Can films change history?
The question prompted this special exploration of the documentary form. Mark Cousins proposes ten films that made a real difference For years I’ve been arguing, in Sight & Sound and elsewhere, that to talk about the insight African cinema affords into the social and political problems of the continent is to patronise the films. I’ve ranted that we should be interested in the movies of the recently departed Ousmane Sembène not because they are vehicles carrying information about post-colonial society but because they are great films. After all, we don’t go to see Ingmar Bergman movies because of what they say about Sweden in the 1960s. Sembène’s cinema does, of course, also reveal much about its milieu – its power structures, attitudes and dress codes – just as Martin Scorsese’s films do about New York City. But it’s not the first thing it does. Now, however, as curator of the Ten Documentaries That Shook the World season at BFI Southbank, I’ve had to do a U-turn. I’ve set aside questio
