Creative Person; 39; Leopold Sedar Senghor
- Series
- Creative Person
- Episode Number
- 39
- Episode
- Leopold Sedar Senghor
- Producing Organization
- National Educational Television and Radio Center
- Contributing Organization
- Library of Congress (Washington, District of Columbia)
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip/512-tb0xp6w36w
- NOLA Code
- CRPN
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- Description
- Episode Description
- Leopold Sedar Senghor is the president of the Republic of Senegal, poet laureate of French speaking Africa, and a well-known intellectual figure in the French community. He was one of the main architects of independence in French colonial Africa a movement which sought and obtained political independence with reason and without bloodshed. Before NET cameras President Senghor evokes his childhood in the Sine-Saloum region of Senegal, recalling his peasant ancestors, the cattle herds, the river flats, Koumba Ndofene Diouf the last king of Sine and the royal praise singers whose poetry has moved me more than anything I can remember. President Senghor explains that fully more than half of my poems relate to this childhood this kingdom of childhood which lies beyond time a sort of absolute. I dont know when it was, I always confuse the present with the past as I mix up death and life a bridge of kindness joins them. President Senghor also outlines his scholastic career which began at a rural Catholic mission school in Senegal and led to the French equivalent of the PhD. He became a full professor in France before World War II, being the first French African to achieve this status. President Senghor recalls the painful struggle of black students in France in the thirties, their efforts to assert their identities as blacks, the violence of their emotions and the frustrations brought on by a hostile or indifferent world. I must hide him in my innermost veins/ My animal protector, I must hide him/ Protecting my naked pride against/ Myself and the scorn of luckier races. In contrast to this President Senghor adds: But this was also the time when the Western world began to react to discursive reason this was the time of surrealism And so it was that Western philosophers, artists, helped us to define the values of our own black civilization. Concluding, President Senghor recalls that it was the horror of the war which helped him to snap out of the intellectual and emotional tailspin of the thirties and to move to constructive and positive action action derived from the philosophy of universality. Following World War II he saw emerging a world which would not only tolerate but seek to blend the values of all civilizations, a world in which the blacks had a contribution to make. I became aware of the fact that we would not come up empty handed to the give and take to the rendezvous of civilizations, to the making of the civilization of the future. This program was filmed on location in Senegal. Film crews travelled extensively through the Sine-Saloum region, visiting locales described by President Senghor, in order to capture the sights and sounds evoked by his poetry. The president himself was filmed during the first World Festival of Negro Arts held in Dakar in April of 1966. The program features a nephew of the President, Maurice Sonnar Senghor, director of the National Theater of Senegal who reads five of his uncles poems in English. Since the President speaks mostly French, Maurice Senghor also voiced over a translation of the presidents comments. The Creative Person: Leopold Sedar Senghor is a 1967 production of National Educational Television. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
- Series Description
- This series focuses on the private vision of the creative person. Each program is devoted to a 20th century artist whose special qualities of imagination, taste, originality, intelligence, craftsmanship, and individuality have marked him as a pace-setter in his field. These artists --- whose fields span the entire gamut of the art world --- include filmmaker Jean Renoir, poet John Ciardi, industrial designer Raymond Loewy, Hollywood producer-director King Vidor, noted Broadway couple Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, artist Leonard Baskin, humorist James Thurber, satirist Robert Osborn, Indian musician Ravi Shankar, poet P. G. Wodehouse, painter Georges Braque, former ballet star Olga Spessivtzeva, Rudolf Bing, and Marni Nixon. The format for each program has been geared to the individual featured; Performance, interview, and documentary technique are employed interchangeably. The Creative Person is a 1965 production of National Educational Television. The N.E.T. producers are Jack Sameth, Jac Venza, Lane Slate, Thomas Slevin, Brice Howard, Craig Gilbert, and Jim Perrin. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
- Broadcast Date
- 1967-03-05
- Asset type
- Episode
- Genres
- Documentary
- Media type
- Moving Image
- Credits
-
-
Camera Operator: Marner, Eugene
Director: Dor, Henry A.
Editor: Marner, Eugene
Executive Producer: Slate, Lane
Guest: Senghor, Leopold Sedar
Performer: Senghor, Maurice
Producer: Dor, Henry A.
Producing Organization: National Educational Television and Radio Center
Sound: Marner, Carole
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
-
Library of Congress
Identifier: 2000488-1 (MAVIS Item ID)
Format: 16mm film
Generation: Copy: Access
Color: B&W
-
Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive
Identifier: [request film based on title] (Indiana University)
Format: 16mm film
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- Citations
- Chicago: “Creative Person; 39; Leopold Sedar Senghor,” 1967-03-05, Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed May 11, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-tb0xp6w36w.
- MLA: “Creative Person; 39; Leopold Sedar Senghor.” 1967-03-05. Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. May 11, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-tb0xp6w36w>.
- APA: Creative Person; 39; Leopold Sedar Senghor. Boston, MA: Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-tb0xp6w36w