different experience of the story. Ideas of time and chronology are not always as important as ideas of morality, fable or ancestry. In some African narratives the understanding of the connection of the physical body to the narrative of life is signifi cant.The body is very important in African mythology – it is the combination of memory, which is far greater than individual

recall, and the body, it is the combined

memory of the DNA of ancestors. The body is the only thing that

Narrative


colonial powers failed to destroy, and even then 11 million were taken to communities elsewhere in the world as slaves. However there remains a sense of brotherhood, at least in the reference to each other as “brothers”. This sense is in the last scene when the father of the baby (John) calls Tsotsi

“brother” it represents what they share, not what is different.

However, the separation of the body from its source and sustenance is a very serious crime and this is Tsotsi’s crime – to separate the baby from its mother then, is a very serious thing. Needless to say, it is a very serious thing in any culture, but the signifi cance of the stealing of the baby is not just in the breaking of the line, the line of descendants and the story of the family, but in the breaking of the circle, the damaging of the community. Encased in the linear narrative, written and produced by white South Africans is a hint of the indigenous black culture’s own hegemony, ideas of the importance of the body, of the community of people that dates back, not just to the birth of self-knowledge of the young man himself, but to his connection with his community and his responsibility to it.

MEDIA STUDIES: NARRATIVE VIEWING SHEET

How is the text told?

Whose point of view?

How is the story structured?

What devices are used to indicate time, place mood etc?

In what way is the narrative linear?

In what way is the narrative about the body?

In what way is the narrative universally understandable?

In what way does the narrative of Tsotsi refl ect its specifi c concerns

How does the fi lm conform or challenge typical mainstream narrative conventions


ThemesD.E.C.E.N.C.YThere are no prizes for spotting the main theme in Tsotsi – Tsotsi – Tsotsi“decency” is literally spelled out for the audience by Fela, who, in that moment both affi rms and defi es the traditional stereotype he represents. Fela is the gang boss, bigger than Tsotsi, the

a mother, but it is only when he mentions a dog, that Tsotsi responds and beats him, almost literally, to a pulp. This moment, this challenge to decency sets Tsotsi on the path that leads him, in the end, to some form of decency. His terrible beating ends before he has killed Boston

Tsotsi in the shack with baby

to tell the parents that the baby is there. At this point the ending is very different to the one in the book. The modern retelling deals with the modern South Africa, the concept of a black middle class and the gate. The gate that divides the rich from the poor, which protects and also makes

alpha male, but also aware of Tsotsi and his strength. Fela is the original zoot-suited tsotsi, he is a dapper dresser and a confi dent man and that is why Boston, assumes that he cannot spell. He thinks that, like Tsotsi, he is driven to crime by the circumstances of his life, being orphaned and uneducated, but Fela is neither.

The fi lm starts with Boston’s challenge to Tsotsi about decency, but his provocation only elicits a violent response. Boston taunts Tsotsi and asks if he has ever been moved by anything. Boston lists those things that might cause a man to love, a woman maybe, a parent,

and he runs into the night, out into the storm across the scrub to another world, which there too, he causes damage. Tsotsi steals a car, and in it is a baby.

The Semiotics ofDecencyAt the end of the fi lm, as a representation of his new-found decency, he puts on his white shirt, gathers up the baby and takes money to the old beggar he passes by on his journey to the house. He hands his stash to the old fellow, one step along the way to decency for both of them. Once at the gate he could leave the baby and run, but he chooses

vulnerable. The gate is an icon of the modern South Africa, quite often it does not work, and what Tsotsi does is the nightmare of every middle class South African. When the gate breaks down he steals the car, the baby and he wounds the mother. The gate only works if the individual is safe behind it. In the last scene, the gate acts as bars across the divide, prison bars that Tsotsi cannot cross, until the owner, who calls him “brother”, in recognition of the history that they share, opens the gate. There is one thing that cannot divide them, the colour of their skin. Tsotsi has found decency but has he now found redemption?


that he has achieved some form of understanding of right and wrong, which again makes him a candidate for redemption. The recognition of his own responsibility hints at his readiness for redemption. He refuses to let Miriam take the baby, even though it might have been safer for her and it would have allowed him to get away with it. The fact that he recognises his own role in the return of the baby, and is willing to risk something of himself to do the right thing and not pass that responsibility on to Miriam, makes him redeemable and even she relents and recognises the evidence of insipient decency.

[ Spoiler warning – do not read on if you do not want to know what happens in the book ]

In fact in the book, Tsotsi does die in a hopeless attempt to rescue the baby from the

destruction of his township home by the bulldozers. Bulldozers sent in, by the police, to clear the unsightly illegal townships from land the whites want cleared. However, the end of the fi lmleaves Tsotsi to face the consequences of his actions, an ending that Hollywood protagonists or antagonists rarely have to face.

of Blood Diamond (dir. Edward Blood Diamond (dir. Edward Blood DiamondZwick, 2007) considering his violent and merciless history?

There is no easy answer for Tsotsi, as a protagonist, he is not a good role model. He commits horrible crimes and seems not to regret them. He is a predator who hunts down the vulnerable and the innocent. Tsotsi allows the audience no such luxury. They are invited to share the life of a protagonist, who, by any standards, would usually be an antagonist.

Tsotsi must take the audience with him on his journey to decency via some form of redemption. In the tradition of Hollywood redemption, this process does require him to kill someone worse than him, at least to demonstrate that he does have some redeemable features. The killing of Butcher to save the child’s father fulfi ls all the elements of parental redemption. The return of the baby, of course demonstrates

RedemptionRedemption “In bringing Tsotsi to the screen, our primary intention was to make a taut, well-paced, character driven, psychological thriller. We also wanted to transport our audience into a world of radical contrasts. Skyscrapers and shacks, wealth and poverty, violent anger and gentle compassion – all collide in a fi lm that is, ultimately, a classic story of redemption.” Gavin Hood

The redemption narrative is a standard Hollywood convention. It is a convenient device for the despatching of sympathetic characters who have done terrible things, or who started out as evil and gradually, through the process of the story, redeemed themselves.

The Hollywood redemption narrative, even at its most complex still tends to the neat solution. The narratives in World Cinema, independent fi lm and Tsotsi are not so Tsotsi are not so Tsotsineat, even if redemption is a part of the plot.

Redemption, of course, is a useful device as it does allow, if not for a happy ending, then for a positive resolution. Death redeems almost arbitrarily, the death of the violent protagonist, redeems his or her humanity and solves the problem of what they might do with the rest of their lives. What for instance would the Leonardo di Caprio’s character do with the rest of his life at the end Miriam


Negotiated ReadingA negotiated reading is the process by which audience and producer negotiated with each other as to the meaning of the text. A memorable moment in my own childhood involves me watching a fi lm called The Lion, I was enraputred by the idea of a small girl controlling a huge lion as a pet, the Masai watching the fi lm in the front row thought it was hilarious. In that case there was no negotiation!

The manner in which audiences mediates the text and responds to it in such away that the story either develops an independent meaning or the industry itself begins to adapts its representation of the dominant ideology.

Cross Continental NegotiationMore recently, representations of Africa in Hollywood have tried to deal with the confl icts that some readings might consider to be self-infl icted. The terrible genocide in Rwanda, for example (Hotel Rwanda dir. Terry George, 2004). Even so this representation required the Hollywood trappings of named stars to appear in the fi lm, and the story itself, although, again a representation of historical events, seeks to portray only the culmination of the confl ict in the terrible events of 1994 and not really to describe the history of tribal disruption in that country. The later fi lm Blood

Diamond (dir. Edward Zwick, Diamond (dir. Edward Zwick, Diamond2006) fi nally gets away from the representation of history, but deals with the darkest secrets of African stereotypes and disruption: the kidnap of children and their employment as child soldiers. This fi lm seeks to link that condition with some sense of First World responsibility. It uses the issue of confl ict diamonds, diamonds mined for the rich northern hemisphere countries, without legislation or regulation, whose income is used to buy weapons that continue confl icts, kidnap and anarchy.

Each of the above fi lms works with an already established idea, assented to by the Hollywood infl uenced culture. The issues represented move through the ideas of the noble but doomed savage, dominated by the superior technology, through

to the representation of the Black Consciousness Movement, that challenged the idea that African nations were less “civilised” countries with as represented in Cry Freedom (dir. Richard Attenborough, 1987). Through these representations of mutual African confl ict in Hotel Rwanda, with a fi nal recognition in Blood Diamond, that the “civilised” white north, is no less violent and no more civilised than its African counterpart. All these fi lms have paved the way for Tsotsi, a modern story of African, in a sense an ordinary story of teenage crime, to fi nd its place, without cliché’s against the backdrop of a long and diffi cult history, that still weighs upon its inhabitants.

Audience

Audience Positioning

ACTIVITY

As a simple exercise in understanding audience positioning, get the class to make a fi ve bar gate - they could do this electronically or in the old fashioned way.

The idea is that they would two columns:

Everytime they feel sympathetic that’s a bar for him, every time they feel opposed to him that’s a bar against him.

See what the results are and get the class to discuss the pivotal points in the fi lm that changed their position on Tsotsi.

For Tsotsi Against Tsotsi Against


SynergyThe use of Kwaito music, the music of South African artist, Zola, who also takes a role as the gangster Fela – very much the zoot-suited tsotsi, in Tsotsi. Zola brought to the fi lm the “piece of talent” that, at least in South Africa, would start to open the fi lm. Zola is the superstar of “Kwaito” the music of the South African townships, and as such he is one of South Africa’s most famous musicians, his music, features in most of the fi lm and, if the audience listens, at the beginning, one of the songs is Tsotsi Yase Zola and it repeats his name – Zola, in traditional rap style.

the powerful patterns; the use of the red ochre as a tribal colour; the red earth itself and the deep blue sky. However, in fact in Tsotsi’s town the sky is rarely blue, it is framed by the dust from township and much of what takes place, takes place at night.

For more:www.motion.kodak.com/motion/uploadedFiles/tsotsi.pdf

LocationSoweto SOuth WEstern TOwnship, the fi lm is shot on location using local actors and local language all of which adds to the verisilimitude of the piece.

LanguageTsotsi is a Foreign Language Tsotsi is a Foreign Language Tsotsifi lm that use subtitles although the language it features – Tsotsi-taal – is a mix of English, Afrikaans and tribal language and a few words are readily recognisable! It was a risk for the produces to use Tsotsi-taal because it mean using local, unknown actors.

Light The use of 35mm fi lm enhances the colours to a deep richness. There are stereotypical assumptions about Africa that do associate it with colour. The colourful dyes in the clothes;

Industry


Teaching Tsotsi: Generic Scheme of Work

TOPIC LESSON ACTIVITY

1 Representation · Introduce ideas of Africa · Ask students to posit those ideas - written or in discussion· Use diff erent images of Africa some positive and some

negative· Discuss their response· Is it appropriate to refer to Africa as a country or as a con-

tinent?· Defi ne and discuss stereotypes· What stereotypes can they think of that relate to repre-

sentations of Africa?· What general stereotypes can they describe?

· What are the issues with regard to stereotypes?

Make a stereotype using written work, drawing or computer (www.doppelme.com) - see p.17.

2 Representation and Response

· View fi lm - be warned - it is violent in places and it doesn’t go well for the dog - also there are subtitles

· Students do the fIve bar gate exercise - discuss whether they like or dislike Tsotsi and why?

· How does the character of Tsotsi fi t with their early ideas about Africans?

· How does Tsotsi challenge or conform to those stere-otypes?

· What stereotypes are there in the fi lm? · What stereotypes from other media or fi lm can they iden-

tify as similar?

Students to use their fi ve bar gate on like and dislike (see p.12 ) and the discussion to write a short analysis of why they liked or disliked Tsotsi.

Is he protagonist or antagonist?

3 Context · This could come earlier - although I tend to let them get to know the fi lm fi rst

· Brief history of Apartheid· Issues surrounding Africa· Introduce the book and, briefl y Athol Fugard, his involve-

ment in anti-Apartheid· How do they think things have changed?· What is our controlling ideology on race?· Analyse the scene with the gate - all of modern South

Africa is there

Some research on South Africa - a major player: Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, Donald Woods

Aims:• To establish key concepts in regard to the study of fi lm and moving image

• To establish an understanding of the use of representation in moving image

• To establish an appropriate lexis to apply to the study and construction

of fi lm and moving image

• To conduct close analysis of the fi lm for narrative and semiotic construction

• To establish an understanding of audience and its relationship to the fi lm in respect of hegemony

• To establish understanding of institutional issues connected with industry and production

Objectives:• To have a detailed knowledge of the fi lm and its themes

• To have improved textual analysis skills and applied them to the text

• To have an understanding of issues of audience and institution in respect of the fi lm Tsotsi

• To have increased insight into the context and issues of equality and diversity the fi lm represents


4 Close Analysis Semiotics

· Use the DVD to examine semiotics in detail· Many shots in the shack with the baby have fi lm noir style · Denote and connote - again the scene with the gate has

many connotationsExamine:· The use of location · The use of 35mm fi lm to gain the quality of colour

Learn and apply terminology to im-ages and sequences

5 Close Analysis Narrative

· Get them to track the two diff erent narratives (fl ashback and linear)

· Discuss the cultural infl uences on the narrative of the body

· Do students tell their own story through their family?· What European theories could be applied (Barthes/To-

dorov)?

Chart the two narratives

Analyse one or both narratives using appropriate theory.

6 Close Analysis Themes

Decency Read the section from the book where Tsotsi confronts

the old beggar - compare that with the fi lm.· What has changed and why?· Is this the moment when Tsotsi starts to regain his de-

cency?Redemption· Defi ne the idea discuss other more traditional redemption

narratives· Is TsotIs TsotIs T si redeemed?· Look at the diff erent endings on the DVD and discuss their

implications

Choose an ending and analyse why they might have been used.

7 Audience · Passive responses - related to stereotypes· Stereotypes of youth and of Africa· Audience positioning with regard to Tsotsi· Response of a South African audience compared to the

response of aHollywood audience· Negotiated reading - how is Tsotsi both a universal story

and a local story?

Students to discuss how their at-titudes as an audience might have changed or been aff ected by the fi lm.

8 Industry Synergy · Zola as Fela - the use of synergy and local music· Play some of the music - show the music video· Casting issues - the use of local actors speaking local

language· Subtitles - mention Heroes when they complain - many-

more texts use subtitles now

Do some research on other fi lms that use music video as part of their marketing

9 Equality and Diversity · The whole fi lm allows discussion of various aspects of equality and diversity with reference both to race and wealth and poverty

· There is a documentary on the DVD about two boys who live in the Johannesburg townships that is well worth a look

Resources:

DVD Tsotsi

Novel Tsotsi by Athol Fugard (Canon Gate)

Studying Tsotsi by Judith Gunn (Auteur)


Background Exercise: StereotypesThe guys below are made by me on a site called DoppelMe [ www.doppelme.com ]. One is meant to be representative of me and the other some kind of stereotype. A lesson I have taught to emphasise the process of stereotyping, is to get the class to create one. Creating a stereotype through avatar software can be fun, if a little controversial occasionally! They can do it the old fashioned way, by sketching out a stereotype on pen and paper, or by listing attributes; or they can work in groups and draw one using an interactive whiteboard if you have one, or you can head to Doppelme, or another avatar creator and set it as homework, or an IT task or do I together in class. Whatever way you choose to do it, it very quickly demonstrates the shorthand of stereotypes and the pitfalls that can apply.

Equality and DiversityOne of the attractions of Tsotsi – is the fact that it is classifi ed a Tsotsi – is the fact that it is classifi ed a Tsotsi15 and can offer younger students an insight to other ways of life, both different and familiar. Issues of race disappear in the urban landscape where poverty and self-respect are an issue for everyone, universally. The fi lm itself is violent and can be disturbing – beware of the death of the dog for younger viewers. However for preparation, enrichment or even to show younger pupils aspects of South African society the documentary on the two lads on the DVD is of great benefi t and can be used to support many discussions related to equality and diversity.

Resourceswww.Tsotsi.comwww.Flickr.com (CC)www.bbc.co.ukwww.doppelme.comwww.motion.kodak.com/motion/uploadedFiles/tsotsi.pdfwww.xmind.net (Free mind mapping software)

Photo creditsAll pictures from Tsotsi and the production are from the Tsotsiwebsite www.tsotsi.com and are credited as stills available for publication.

And of course..

For more informationand resources go to:http://www.judithgunn.com

teaching tsotsi: notes

Education