Page - 56 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/02

56 | Philippe Bornet www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/2, 55–86 Introduction: Unruly Images* Since the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism in 1978 and its sequel, Cul- ture and Imperialism, in 1993,1 it has been a commonplace to look at western artistic and visual representations of non-European cultures as “orientalist” artefacts which essentialise what they represent and tacitly reinforce pow- er asymmetries between Europe and its “oriental” others. One can think in this context of the “orientalist” school of painting2 or the representation of “oriental” cultures in western cinema,3 theatre or even music. In his analysis of artistic productions such as the opera Aida,4 Said seems to suggest not only that art faithfully reflects the ideological (and colonial) worldview of its period of production, but also that its later performances are bound to reproduce the same “message”. While Said expressed more nuanced views in later works,5 such a perspective reduces an artwork to an unidimensional meaning and does not leave space for radical reinterpretations by new au- diences, let alone the register of emotions: an artwork can trigger feelings in its viewers or listeners, and it cannot be assumed that they will be sys- tematically aligned with whatever “ideological subtext” one identifies in it. More recently, however, several studies have underlined that art – in par- ticular music and images – are complex objects that cannot be quickly re- duced to a single dimension: one must take account not only of the artist’s intentions, but also of the medium itself and the individual interpretations of recipients. Thus, in his Orientalism: History, Theory and the Arts, John Mac- Kenzie was one of the first to insist that even works produced within an imperialist context have the ability to “resist” imperialist ideological config- urations.6 More recently, François Pouillon has focused on the “polysemic” 1 Said 1978; Said 1993. 2 See for example Nochlin 1989. 3 See Derfoufi 2018 for an analysis of the trope of the white archaeologist in western cinema. 4 Said 1993, 111–131. 5 See for example his response to S. Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations: Said 2001. 6 MacKenzie 1995. * First versions of this article were presented at the 2010 IAHR Congress in Toronto and at the 2011 AAS Conference in Hawaii. I thank Dr Paul Jenkins, former archivist at the Basel Mission Archives, for his most helpful indications about the circulation of images in Protestant missionary contexts, the Calwer Verlag for the permission to reprint the images here, and the reviewers of JRFM for their thoughtful suggestions.