Nasreen Badrodien

Film in Africa Essay 1

April 22, 2016
Clarien Luttig
When looking at A Lions Trail (Franois Verster, 2002) as a complete
documentary, one might recognise it - like Rian Malan states in Versters
documentary - as a crusade for justice. 1 Verster juxtaposes the pilfering
of marginalised peoples legal rights and the white-washing of moral and
ethical duties owed to those said people. However, by focusing on specific
scenes, it is possible to analyse the way in which Verster composes and
edits the documentary to illustrate the politics of Solomon Lindas music
that was appropriated and the effect that process had on future
generations. While using music as an emotive device to both expose the
politics of African traditional music and engage with his audience on a
personal level, Versters editing can be seen as political too by invoking
sympathy and abhorrence through humanising and demonising certain
individuals. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine specific
scenes from A Lions Trail to consider the relationship between Versters
documentary style and the music and politics within the documentary to
reveal narrative trajectories and physically communicate a certain time
and place.
Wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh, wimoweh. In the jungle, the mighty
jungle, the lion sleeps
tonight. In the jungle, the quiet jungle, the
lion sleeps tonight.2

When seeing these world-famous lyrics that have been reconstructed and
re-used over 100 times, it is almost impossible to read the words and not
sing them. One automatically associates these lyrics with The Lion King
(Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, 1994) but rarely associate the tune or
melody with Mbube (Solomon Linda, 1939). This disparity is not only a
1 A Lions Trail, 2002. DVD. South Africa: Franois Verster.
2 The Lion Sleeps Tonight Lyrics, Metro Lyrics, accessed April 13, 2016,
http://www.metrolyrics.com/
1

product of global politics and inequality, but also because of an imbalance

of power within the global political arena, resulting in injustices being
overlooked. Versters first attempt at gaining the publics awareness of
this great injustice The Story of Mbube (Verster, 1999) along with Rian
Malans Rolling Stones article (2000) were the launch pad in gaining
consensus amongst South Africans and foreigners for Lindas cause. But
Versters second documentary regarding Linda caught the attention of the
masses and won four awards in 2003 for best documentary, speaking
volumes about the director more than his film.
Verster, a UCT alumnus, is a renowned director in South Africa, perhaps
the world over, winning numerous awards for his documentaries such as
The Mothers House (2005) and When the War is Over (2002). His
significant contribution to documentary filmmaking is his long term
dedication and pursuit for the truth. Despite many scholars concerns
regarding documentary films and its directors objectivity, Verster is
known for filming very personal subjects and engaging with his audience
on a personal and intimate level.3 While he is not intrusive in his
documentaries, his presence is felt through his stance and editing. 4
When approached to make a film regarding the origin of The Lion Sleeps
Tonight (1961), Verster was intrigued by his ignorance, or rather
innocence. He did not yet know how septic the truth was. He was
fascinated by his own research and was devoted to A Lions Trail from the
moment he realised how many songs have Mbubes DNA. He set forth to
erect an award-winning piece, tracing the origin of the song and the
composer who instigated Wimoweh (1952) and The Lion Sleeps Tonight.5

3 Film Tutorial, University of Cape Town, 2016.

4 Film Tutorial, University of Cape Town, 2016.
5 A Lions Trail, Public Broadcasting Service: Independent Lens, accessed April 13,
2016. http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/lionstrail/film.html

According to John Grierson, documentary storytelling is the creative

interpretation of actuality.6 This means showing reality in a creative way
by constructing a story through your argument. Verster lets his
interviewees speak for themselves while at the same time pushing his
narrative forward by showing how political the personal is and how politics
affects the everyday life.7 Documentary storytelling is a nonfiction piece
that may or may not take on stylistic elements of fictional films such as a
three act structure, time and place splicing and slicing and manipulation
of content for emphasis. Eventually, documentaries lack objectivity while
simultaneously having it. An example of this contradiction is when a
director decides where to point his camera or how to edit a film, but
allows his subjects freedom of speech and unscripted dialogue. What
troubles most people is that some of these dialogues would not be
vocalised if a camera was not present, which makes staging unavoidable. 8
The narrative is not fabricated but exists in the real world and so does the
people being filmed.9 Paul Ward refers to Griersons six typologies, or
rather tendencies and approaches to documentary filmmaking. He
describes expository, observational, participatory, reflexive, performative
and poetic modes. Verster utilises three of these six approaches, namely
expository, reflexive and participatory.
He uses expository mode to make his argument and is associated with
most documentary films that aim to be informative. This mode of
documentary storytelling uses allegations and evidence to reiterate points
in the directors argument.10 While this mode usually uses a voice over,
Verster uses music and visible commentary instead, followed by visual
images and footage.
6 Paul Ward, Defining Documentary, In Documentary: The Margins of Reality, 6.
Great Britain: Wallflower Press, 2005.
7 Film Tutorial, University of Cape Town, 2016.
8 Ward, Defining Documentary, p8.
9 Ward, Defining Documentary, 8.
3

The reflexive mode allows the audience to be aware of the films

construction of reality and brings to our attention the style of this
storytelling.11 Verster juxtaposes America and South Africa with the
intention of showing how many western citizens would assimilate
Brooklyn with Soweto. He uses sepia filters to recreate the past, and his
perspective is evident in his editing. Verster uses archival footage and the
documentary is relatively self conscious because of the lack of linear
timelines and switching between different modes. This highlights the very
construction of the film.
The participatory mode emphasizes the interaction between filmmaker
and

subjects.12

This

mode

uses

excessive

interviews

and

direct

involvement which observes subjects and allows for intimate character

portraits to develop through consistent screening time as seen with the
Linda sisters. While most film makers directly participate in this mode,
Verster remains objective implementing a manner of cinema verit.
Under Apartheid law Black people were denied the right to own copyrights
for their music, hence Linda signing over his song to Gallo Records for ten
shillings and could not collect royalties on any of their compositions. 13
Because of this disparity, Linda died a poor man and his family could not
afford a tombstone for many years.14 After 1990, when the political
environment in South Africa was heading towards change, filmmakers
were now able to make documentaries without being censored or
10 Six Principle Modes of Documentary Storytelling, Meridian Stores, accessed
April 13, 2016. http://www.meridianstories.com/media-resourcecollection/creative-how-to-guides/six-principal-modes-of-documentaryfilmmaking/
11 Six Principle Modes.
12 Six Principle Modes.
13 A Lions Trail.
14 A Lions Trail, 2002.
4

refrained from publically screening their work. A lot of films were made in
relation

to

the

Truth

and

Reconciliation

Commission,

affording

underprivileged, previously marginalised people to reveal their personal

stories and experiences.15 This allows Verster to use the past as a focal
point in making his argument as Lindas circumstances were a product of
Apartheid which allowed foreigners to implement western cultural
assimilation or exploit African talents and plagiarise without consequence.
The past comes hand-in-hand with politics in documentaries which
impacts the content of the film and allows the audience to explore the
subjects and their own identity in an engaged manner. 16 Verster refers to a
nexus of documentary film being politics, truth and art 17 which
amalgamate through documentary modes of storytelling and is evident in
A Lions Trail.
The first scene to be analysed is the opening scene of Versters
documentary. Verster manages to take us back in time with the grainy
images on screen and the diegetic African vocals of Mbube in the
background. The viewer experiences newsreel-like footage as an old map
of South Africa appears on screen, zooming in to the Cape Province
setting the scene for the audience. Mbube continues playing and a text
against a black background appears on the screen recounting the
composer of the song playing and the time period it originated in, giving
context to the song but also distancing the song from the composer. This
idea of Africa as primitive is reiterated through stock footage of Africans
and the landscape, illustrating the natives as shield bearers and animal
cloth wearers. The idealised western view of Africa is portrayed with the
images of huts and women in their African garbs in sepia, dated footage.
15 Francois Verster, Redefining the Political: A Short Overview and Some
Thoughts on Personal Documentary Films from the New South Africa, In
Marginal Lives and Painful Pasts: South African Cinema After Apartheid, ed. M. P.
Botha. (Cape Town: Genugtig!, 2007), 110.
16 Verster, Redefining the Political, 111.
17 Verster, Redefining the Political, 112.
5

Throughout the film there is footage of a lion running across a veld not
only to reflect the purpose of A Lions Trail and Mbube but also to show
Africans what the rest of the world thought and thinks of Africa and its
people. The song remains playing while another text suggests to the
viewer two reasons of the songs origin: Praising the lion mother and killing
a lion cub. This stock footage of wild animals, open land and Zulu warriors
is juxtaposed with other scenes throughout the documentary subtly
insinuating an idea of separate realities between the victims of cultural
appropriation and the appropriators. The continuation of the song Mbube
throughout this scene commemorates African artistic legacy and musical
lineage while foreboding the politics of the very song playing. 18 Lindas
song would become known all around the world, but he would be
forgotten.19 This intertext is the heart of the documentary, connecting the
first scene to the rest of the narrative.
At the end of this first scene, Verster captures a wide lens shot of the
landscape resembling a scene from The Lion King while Mbube is coming
to a close. Verster employs chiaroscuro lighting in this sequence to elicit
and enhance the natural, earthy hues of the pride land 20 engaging the
audience

in

nostalgia

for

their

childhood

as

their

thoughts

are

automatically moved to a still frame of the open land in The Lion King.
This editing can be seen as manipulative but also political as the audience
begins to relate the actuality of Africa to Hollywood and Disney films.
The documentary occupies three main spaces or settings; rural Africa in
the early part of the 20 th century, dated and contemporary urban Africa
and the developed West. By juxtaposing these specific settings the film
indicates to the audience that this narrative is stuck between an Apartheid
past and the development of Africa towards a third world country but
18 A Lions Trail, 2002
19 A Lions Trail, 2002.
20 A Lions Trail, 2002.
6

more importantly it takes use to the very point of Versters documentary,

the theme of duality and disparity.21
The next sequence to be analysed is the use of the train to connect urban
and rural spaces and the developing East with the developed West.
Verster is once again present here as most South Africans used trains to
get from rural Africa to urban city centres. This reflects Lindas travel to
the city to record Mbube, and how Mbube travelled via this virtual train to
London and America. This train is a metaphor for the economic realities of
South Africa and the politics of transnational plagiarism, or at the time,
transporting of communal African resources across the globe for economic
incentive.22
Verster spends a lot of time documenting the Linda sisters. These scenes
become particularly important in analysing the relationship between
music and politics in A Lions Trail. Through Versters documentary
methods, the Linda sisters indicate how personal politics is, and the effect
politics of music has on the everyday life. This is evident when we see
their poverty despite being reimbursed. They could not afford a
tombstone for their father and according to one sister who is a sangoma,
Linda is troubled even in death. The Linda sisters get a lot of screening
time which is shown in real-time and is juxtaposed with dated footage.
The empathetic view of them is what makes the audience care as we see
their conditions before we know why they are in those circumstances.
They are humanised to such an extent that when Adelaide passes away,
the audience feels obligated to hate everyone that robbed Linda of his
worldwide legacy that was due to him. The legacy of their injustice is
repeated throughout the film as we see continuous suffering. The Linda
sisters sing Mbube, but what was once a happy song now makes them

21 A Lions Trail, 2002.

22 A Lions Trail, 2002.
7

cry. Language is important element in the Linda sisters sequences as it

invokes a sense of truth and authenticity.23
Another important scene in the film is the juxtaposition of glossy stock
footage of George David Weiss on a show taking credit for the melody of
The Lion Sleeps Tonight - his only contribution to the film possibly due to
self-loathing, crippling guilt - and Pete Siegel commenting on the
appropriation of Mbubes melody. This editing is political as Siegel is
granted immunity in the documentary for his previous transgressions
against Linda as he has taken responsibility and now blames Weiss for
something he has already done PLAGIARISED! Although they both added
lyrics and edited the tune, they did not acknowledge the source of this
global phenomenon. While Siegel goes from villain to anti-hero, Weisss
arrogance is the smallest contributor to his villain character. His refusal to
participate in this documentary demonised him through a mere intertext
stating his lack of co operation, removing him from his humanity and
emotionally distancing him from Lindas story. Weiss does not have a face
put to those words, just a universal grudge against him. This reiterates
how he refuses to take responsibility and cheapens the idea of him. 24
Versters inclusion of Malan as the protagonist and hero of the
documentary is a point of debate. While the man has done substantial
amount of good in the name of Solomon Linda with his Rolling Stones
article, appears sincere at Adelaides funeral and has pursued justice
without

obligation,

his

persona

as

the

great

white

saviour

is

problematic. Despite bringing attention to the plight of Lindas legacy of

his daughters he sets Africa back ten years.
While it seeks to obtain justice for a man marginalised by his status as a
black African musician in a racist and exploitative environment, in its eagerness to
award Solomon Linda the status he rightly deserves, the film falls into the trap of
utilising the same reductionist discourse. Not only is Linda reduced to a cardboard
cut-out Zulu clich by the documentarys main framing device, but, as a whole,

23 A Lions Trail, 2002.

24 A Lions Trail, 2002.
8

the character gallery of the film feeds into a very Northern idea of the white man
(gendering intended) as proactive and black people as deserving of his help. 25

Haupt and Ovesen describe the buddy system seen in many films
depicting the plight of Black people such as 12 Years a Slave (2013) and
Django Unchained (2012) where the Black man only overcomes his
difficulties or surpasses inequality with the help of a white man. This
element of Versters documentary once again shows where the power lies,
even in a free South Africa. The injustice done to Linda becomes personal
for him as he talks about the injustice being done to us and the money
we have spent.26
Versters ingenious inclusion and display of music is worth the accolades it
received. Throughout the film, people were either singing Mbube or
versions of it in South Africa and across the world. The Linda sisters and
Joseph Shabalala found peace through the song and Siegel and Weiss
found money through it. The film accurately shows the musical epidemic
Mbube started. Everyone shown in the film either knew Mbube and loved
Lindas singing or appropriated the tune of Mbube. Verster concludes the
documentary on a powerful note with all the songs used in the
documentary and gave Solomon Linda the due he never received from
The Weavers and The Tokens. Verster lists the songs displayed in the film
referencing Linda as the composer and then the performers. While Linda
may have died a superhero amongst fellow Africans, he can now rest as a
superstar across the world as his music was used to make a political
statement about inequality, copyright laws and musical plagiarism.
Verster includes Isicathamiya music style to indicate the great influence
Linda and his singing style had on the entire African music culture, and
that all was not lost through this subjection.
In conclusion, Franois Verster uses his documentary storytelling methods
to amalgamate music, politics and the politics of music - which to some
25 Adam Haupt, and Hvard Ovesen, Vindicating Capital: Heroes and Villains in
A Lions Trail, Ilha Do Desterro 61 (2011): 77, accessed April 13, 2016. 77
26 A Lions Trail, 2002.
9

appear as a crusade for justice to bring the origin of various versions

of a song to the attention of the public. He is precise in his inclusion of
people and his editing to affirm his thesis that global politics affects music
and in turn politicises art which affects the daily lives of ordinary people.
Through his documentary, Verster shows how Lindas song has reached
every corner of the world, whether good or bad, and touched lives. The
documentary juxtaposes the legacy of suffering and the people trying to
rectify a wrong done too long ago to entirely fix. Through the scenes and
sequences examined, Versters mode of storytelling brings together music
and politics in almost every scene.
[2928]

Reference List:

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A Lion's Trail. 2002. DVD. South Africa: Franois Verster.

Haupt, Adam, and Hvard Ovesen. Vindicating Capital: Heroes and
Villains in A Lions Trail. Ilha Do Desterro 61 (2011): 73-107. Accessed
April 13, 2016. doi: 10.5007/2175-8026.2011n61p073
Malan, Rian. In the Jungle. In Resident Alien, 55-82. Johannesburg:
Jonathon Ball, 2009.
Meridian Stores. Six Principle Modes of Documentary Storytelling.
Accessed April 13, 2016. http://www.meridianstories.com/media-resourcecollection/creative-how-to-guides/six-principal-modes-of-documentaryfilmmaking/
Metro Lyrics. The Lion Sleeps Tonight Lyrics. Accessed April 13, 2016.
http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-lion-sleeps-tonight-lyrics-token.html
Paste Magazine. A Lions Trail. Last modified April 1, 2005. Accessed
April 13, 2016. http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2005/04/a-lionstrail.html
Public Broadcasting Service: Independent Lens. A Lions Trail. Accessed
April 13, 2016. http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/lionstrail/film.html
Verster, Franois. Redefining the Political: A Short Overview and Some
Thoughts on Personal Documentary Films from the New South Africa. In
Marginal Lives and Painful Pasts: South African Cinema After Apartheid,
edited by M. P. Botha, 107-127. Cape Town: Genugtig!, 2007.
Ward, Paul. Defining Documentary. In Documentary: The Margins of
Reality, 6-30. Great Britain: Wallflower Press, 2005.

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