Reel Pleasures. Laura Fair
Zanzibar TV, purchased 1974
E.2. New World Cinemas, 2005
MAPS
1.1. Cinemas of Dar es Salaam city center
1.2. Cinemas of Dar es Salaam and key neighborhoods
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Few authors work in isolation, and this book would certainly never have been completed without the support of individuals and institutions on numerous continents.
A year of intensive research was funded by a generous Fulbright faculty research award to Tanzania, during the academic year of 2004–5. A number of three-month preliminary and subsequent research trips were made possible by financial support from the departments of history at the University of Oregon and Michigan State University. The staff and collections at the National Archives of Zanzibar and the Tanzanian National Archives were invaluable. And without the residential fellowship and warm collegiality offered by the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, which provided the opportunity to spend nine full months focused solely on writing, it is doubtful that I would have ever managed to wrangle together a complete draft manuscript. I am also extremely grateful to those who wrote on my behalf for grants and fellowships over many years, as I struggled to transform a hunch into a book.
The critical comments offered by friends, colleagues, audience members at talks, and anonymous reviewers were instrumental in helping me refine (and often find) my arguments. The insights and encouragement provided by members of my writing groups strengthened not only the text but my resolve to keep on writing and rewriting and rewriting. Graduate students at Michigan State University were also key interlocutors, turning me on to new ways to think about my subject matter and innovative fields of historical enquiry. I am sure that all of them will see their fingerprints in the pages that follow.
The men and women who shared their experiences and understandings of the past also deserve a special note of thanks. While published and archived material were essential in allowing me to piece this picture together, without these personal stories the image I came to see would have remained utterly flat. It is their stories about what moviegoing meant to them that brought this history to life. Many generously shared not only their time and insights but also their private papers and photo collections, adding depth, richness, diversity, and personality to the view presented in official archives.
My deepest personal debt is to those who helped us survive Nassir’s sudden death near the end of a glorious year doing research in Tanzania. From those who gently washed his body and helped lay his remains to peaceful rest at our home in Zanzibar, to those who comforted us and shared their memories of his joy-filled, goofy days on earth I am eternally grateful. The few who dared to mention Nassir’s name after he passed also deserve special recognition, as do those who taught me to keep his soul alive by continuing to act on his best qualities, acknowledged my sorrow and sent good bourbon on his birthday, or encouraged me to keep putting one foot in front of the other and took me on high-altitude hikes on the anniversaries of his death. I am thankful to have had friends and colleagues who told me it was okay to stay away from writing when I could not bear to touch this research, as well as others who gently pushed and prodded me to get back to work.
I am truly blessed to have had Sabri’s company on this journey. His exuberant embrace of beauty and wonder has been a daily reminder that life deserves nothing less than to be lived to its fullest. His generous willingness to give, accept, and adjust is something I both admire and aspire to someday emulate. Rare is the researcher lucky enough to have a child who appears to move effortlessly back and forth between continents or who is willing to spend his first year of high school in a new, foreign country without the slightest complaint. I have been truly blessed. Sabri was two years old when I began this project. His name is derived from the Arabic word for patience, and as he used to bounce around like a little kid, disrupting interviews, I teased him that he was a test of my patience. But sticking with me through the process of writing this book has certainly been a testament to his patience and fortitude. I just dropped him off at college. The refrain my grandfather used to sing from one of his favorite player-piano rolls keeps ringing in my head: “The years go by as quickly as a wink. So enjoy yourself! Enjoy yourself! It’s later than you think!”
A NOTE ON USAGE
In 1964, President Julius Nyerere of Tanganyika and President Abeid Karume of Zanzibar joined their previously independent nations in a union known as the United Republic of Tanzania. Prior to 1964, individuals, families, and businesses frequently straddled and traversed the national boundaries, and cinematic entrepreneurs and their industry in both countries were joined long before the political union occurred. In using the term Tanzania throughout this volume, even when discussing events prior to 1964, I imply that the reference is to what was taking place both on the mainland of Tanganyika and in the isles of Zanzibar and Pemba. If speaking more narrowly, I use the name of the particular town being discussed or terms such as the mainland, the isles, or Tanganyika or Zanzibar. The word Zanzibar can also be confusing: it is the name of a town, an island, and an archipelago that includes several islands, most notably the two large ones of Zanzibar and Pemba. Context will illuminate the one to which I am referring.
INTRODUCTION
FOR GENERATIONS, going to the movies was the most popular form of leisure in cities across Tanzania. On Sundays in particular, thousands of people filled the streets from late afternoon until well past midnight, coming and going from seeing the week’s hot new release. Films from every corner of the globe were shown during the week, but on Sundays, it was always Indian films that stole the show, serving as the focus of these large public gatherings in city centers across the land. In the final hours before a screening, the scene outside the ticket windows could became crazy, as crowds of patrons jostled in desperate attempts to secure the last remaining seats. The meek and gentle often hired agile youth to fight to the front of the line on their behalf, and many later reminisced about the strategies these young men employed to score tickets in the face of such crowds: slinking along walls, crawling between legs, or forming human pyramids capable of catapulting companions to the front. In Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam, two towns with particularly avid fans, demand was so intense that a vibrant black market in cinema tickets burgeoned. At its peak, Dar es Salaam’s population sustained nine different cinemas with a Sunday capacity for nearly sixteen thousand fans, yet inevitably, some were turned away. From the early 1950s through the 1980s, black market tickets for films starring popular actors easily sold for two to three times the ticket window price in the final hours before the show. To avoid the unfortunate fates of those who waited until the last minute to secure a ticket, most people booked their seats well in advance. In towns across the country, many individuals and families even had reserved seats at a favorite theater, which they occupied each Sunday, week in and week out, for years on end. Going to the movies was a central preoccupation for millions and a significant way in which people enjoyed and gave meaning to their lives.
Films became the cornerstone of urban conversations as friends, neighbors, and complete strangers debated the meaning and artistic style of what they had seen on screen. On a continent where literacy was always the preserve of an elite few, films provided a narrative spark that lit debates that quickly engulfed a town. Audiences were never passive. Their active engagement with on-screen texts began inside the theater itself, where youth in the front rows frequently talked back to characters, sang and danced along with lovers in the film, and delivered punches and karate kicks to villains on the screen. Older members of the audience were typically far more reserved, saving their energy for the animated analysis that erupted during intermission and continued to escalate after the show let out. The skills of