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Film, Fame, and Public Memory: Egyptian Biopics From Mustafa Kamil to Nasser 56

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Joel Gordon
Joel Gordon
Affiliation:
Joel Gordon is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, Neb. 68182, U.S.A.
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Extract

Three years ago, the film Nasser 56 (1996), from Muhammad Fadil, a dramatic reenactment of the Suez crisis, set unprecedented attendance records in Egypt. Opening at the end of another disappointing year marked by a steady decline in studio film production and a dearth of high-quality offerings—and held back from public screening a full year by wavering government support—the film breathed new life into the movie industry and precipitated a national discussion about the legacy of Gamal Abdel Nasser. The film has come and gone from Cairo theaters (although screenings abroad continue), but Nasser 56 will remain a historic film. In dramatic fashion, it broke a long-accepted taboo against cinematic depiction of modern political leaders. It is also the first serious attempt at film biography by an Egyptian filmmaker in thirty years.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , February 1999 , pp. 61 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

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References

Author's note: This article was originally presented at the 1997 MESA annual meeting, part of a panel on “Auto/biography and the Construction of Identity and Community.” Thanks to the session's organizer, Mary Ann Fay, for inviting me to participate. Research was funded by the Fulbright Foundation and Social Science Research Council. Encouraging readers included Walter Armbrust, Israel Gershoni, Arthur Goldschmidt, Cynthia Nelson, Donald Reid, and Jerold Simmons.

1 Gordon, Joel, “Nasser 56/Cairo 96: Reimaging Egypt's Lost Community,” in Mass Mediations: Approaching Popular Culture in the Middle East, ed. Armbrust, Walter (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).Google Scholar

2 Sorlin, Pierre, The Film in History: Restaging the Past (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980), vii.Google Scholar

3 Ibid., viii.

4 Custen, George, Bio/pics: How Hollywood Constructed Public History (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1992), 260. In a similar vein, Daryl Zanuck instructed scriptwriters shaping a biopic of a popular but by no means legendary performer: “Now Eva Tanguay is not so famous or so great that the public is going to sit around and await the story of her life, even if this happened to be the story of her life, which it isn't”: Custen, Bio/pics, 171.Google Scholar

5 Parker, Alan, director of the film Mississippi Burning, cited in Toplin, Robert Brent, History by Hollywood: The Use and Abuse of the American Past (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996), 42.Google Scholar

6 Sorlin, , Film in History, ix.Google Scholar

7 Or, as Sorlin puts it (ibid.), “history as it is written by the specialist and history as it is written by the non-specialist.”

8 Chakravarty, Sumita, National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema, 1947–1987 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993), 158.Google Scholar

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

11 Sorlin, , Film in History, 44.Google Scholar

12 Custen, Bio/pics, 12. Public history, according to Custen, refers both to the “product and to the process in which members of the mass public—the ‘public-at-large’—obtain their definitions of the symbolic universe from watching and talking about the communications media.” He roots this in a recognition that “mass media texts, and not other forms of historical narrative, are significant sources of history for large numbers of Americans” (ibid.), a supposition that also holds for Egypt. Custen is the first academic to treat the biopic as a specific genre. His definition of the biopic is perhaps a bit loose, encompassing biblicals such as The Ten Commandments as well as many films in which historical characters figure, such as Fred Astaire–Ginger Rogers musicals and so on. This caveat aside, his book is a welcome introduction to the study of biopics as constructions of historical and civic identity.

13 Ibid., 6–7.

14 Ibid., 178.

15 Ibid., 10–11.

16 Ibid., 27.

17 Knock, Thomas J., “History with Lightning: The Forgotten Film Wilson (1944),” in Hollywood as Historian: American Film in a Cultural Context, ed. Rollins, Peter C. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1983), 88–108.Google Scholar

18 Chakravarty, , National Identity, 15.Google Scholar

19 Custen, , Bio/pics, 29.Google Scholar

20 Ibid., 84–85.

21 Ibid., 29–30.

22 For a history and background of the Egyptian cinema, see Armes, Roy, Third World Film Making and the West (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Sadoul, Georges, The Cinema in the Arab Countries (Beirut: Interarab Centre of Cinema and Television, 1966)Google Scholar; ʿAbd al-Munʿim Saʿd, Mūjaz Taʾrikh al-Sī;nimā al-Misriyya (Cairo: Matabiʿ al-Ahrām al-Tijāriyya, 1976)Google Scholar; Magda Wassef, Ègypte: 100 Ans de Cinèma (Paris: Institut du Monde Arabe, 1995)Google Scholar. The most complete listing of Egyptian films to date is Munā al-Bindārī, Mahmūd Qāsim, and Yaʿqūb Wahbī, Mawsūʿat al-Aflām al-ʿArabiyya (Cairo: Dar al-Maʿrifa, 1994).Google Scholar

23 According to Custen (Bio/pics, 83), less than 3 percent of Hollywood films made by major studios prior to the 1960s were biopics. Nevertheless, these films were extremely influential, produced many memorable performances, and won significant awards.

24 Exceptions include Al-ʿAzima (Determination, 1939) from Kamal Salim, which is considered the first social film, and Al-Sūq al-Sawdā (The Black Market, 1945) from Kamal al-Tilmissani.

25 Qāhir al-Zalām (Conqueror of Darkness, 1979) from ʿAtif Salim. Aside from being a controversial thinker, Husayn was ultimately a Wafdist cabinet minister, however non-partisan he proved to be.

26 Examples are Ibn al-Nil (Nile Boy, 1951) from Yusuf Chahine and Al-Ustā Hasan (Driver Hasan, 1952) from Salah Abu Sayf. The latter, in particular, employs several songs sung by the co-stars Huda Sultan and Farid Shawqi.

27 Egyptian films are commonly categorized as political, social, historical, melodrama, comedy, musical, and occasionally social comedy. These categories are rigidly interpreted and have become widely accepted. See, for example, the English listing of Egyptian films in Ibrāhīm, Munīr Muhammad, Dalīl al-Aflām al-Misriyya, 1937–1982 (also known as Bānurāma al-Sīnimā al-Misriyya, '37–82') (Cairo: Sanduq Daʿm al-Sīnimā, 1983)Google Scholar. These are repeated in video catalogs published by the Laythi company and others. To be political, for example, a film must contain an overt political plot, characters, etc. An otherwise valuable study such as Dūriyā Sharaf al-Din's Al-Siyāsa wa al-Sīnimā fi Misr, 1961–1981 (Cairo: Dar al-Shurūq, 1992)Google Scholar is thus far too limited in scope. Social films treat obvious social issues, must be serious, and cannot include more than a musical number or two. Shadi, Ali Abu (“Genres in Egyptian Cinema,” in Screens of Life: Critical Film Writing from the Arab World, ed. Arasoughly, Alia [Quebec: World Heritage Press, 1995], 84–129)Google Scholar notes the problems in such rigid constructions, but his layout is fairly conventional. Biopics are not a category.

28 For the Nasser-era cinema, see Baker, Raymond William, “Egypt in Shadows: Films and the Political Order,” American Behavioral Scientist 17, 3 (1974): 393–423CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Samīr Farīd, “Thawrat Yulyū wa al-Sīnimā fī Misr,” Al-Funūn (May/June 1984), 8–13; and Gaffney, Jane, “The Egyptian Cinema: Industry and Art in a Changing Society,” Arab Studies Quarterly, 9, 1 (1987): 53–75.Google Scholar

29 Samīr Farīd, “La censure, mode d'emploi,” in Wassef, Egypte, 102–17. See also Darwish, Mustafa, “La Censure, le Cinéma et d'Autres Choses,” Bulletin du CEDEJ 21, 1 (1987): 97–107.Google Scholar

30 When the character played by Omar Sharif failed to save his wrongly accused father from the gallows, audiences were stunned—and a new cinema was born.

31 One example is Al-Futuwwa (The Tough, 1957) from Salah Abu Sayf. This story of power corrupting a market vendor is timeless, but in one key scene a portrait of Farouk assures us that the setting is pre-1952.Google Scholar

32 Until the post-1967 thaw that produced films such as Miramar (1968) from Kamal al-Shaykh and Qadiyya 68 (Case 68, 1968) from Salah Abu Sayf, cinematic criticism of the state remained veiled by pashadom. A good example is Al-Qāhira 30 (Cairo '30, 1966) from Salah Abu Sayf, the adaptation of Nagib Mahfouz's Al-Qāhira al-Jadīda, deliberately dated in the film's title. Even after the thaw, certain taboos remained. A case in point is Al-Mutamarridūn (The Rebels, 1968) from Tawfiq Salih. This film ostensibly takes place during the old regime, but as Baker notes, “unmistakable references to the Nasser era abound. In fact, the basic plot line may be read—and was read, if not intended to be read—as allegory of the Nasserist revolution itself” (Baker, “Egypt in Shadows,” 415).Google Scholar

33 Badrakhan (1909–69) is one of the giants of pre-revolutionary Egyptian cinema. He directed thirtynine films between 1940 and 1969, melodramas (starring Umm Kulthum and Farid al-Atrash), comedy, and the three patriotic films, two of them biopics, that will be noted later.

34 The classic study of Kamil is al-Rāhmān, ʿAbd al-Rāfīʿī, Mustafā Kāmil: Bacith al-Haraka al-Wataniyya, 4th ed. (Cairo: Maktabat al-Nahda al-Misriyya, 1962)Google Scholar. See also al-Sayyid, Afaf Lutfi, Egypt and Cromer: A Study in Anglo-Egyptian Relations (London: John Murray, 1968)Google Scholar, and Goldschmidt, Arthur, “The Egyptian Nationalist Party,” in Political and Social Change in Modern Egypt, ed. Holto, P. M.(London: Oxford University Press, 1968), 308–33, for Kamil and his Hizb al-Walanī.Google Scholar

35 In this respect, the film resembles the popular account of Ahmad ʿUrabi written by the distinguished historian ʿAbd al-Rahmān al-Rāfiʿī. Rāfiʿī's book, like Badrakhan's film, saw light only after July 1952, under Free Officer auspices.

36 For Misr al-Fatāt, see Jankowski, James P., Egypt's Young Rebels: “Young Egypt,” 1932–1952 (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1975)Google Scholar. For Radwan and the Watani Party after the Free officers coup, see Gordon, Joel, Nasser's Blessed Movement: Egypt's Free Officers and the July Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 58–78.Google Scholar

37 Gawhar would become a major figure in the industry, adapting for the screen, among other projects, many of the classic works of Nagib Mahfuz.

38 There are countless stories about over-zealous censors forbidding the broadcast of songs by Umm Kulthum and Muhammad ʿAbd al-Wahhab because of their prior relationships with old regime figures, or because certain songs utilized references that were construed as paeans to royalty, however poetically apolitical.

39 Gordon, Nasser's Blessed Movement.

40 The phrasing echoes the call in Tawfiq al-Hakim's influential 1933 novel, ʿAwdat al-Rūh (Return of the Spirit) and presages Nasser's diagnosis in his 1954 manifesto Falsafat al-Thawra (Philosophy of the Revolution).

41 Custen, , Bio/pics, 152–64.Google Scholar

42 The incident, which galvanized popular outrage against the occupation, remains an important moment in Egyptian nationalist historiography.

43 al-Nahhas, Hāshim, Al-Huwiyya al-Qawmiyya fi al-Slnimā al-ʿArabiyya (Cairo: Al-Hayʾa al-Misriyya al-ʿAmma), 36–;37.Google Scholar

44 Custen, , Bio/pics, 34.Google Scholar

45 Shūsha, Muhammad al-Sayyid, Ruwwād wa Rdʾidāt al-Sīnimā al-Misriyya (Cairo: Rūz al-Yūsuf, 1978), 141.Google Scholar

46 Saʿd, ʿAbd al-Munʿim, Al-Mukhrij Ahmad Badrakhān (Cairo: Al-Hayʾa al-Misriyya al-ʿAmma, 1975), 80.Google Scholar

47 Arthur Goldschmidt recalls seeing the film at a special screening hosted by the actress Bahiga Hafiz in 1963. She later took him to meet Anwar Ahmad, who worked in the Mugammaʿ: Arthur Goldschmidt, personal communication, October 1997.

48 The video case is, I think, telling. It highlights Magda and Husayn Riyad. Most of the scenes depicted, particularly of Riyad and Amina Rizq, are from other films. The credit for direction is also incorrect.

49 Saʿd, , Al-Mukhrij Ahmad Badrakhān, 78.Google Scholar

50 Gordon, Joel, “With God on Our Side: Scripting Nasser's Mutiny,” a paper presented at the conference “Mutiny: Narrative, Event, and Context in Cross-Cultural Perspective,” Ohio State University, 1998. The film was shown on television on Revolution Day in 1996; this was for many a first viewing.Google Scholar

51 For a brief, laudatory treatment of Darwish, see Zaki, ʿAbd al-Hamid Tawfiq, Al-Sayyid Darwishfi ʿId Milādihi al-Miʾawī (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1992).Google Scholar

52 Saʿd, , Al-Mukhrij Ahmad Badrakhʿn, 95–100.Google Scholar

53 Badrakhan rejected a variety of candidates, including the director Hasan al-Imam; the pop star Muharram Fuʾad; the star of a contemporary theatrical biography of Darwish, Muhammad Nuh; and even Darwish's son Husni, who had never acted. Mutawwaʿ was not a singer, so Darwish's voice was dubbed, at three age levels, by Hani Shakir, Ismaʿil Shibana (the brother of the singing star ʿAbd al-Halim Hafiz), and ʿIsmat ʿAbd al-Halim: ibid., 91–93. Unlike Ahmad Anwar, Karam Mutawwaʿ transformed this star turn into a long acting career, especially in television drama. He died in 1997.

54 There is also a small comedic turn by ʿAdil Imam, in one of his first film roles, as her servant.

55 Radwan, as noted earlier, served as first minister of national guidance. His contemporary, Nur al-Din Tarraf, joined the government in September 1952 as health minister. A more senior party member, Sulayman Hafiz, served as interior minister and helped draft much of the legislation that curtailed, then abolished outright, any political-party activity.

56 Gordon, , Nasser's Blessed Movement, 75–78.Google Scholar

57 Farid's body lay in state at the Mustafa Kamil school. His funeral was held at the Kekhiya Mosque, at the time the leading funeral mosque in downtown Cairo. President Muhammad Nagib spoke at the ceremony, praising Farid as the embodiment of “work, order, and unity,” the slogan adopted by the new regime: Egyptian Gazette, 9 and 16 November 1953.

58 During the climactic crisis of March 1954 the regime tarred all proponents of a restored democracy as reactionaries, a tactic that ultimately proved successful: Gordon, Nasser's Blessed Movement, 127–56.

59 Gran, Peter, “Modern Trends in Egyptian Historiography: A Review Article,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 9 (1978): 367–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

60 For fuller discussion of Imam's adaptation, see Armbrust, Walter, “New Cinema, Commercial Cinema, and the Modernist Tradition in Egypt,” Alif 15 (1995): 81–129.Google Scholar

61 The others are Imtithal (1972), Bint Badiʿa (1972), Bamba Kashar (1974), Badiʿa Masabnī (1975), and Sultānat al-Tarab (The Sultana of Song, 1979).

62 Exceptions are the aforementioned biography of Taha Husayn and Hasan al-Imam's musical biopics.

63 In a recent “historical,” Al-Marʾa allati Zalzalat al-ʿArsh (The Woman Who Shook the Throne, 1995), Gindi portrays Nahad Rashad, wife of Farouk's personal doctor: Hani, Muhammad, “Ansūr al-Malakiyya ʿalā al-Shasha,” Rūz al-Yūsuf (8 05 1995), 35–42.Google Scholar

64 The same, according to Chakravarty, holds true for Indian cinema: Chakravarty, National Identity, 157. The exceptions in Egypt, other than Gindi's productions, are those by Yusuf Chahine, who has since the early 1960s secured foreign financing.

65 Ibid..; Custen, Bio/pics, 214–32.

66 The serial Bawwaābat al-Halawānī (Halawani's Gate) ran over three successive Ramadan seasons through 1996, and there are general plans to continue the story.

67 Gordon, , “Nasser 56/Cairo 96”; Lila Abu-Lughod, “Finding a Place for Islam: Egyptian Television Serials and the National Interest,” Public Culture 5 (1993): 493–515. Among the more popular was the story of Raʾfat al-Haggan, scripted by the late Salah Mursi, about an Egyptian super-spy who infiltrated the highest levels of the Israeli government in the 1960s.Google Scholar

68 Custen, , Bio/pics, 21.Google Scholar

69 Mahfuz ʾAbd al-Rahman, personal communication, November 1995.

70 The film actually covers 106 days, from 18 June 1956, Evacuation Day, to 2 November, several days following the outbreak of the Suez war. For a fuller treatment of the film, see Gordon, “Cairo 96/ Nasser 56.”

71 Mahfuz ʿAbd al-Rahman, personal communication, June 1996.

72 Gordon, “Nasser 56/Cairo 96.”

73 The most moving scenes in this regard are those in which Nasser is approached by an elderly canal worker who has been fired; when he is bothered repeatedly in the early morning hours by phone calls from a peasant woman looking for her son; and when he is given the robe of a peasant who died digging the canal by his aged granddaughter (a star cameo by Amina Rizq); as well as a variety of scenes with his wife, Tahiya (played with quiet dignity by Firdaws ʿAbd al-Hamid), and his children. See ibid. for a fuller description.

74 To my knowledge, the film has been shown commercially in Beirut, Gaza, the West Bank, Paris, and at least eight American cities. Currently available on video, its exposure is surely by now transnational.

75 The film is now without its critics, but they appear to be a decided minority.

76 Gordon, “Nasser 56/Cairo 96.”

77 Ibid.

78 Saʿd, , Al-Mukhrij Ahmad Badrakhan, 89.Google Scholar

79 See, for example, Dhikrī, Muhammad Abū, “Wa Asūtidha al-Taʾrikh lahum Raʾy fi Ahdāth Bawwabat al-Halawāni,” Al-Akhbār, 28 02 1996Google Scholar, for historians' critiques of ʿAbd al-Rahman's portrayal of Ismaʿil's court. This response is typical and mirrors many conversations I have had with colleagues about the value of such drama. For a comparatively positive view by professional historians, see Carnes, Mark C., Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies (New York: Henry Holt, 1995), sponsored by the Society of American Historians.Google Scholar

80 Gordon, Joel, “Secular and Religious Memory in Egypt: Recalling Nasserist Civics,” The Muslim World 87, 2 (1997): 94–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar