SCHADEBERG
BLACK & WHITE
a South African photographer
a film by
Peter Heller
Start 10:00:00:00
Johannesburg
00:27 COMM 1( 25“)
Johannesburg in South Africa. A young metropolis of only 120 years of age. A city built on gold mines. A melting pot of peoples and cultures. Very rich, very poor and very criminal. And the home of Jürgen Schadeberg, one of the most famous photographers in Africa.
00:29 Sophiatown Bar; Jürgen Schadeberg makes photos
00:46 Insert: Photo
00:54 Jürgen Schadeberg and Sol Rachilo
Schadeberg: But you haven’t changed that much.
Sol: No, no, I haven’t.
Schadeberg: That was a long time ago.
Sol: Fifty years and that would amount to ones golden anniversary or wedding anniversary.
Schadeberg: But tell me, how do you feel, what did you feel then, what was it like, because we couldn’t have been sitting together like this then, we would have been sitting like this and worrying about the cops.
Sol: Walking around, I mean, looking around, is anybody watching.
Schadeberg: That’s true. The time was pretty bad for everybody!
Sol: That’s very true.
01:28 Insert: Photo young Schadeberg
01:34 COMM 2 (15“)/Foto JS young
Schadeberg emigrated from an impoverished post-war Germany when he was 19. For the young devotee to documentary photography, South Africa was a land full of promise.
01:37 Archive Material Johannesburg
01:45 Photos Schadeberg Apartheid
01:45 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
They were two totally different cultures without any connection. The white society were the Boers, who in those days were racist against the blacks. They were completely prepared to build a white Africa, South Africa, without the blacks. The blacks must leave. And there was the black society, which was much more interesting since it looked more towards the future, developed itself and it was dynamic.
02:11 Archive Material train station Johannesburg
02:21 Photos Schadeberg Apartheid and Drum Covers
02:32 COMM 3a (15“) „Drum“
At the beginning of the Fifties, Schadeberg’s pictures came to identify the black population’s first magazine: ‘Drum’ was committed to the emancipation of the black middle class
02:41 Jürgen Schadeberg and Sylvester Stein
Stein: That’s Henry, the famous Henry Nxumalo.
Schadeberg (Off): I was employed by Bob Crisp.
Stein (Off): He was a man who wanted to do good to the Blacks.
COMM 3b „Drum“ S. Stein
Sylvester Stein became editor-in-chief, and Schadeberg- the photographer of the black editorial team.
02:59 Jürgen Schadeberg and Sylvester Stein
Schadeberg: When I came with my little Leica, it was even smaller than this one and I started looking for work in 1950.
03:07 Insert: Photo Schadeberg young
Schadeberg: I went to the Star and I went to the head of the photographic department and he pointed at my Leica and said “Well, if you come to South Africa with that miniature camera, you haven’t got a hope in hell ever getting a job, you see, that’s my start. And they were working around with these old-fashioned big speed graphics, big flash guns. If there was a shoot out, they showed the bullet hole and say “That’s where the bullet went” and they had a picture of somebody pointing at the bullet. You see, that’s the type of photography they had, whereas in Photojournalism, you photograph life, where it is, reality, conditions, how people live, people, who they are, what they are. You get involved with the activity itself.
Stein: The idea of Drum was to communicate with the Blacks who were of South Africa, who had no magazine of their own, no real magazine. It was pictures, pictures, who were showing you what the story was and the technique of putting them into your face.
Schadeberg: It was a way of communicating, for people to communicate with one another, to actually create a form of understanding, a modern way of communicating at that time.
Stein: By the time we were finished, we had a readership of hundreds of thousands and gradually we made them politically conscious looking for freedom.
04:33 Archive Material Demonstration Apartheid
04:35 COMM 4 (20“) Demo RSA
White nationalists seized power, the separation of races became the law, and Apartheid became constitutional, guaranteeing a white minority every privilege. But as the resistance of the black population grew, one photographer became the confidante of a rebellion….
04:52 Insert: Photo young Schadeberg on truck
05:00 Jürgen Schadeberg photographs in Hillbrow
05:02 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
There were no photographers, no black photographers. So I had to run around everywhere on my own to take all the photographs for the magazine.
05:17 Inserts: Photos Schadeberg in Hillbrow (Lily Avenue)
05:23 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
The people were always happy when you took a picture of them as a black society, black people in black situations. That someone took their picture at all delighted them.
05:17 Insert: Photos Schadeberg in Hillbrow
05:50 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
They didn't like it, the whites. I was seen as a black sheep.
05:59 Jürgen and Claudia Schadeberg in France
06:03 COMM 5 ( 15“ )J. a. C. Schadeberg
Schadeberg’s house is a monument to his life and work: a mass of photographs and souvenirs, carefully maintained by his wife and manager Claudia.
06:21 Jürgen Schadeberg San Photos
06:27 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
This is a dance of exorcism. What I enjoyed in photography was the result, the pictures. To me the difference between painting and photography is that when you paint you paint over a period of time. It can take five minutes or five days or five weeks to paint a painting. And during this time you are influenced by the environment: sounds, music, arguments. You are influenced. Whereas in photography it's all in the moment. The most important thing in photography is the eye. You see. You see a photo.
07:15 They are playing cards. It was taken in Sophiatown in 1955.
07:25 German Shepard
07:27 Jürgen Schadeberg in dark room
07:36 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
I think that the strength of photography is also that you can go back.
You can go into the past. You can take a picture, for example Mandela in 1952 and then again the same person Mandela in 1994, 40 years later. You can see how time has passed. How has the person changed? Or the situation? Or the place, the landscape?
08:21 Sophiatown, Johannesburg
08:21 Journalist interviews Jürgen Schadeberg in Sophiatown
Journalist: You have been a photographer for many, many years. You have taken photos of incredibly influential leaders, can you tell me, how did you meet Mandela?
08:38 Insert: Photos Schadeberg: Mandela
Schadeberg: I met him first time in 1951, and he was the youth leader of the ANC at the time. He was sure of himself. And I created an atmosphere of peace and relaxed and I think you can see this in the photographs.
08:49 Insert: Photos Schadeberg: Mandela
Journalist: Yes. You know, for my generation, the Apartheid is, what we learned in the history books and you were there! What does it feel like to be part of such an incredible movement in South African history?
Schadeberg: Well, I don’t know, if I really was part of it - I observed it.
Journalist: What did you observe? How did it make you feel?
Schadeberg: Well, it was very emotional at the time and very hopeful and very optimistic and nobody actually expected that it would take another forty years.
Journalist: Can you name some of the most memorable moments in your career?
Schadeberg: Well, I can’t, I think every moment is memorable really in a way in one’s work.
09:33 Insert: Photo Schadeberg: Mandela in cell
Schadeberg: I think that Mandela in his cell, I photographed him in 1994, when he revisited his cell. That was a very quiet and in some way it was a very intense moment. It was sort of condensed.
09:52 Galery picture - Mandela in der Zelle.
09:55 Schadeberg in Seippel Galery Johannesburg with Photographystudents
09:58 COMM 6 ( 20“) Galery
Shadeberg’s exhibition on contemporary history has won the respect of students and critics alike. Yet for Shadeberg, it’s more important to reach out and pass on the experience; to communicate the feeling that he had in the editing room of Drum magazine all those years ago.
10:12 Jürgen Schadeberg
And again, as many questions as you can manage.
The idea was then that everybody defied the laws, that means, there were pass laws, in other words, you weren’t allowed as a coloured person or a black person to go from one township to another without a permit. So we decided in 1952, we wanted to do a cover picture of Dolly Rathebe in a bikini on the beach, so we decided to go on a mine dam
10:49 Insert: Photo Schadeberg: Dolly Rathebe
Schadeberg: And we climbed up and we started taking pictures, but there must have been this guy watering his garden and he must have seen, there is a young white man with a black girl going up the dam, so he phoned the cops and they came from all sides, the cops, running, losing their caps, all very excited, breathless
11:13 Insert: Photo Schadeberg: Dolly Rathebe
Schadeberg: And they started pushing us around. By this time she had put on her dress, she had to lift her dress up to see that she had something underneath. There was nine months prison without the option of a fine, if you would have been proved in court, that you had a sexual relationship, yes, but now what puzzled me, why did they make it nine months, you see.
11:34 Township with singer Mpho
11:44 Mpho sings and cooks, Jürgen Schadeberg takes photos
12:03 Mpho
I was thinking I mean to say it out to the women. Like, other women are silent with this, so it is time for them, every woman to speak out and say no is no, enough is enough.
12:17 Mpho sings and cooks
12:35 Kliptown, Soweto
12:40 Jürgen Schadeberg in Kliptown with David Bloom und Mahgotso Gulube
12:50 COMM 7 (30“) Slum
Today the misery of the people of Soweto is still alive in Kliptown, the oldest slum in this area. 15 years after the liberation from a racist regime, Shadeberg returns here to find old acquaintances and one-time pupils amongst the corrugated iron houses.
13:29 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
Maghotse, a young woman, worked with me as a student for many years. She now is a photographer for the daily newspaper "The Sowetan". David Bloom, one of my students who lives in Kliptown, one of the oldest suburbs of Soweto, now works on a picture project about Kliptown's past. It's history and architecture. And of course he also takes photos of the old buildings and houses.
13:54 Township
13:57 Cola Break in “Kliptown Café” ATHMO
Woman: Do you want some bread?
Schadeberg: I am not hungry.
David: Just a small piece, just a small piece. It is hospitality.
14:24 Mahgotso Gulube (Off at beginning)
Mahgotso: Working for Mr. Schadeberg has been good work and I have even said this before, Mr. Schadeberg was godsend, because it is not everyone who gets to work and be recognised with such a big name.
14:43“The Sowetan” with Mahgotso Gulube
14:50 COMM 8 ( 30“) „Sowetan“
Several of Shadeberg 's old students work at ‘The Sowetan’: one of South Africa’s biggest daily newspapers. Some have become renowned photographic artists. And although ‘The Sowetan’ is mainly read by black South Africans, both black and white editorial teams work closely alongside each other here: a rare realisation of the dream of the "rainbow nation".
15:20 Jürgen Schadeberg talks to Mahgotso
Schadeberg: So, now, it is the first time, that you have a full time job as a photographer. That is wonderful.
Mahgotso: Yes, full time. I don’t have to run. Working for Sowetan has made me realise, that, yes, this is what I want to do.
Schadeberg: Black people never had the opportunities until the fifties to actually learn or understand photography and use it to express themselves.
15:43 Insert: Photo Schadeberg with Peter Magubane and Bob Gosani
Schadeberg: We had all very good writers on Drum, but no photographers at all, so I had to spend all my time teaching.
Mahgotso: So you taught Peter Magubane then?
Schadeberg: Yes, he started off as a driver. He went out driving people, a photographer and a writer on a job and then one day he said, why do you send a photographer, I could take them. So I bought him a little Dieschika Flex and off he went, doing a few portraits and suddenly it turned out that he was very enthusiastic about it and had an interest and a talent. And the same with Bob Gosani, you see.
Bob Gosani’s family was from Sophiatown, but they were, what you would describe as coloured. Mixed. Bob was only seventeen…
Mahgotso: During Drum?
Schadeberg: Yes, when he came to see us, his father came and said, please look after my son and so on.
16:36 Insert: Photo Schadeberg with Peter Magubane and Bob Gosani
Schadeberg: Every six months his father turned up and said, how is my son doing and about two years after this he came in and said, you know, I am very upset with you, what are you doing to my son and he is getting into bad companies and so on and so, well, what is wrong. You know, he is having an affair with a native girl. I said, what is going on here, he said, this is terrible, so I said, who is it, yeah, this singer girl called Miriam Makeba.
17:07 Photo Miriam Makeba; Drum Cover Makeba and Photos Apartheid
17:31 COMM 9 ( 30“) Treason Trial
At the end of the 50s, the apartheid regime sentenced the leaders of the ANC to decades in jail for alleged treason. Some of them, were Shadeberg’s friends. All had been popular subjects of his photography.
17:39 Archive material prison truck and Treason Trial
17:52 Jürgen Schadeberg
Obviously the police didn’t like the photographers, especially if they were black, so they started, got Peter Magubane into a corner and started beating him with these clubs. And this one time in my life I saw red. Believe it or not, I took a dive, I don’t know why or how. I dived right on top of these cops, then I was on top and they were totally.., they all spread out. I don’t know what they thought, but they obviously arrested me here and they charged me with obstructing the police.
18:27 Inserts: Photo Arrestment Schadeberg und Photos Sophiatown Removal
18:36 COMM 10 ( 30“) Fotos,„Drum“ film/ Sophiatown
In the 50s, Sophiatown was the place to be for the black elite. Music blared out of every bar and the roots of a black urban culture sprung up. The apartheid regime sought to prohibit this, to destroy the culture of the blacks and to break all resistance.
Shadeberg's photos became a testimony of the rebellion, and his life the inspiration for a Holywood feature film.
18:59 „Drum“, Film
19:23 Jürgen Schadeberg Q&A
19:29 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off at beginning, Subtitles)
I didn't make the film, but overall it's a true story and the apartheid regime kicked people out. And they destroyed the whole of Sophiatown. It got worse and worse. For example, we were not allowed to show a picture of a white boxer fighting with a black boxer. Many books ... I'd say thousand of books, were forbidden. South Africa got worse and the people more and more repressed.
20:10 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off at end, Subtitles)
I left South Africa in 1964. It became ... the police, the secret
special police, you could call it the political police, were after me and made life difficult for me. They didn't enjoy me taking pictures all the time. So I decided to kick myself out and to go abroad. I then lived in Europe for 20 years.
20:38 Kulturspeicher in Würzburg
Jürgen Schadeberg shows pictures and talks to painter Franz Kochseder (German, Subtitles)
20:52 Franz Kochseder: Was it a political question for you or more an artistic question?
Schadeberg: I'd say more of a human question, a social question. I'm not so much interested in the politics.
Franz Kochseder: Do you see your work for the black journalists as pioneering work in South Africa? As you said, you were probably the only white who approached them and who was accepted by them. This made it possible for you to absorb things without discrimination.
Schadeberg: Yes. So what?
Franz Kochseder: I answered my own question.
Schadeberg: - Yes.
21:43 Jürgen Schadeberg with painter Franz Kochseder
21:46 COMM 11 ( 10“) Franz Kochseder
Shadeberg’s close friend, Franz Kochseder, is known for his committed political art.
21:53 Jürgen Schadeberg talks to painter Franz Kochseder
(German, Off at beginning)
Schadeberg: This is already finished?
Franz: It's almost finished. I must do some more work on it.
22:09 Schadeberg: In the past, many years ago, your work used to be more realistic.
Franz: Yes, more realistic work. Large drawings or works on subjects like "The endangered human" or "The aesthetics of resistance" and such things.
Schadeberg: Is it true that the older we get the more conservative we become and everything becomes abstract. Or is this not true?
Franz: Let's say it becomes more encoded. Directness is really something more to do with youth. But you lived a long time in South Africa.
Schadeberg: Yes, 35 years.
Franz: The interface with the conflicts is very different from here. Here everything is more muffled, it's inside you, more indirect. In South Africa I imagine it to be much more direct and complicated.
Schadeberg: That's true. But there are many of those so-called artists who don't accept it if someone like me photographs poverty. They call them apartheid pictures. To photograph poverty during apartheid was important. Now it's no longer. It's not important and we can forget it.
23:31 Woman and fence
23:35 Street musicians
23:47 Jürgen Schadeberg meets Colin Smuts
23:50 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
In 1985, there were signs that things were going to change in South Africa. I then moved back
to South Africa.
23:57 Jürgen Schadeberg meets P.J. Powers
23:59 Mahgotso makes photos of Jürgen Schadeberg and David Bloom
24:06 Wineworkers and Winemountains
24:17 Insert: Photo Wineworker Francis Davis
24:18 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
Francis Davis. The last time I took a picture of the young girl was about two and a half years ago. She was 14 years old, didn't attend school any longer. Her parents were day labourers in the vineyards and too poor. She had to work and earn money.
24:42 Insert: Photo Francis Davis with Baby
24:51 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
My interest in photography is mainly the daily, the common, partly the boring, that we come across every day but which we don't see anymore since it's so mundane, so boring, and forgotten. I'm more interested in this than in anything else.
25:11 Social worker Sharon Bailey talks to Francis in Africans. (Subtitles)
Sharon Bailey: So, is daar nie plek vir jou by jou ma-hulle nie?
Francis: Ja,daar is plek.
Scharon Bailey: It’s so small. Why do you want to stay here?
Francis: Ek is gelukkig.
Translation: (Not in subtitle TC list)
Sharon Bailey: Could you not stay with your parents?
Francis: Yes, I could.
Sharon Bailey: Then why do you want to stay in this constriction?
Francis: I am happy here.
25:27 Jürgen Schadeberg talks to people in flat
Schadeberg: So it is 9 people.
Man: 4 here.
Schadeberg: Four in this tiny little room. Very small room.
Hello, can we just come inside for a minute. Hello there.
So you got 5 people living in this little room.
Just carry on what you were doing, you were folding up your washing.
Would you mind just looking at me please, thank you very much.
25:53 Insert: Photo Wineworkers in their home
25:55 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
I have taken pictures of the farms in order to see how the workers live.
I also took pictures of them 40 years ago. I went back there in 2005 and again now in 2008 in order to see how the situation has changed. This can be captured very well in pictures.
25:59 Insert: Schadeberg Books (Voices from the Land)
26:03 Insert: Photo Schadeberg: Wineworker picking
26:08 Insert: Photo Schadeberg: Wineworker on street
26:12 Jürgen Schadeberg photographs wineworkers picking
26:28 COMM 12 (20“) JS Wine
"VOICES FROM THE LAND" was the project that resulted; a portrait of the lowest class of the rural population in wealthy South Africa. This is the first time these labourers have seen themselves in print.
26:40 Jürgen Schadeberg shows his book to wineworkers
26:53 Jürgen Schadeberg with Revona Prins
Prins: That is me.
Schadeberg: How old were you then?
Prins: 15.
Schadeberg: You don’t want to go to school anymore?
Prins: No, I don’t want to go to school anymore, because I have a baby now.
Schadeberg: You said, you have to work in your own money, is that, what it is?
Prins: I have to earn my own money to support my baby.
Schadeberg: And your baby?
Prins: Yes, the baby is 9 months.
Schadeberg: Well, I must take your picture.
27:28 Revona Prins in Africans (Subtitles)
Drie jaar terug was ek nog op skool. Maar jonk gewees, maar nou is ek ‘n bietjie volwasse. Alles het verander, ons huis het verander, my lewe het verander.
Ek het nou meer selfvertroue in myself. Ek wil graag verder skoolgaan.
Ek wil verder studeer, maar die geld was eintlik nou nie
daarna gewees nie, maar, ek weet nie, ek is darm nou bietjie beter nou.
Ek werk vir myself, sakgeldjies en so aan te.
Translation: (Not in subtitle TC list)
Three years ago I was still at school.
I was younger then, but now I am more mature.
I am much more self-confident now.
I would like to continue my studies, but I cannot afford them.
Prins continues in english: I wanted to go and study further, but now I am working on the farm. It is not exactly what I wanted, but I actually wanted to be a social worker. Because I couldn’t study further, I am going to help my baby, provide a better life for him.
Schadeberg: What happened to the TV that was in the corner?
Prins: The TV is gone.
Schadeberg: That’s it, that’s better.
28:19 Insert: Photo Revona Prins with Baby
28:38 Washings
28:42 Washings in Kliptown
28:40 COMM 13a Jürgen Schadeberg in Kliptown
Not so long ago, a four star hotel was built in this oldest and poorest of Soweto suburbs.
28:50 Soweto Holiday Inn
29:06 Hotelreception Mandela Mosaic
29:08 COMM 13b Jürgen Schadeberg in Kliptown
The finest suite is the Mandela suite on Freedom Square - from inside this strange island of luxury, the legions of homeless people seem to disappear.
28:58 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
The new hotel in Kliptown, Holiday Inn, surrounded by poverty and squatter camps, is bizarre and strange.
29:15 Jürgen Schadeberg with Hotelmanager
Schadeberg: Now you have got here a four star hotel which grows out of slums, surrounded by poverty here in Kliptown?
Manager: I think, the future is very exciting for Soweto. We are excited about the opportunities, that this hotel will be able to undergo. the whole idea is to uplift a very, very poverty ridden environment, because Kliptown is very, very poor and give it an opportunity through tourism and other activities, because if you want a very poor area to be uplifted, you need to create economic activity.
29:53 Jürgen Schadeberg in Soweto
29:54 Jürgen Schadeberg and old Lady
Schadeberg: Four years ago they promised…
Lady: But nothing has happened so far. We are still waiting.
Schadeberg: But they built a big hotel there. Is that nice?
Lady: That is what they do, yes. That and that white elephant up there.
There is nothing going on, the people that do have shops and businesses there, they are complaining, that they have no business at all.
30:12 Lady about government and Red Ants
Now where are we going to sell.
30:15 Red Ants
30:16 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
The "Red Ants" expel, together with the police and using force. Their job is to clean up the town by expelling the poor of which the new government is ashamed.
30:31 Lady about government and Red Ants
We are trying to sell, but now they are chasing us away here.
30:35 They took all our money.
They must employ us, there is no work.
30:48 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
The old quarter is destroyed for new visions. Just as it happened in Sophiatown.
30:59 Jürgen Schadeberg with Hotelmanager
The police arrived at this market place and they push the people around.
They take their tables away and put them onto lorries, I mean, it is totally ridiculous, you must have got a terrible image problem?
Manager: I think, there are a number of challenges, but I also think there are a number of opportunities. This is a traditional market place, you are in an African market, where people are selling chickens and potatoes and tomatoes and we would like that to continue, because we believe that people look for these experiences, you want to see, what a true South African market looks like.
31:26 BMW in Soweto, Holiday Inn
31:36 Jürgen Schadeberg (Off)
And then there comes BMW presenting their latest model cars right in the middle of this.
31:50 BMW Chief Carter
BMW has always had that aspirational feeling. People, young, up and coming, new money blacks want to be in BMWs and so our image is one of youth, of experience, of sportyness, of agility and all those things that make BMWs such wonderful cars. so we have a strong following for BMW here in Soweto and so its with some considerable pride and happiness, that we have brought these cars here today. In a sense, BMW coming home to Soweto.
32:26 Mr. Schadeberg, lovely to see you here in Soweto, what an extraordinary surprise bumping into you here in Soweto where we are launching these cars.
Schadeberg: We all meet in Soweto.
Carter: We all meet in Soweto, the crossroads of South Africa.
But I hear, you want take one of these for a little...
Schadeberg: Yes, is it going to run away with me.
Carter: It will. You have to be careful. Push the clutch, push the start button. And then you are in business.
Schadeberg: There you go, alright.
32:55 Jürgen Schadeberg drives BMW through Kliptown.
David Bloom makes photos
33:00 COMM 14 (25“) BMW
The glossy cars and slick sales patter interest Shadeberg less than the neighbouring slum, Hillbrow. But he’ll accept the free ride.
33:20 Squatter Houses Hillbrow
33:23 COMM 15 (25“) Slums Hillbrow - Joburg
It’s many years since Shadeberg has been here with his camera. But it’s still the same picture of misery, built 12 storeys high. There are 200 buildings like this in the city of Johannesburg. Each is home to the poorest of the poor, without electricity, water or a working draining system.
33:44 COMM 16 ( 25“) JS with lawyer Stewart Wilson
But the people here survive. Homeless black families have squatted in these high rises, ever since the white middle class moved out in the 60s and 70s. Although authorities are now calling for their eviction, a lawyer and old acquaintance of Shadeberg’s has taken up their case.
34:00 Hillbrow: Jürgen Schadeberg meets squatter family ATHMO
Schadeberg: Are they all yours?
Nelson: No.
Schadeberg: It would be a bit much.
34:07 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
I don't see myself as a person with a mission who has to teach
people something. I take pictures of life as I see it as a professional photographer. And to show when and where possible the story of the social condition.
34:29 Insert: Photo Kids in a row
34:31 Jürgen Schadeberg meets people in Joel Street
Mann: It has been a long time. You care about me.
Schadeberg: Come a bit forward, that’s it, yes.
34:41 Insert: Photo Man with Photo
34:44 Jürgen Schadeberg and Stewart Wilson in squatter highrise
34:46 Jürgen Schadeberg in German with lawyer Wilson (Off)
Stuart Wilson who fights for the homeless in the run-down high rises and squatter camps in and around Johannesburg. He defends them at court against the city which tries to have them evicted from their homes without providing any alternatives.
35:09 Jürgen Schadeberg talks to Stewart Wilson
Schadeberg: I remember, that I have been taking pictures of this for you for years, this has been taking you about four or five years?
35:13 Insert: Photos Homeless
Stewart: Your pictures were tremendously helpful in the High Court, we attached them to our papers. The judge came here for himself from the High Court, he saw what your pictures really helped us to do, is, to show, that in buildings such as this, the vast majority of the people living here, are ordinary, decent, working South Africans. I mean, I think, it’s pretty important to acknowledge, that nobody here is not working at all. Everybody is doing something to, to scrape a living.
Schadeberg: You successfully managed to move people into more civilised accommodations and something, where they are going to be much more happy in, where they have electricity and running water and so on.
So, if you go on like this and solve all these problems, the Red Ants will be out of work.
36:13 Insert: Photo young squatter man Joel Street
Jürgen Schadeberg meets squatters in Joel Street
36:15 Jürgen Schadeberg und young squatter man
Schadeberg: So, when last did I see you? Some years ago. And this is still the same room, you are still here, but now they stopped the threat of eviction.
Mann: Yes, but long time, two years back, if I am not mistaken, since we discovered that they check us and want to take us to court.
Schadeberg: I want to take another picture of you. You now, this time, a few years later, you haven’t really aged, have you?
Mann: No.
Schadeberg: But your little boy has grown bigger. How old is he.
Mann: 9.
Schadeberg: Can you pick him up for me.
36:59 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off at beginning, Subtitles)
To talk with the people is important since it helps to gather more information about the situation or these people whom you photograph. But it is much more important to see with your eyes. And photography is seeing.
37:20 Insert: Photo young squatter woman; Schadeberg makes photos
Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off at beginning, Subtitles)
It's also concentration, the will to capture it and also to take your time. You think you must get the photo quickly and you're often not prepared to wait for the picture.
37:48 Schadeberg walks through back alleys
37:50 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off at beginning, Subtitles)
I'm always asked what I call myself as a photographer. I just call myself a photographer. They say of course that I mainly did documentary photography. But to me all photography is documentary. Whatever I photograph today, in ten minutes, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, in ten years, it'll be a document.
38:17 Jürgen Schadeberg meets tailor Belina Badama
Tailor: I used to work for a clothes department that was closed some years ago. And my boss was the official sponsor of Miss South Africa.
Schadeberg: I remember the wall with all these patches there. That is still, the patches are still there.
Tailor: The patches will always be there, because of the leakage, this room is leaking.
38:41 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
To be a photographer in a documentary situation, where life revolves around me, I try not to influence it. However, at the same time, at the same moment where I am in a situation of telling a story which happened in the past and to bring it back to the present, I have to influence it here and there. It's a complicated dual thing.
39:07 Inserts: Fotos then and now: Tailor Belina Badama and son Sipo
39:24 Schadeberg: And we got the same spots in the background.
Tailor: yes, exactly.
Schadeberg: Well, thank you, I wish you a lot of luck for you and your husband and I hope you get a lot of customers.
Tailor: I don’t stop placing some adverts on the newspaper, because I am not a lazy person.
Schadeberg: Well, if you keep busy, you will make it eventually.
Tailor: Definitely.
Schadeberg: So will the little boy here. What is his name?
39:47 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
Not the sensational or the violence or the criminality or the war but daily life.
39:55 Frau looks through broken window
40:00 Nike „This is my violence“
40:09 Jürgen Schadeberg with little boy
40:19 Jürgen Schadeberg talks to little boy
Boy: I want to be a professional dancer or singer and fly all over the world. That is my dream.
Schadeberg: You had some problems, somebody attacked you?
Boy: Yes, maybe it was last month or something, somebody tried to take off my cell phone. They threatened me with a knife and then they say I must promise, they said to me, they’ll kill me, so I gave them.
And there is a lot of crime here in Heidelberg, because there is sort of groups called tsotsis and gangsters . Everything that is happening here, rape, everything. They kill a person, you looking at day - so it is horrible for us, for me to live here.
Schadeberg: They even come into your home?
Boy: Sometimes they do murder in homes and they rape grandmothers, so it is hard.
Schadeberg: That is really quite frightening isn’t it?
Boy: Yes, I pray for me, just to go somewhere else.
41:23 Rich borough, young ladies with BMW and mobile phones
41:30 Electric gates and fences
41:32 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
Several of my friends and acquaintances got killed over the past years by robbers. They either got shot or stabbed in their own home or their own office. When you drive from your home in a car and you return in the evening you have to check whether there is someone there. That's normal today in South Africa.
42:00 Johannesburg city views
42:07 Woman searches in dump container, Johannesburg
42:11 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
In 1994, when the new government arrived, the democracy, Nelson Mandela, we all believed in the rainbow nation, the new South Africa and maybe we were too naive, we expected that everything would be good instantly, all is great, the struggle is over. But it isn't like that. Apartheid is back. It's starting all over again. When people look for work they are
asked: "Are you African black?" "Are you coloured or Indian or white?" The same classification as during apartheid. And this is of course somewhat depressing.
42:36 Jürgen Schadeberg drives car
42:54 Johannesburg at night
43:05 Sophiatown Bar: singer and guests
Jürgen Schadeberg with Colin and Drucilla Smuts
43:15 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
Colin Smuts and his wife Drucilla. Both were anti-apartheid activists. He went through a lot fighting for the freedom of the black people in South Africa. We've known each other
for many years.
43:34 Colin and Drucilla Smuts
Colin: You open up a book about arts and culture and there is Jürgen Schadeberg!
Drucilla: They can’t get away from Jürgen’s contribution, look at this cafeteria here with the pictures.
Colin: I firmly believe this that you have been the main social documentary photographer, a historian of South African history for over fifty years, whether they like it or not, Peter Magubane and Ruth Motau and others, you taught them and they are coming your way. By the way I know Jürgen since a kid. My uncle worked for Drum, so imagery of Jürgen has always been there. The old Drum… I mean, the point is this, I actually dedicated my life to the struggle.
Schadeberg: You were quite a top person in the ANC? You were a black person then?
Colin: Well, I mean…; Yes, black.
Schadeberg: So you are coloured, you are a coloured man and therefore you are in a different category and therefore you are not among the blacks and therefore now you are not in power and you have nothing to say, just as much as previously you were not white and you were coloured.
Are you still having problems with your skin colour?
Drucilla: Oh my god. I am back on the job market. in order to get my job what I did, is I braided my hair in African braids and studied a dark brown look, I got the job and she says to me, she would not have employed me, if I did have not had braids in my hair. Just sit there 12 hours braiding my hair, 500 rand later the things fall out and you got to go back, drive ten kilometres to get your braids packing. It’s insane, besides for which, its not me. So why do I feel like I have to dress up like what, a black person.
Schadeberg: We are again in the Verwoed type of theory, that everybody is different, there are Blacks, there are Coloureds, there are Indians and there are Whites.
Colin: I actually feel ashamed as a progressive South African, as part of the struggle, that we can mess up so and not even feel accountable.
Your struggle is contributed on the basis of your colour.
Drucilla: I disagree with you, you must stop talking about whites and blacks and coloureds.
Schadeberg: More and more people are leaving and then you have no more electricity.
45:50 Jürgen Schadeberg on plane
46:04 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
After 35 years in Africa and having worked there a lot in political situations as a freelance photographer. We were terribly naive in 1994, the rainbow nation, Mandela and all will be well. But ... it'll take another 40 years before things are going to be in balance.
46:33 Village France
46:36 Claudia and Jürgen in France, Baguette
46:43 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
And suddenly I knew: I'm not an African.
46:50 Village Party in France; Jürgen Schadeberg makes photos
47:18 Jürgen Schadeberg meets neighbours picking apples
47:34 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off at beginning, Subtitles)
We are here in Le Perche, a southern province of Normandy. It's in the countryside, with a few cows and a few horses over there. Our dogs are here and all is very beautiful. Fresh air, not too hot. That's very good.
47:58 Schadebergs House, Claudia on Computer, Dogs
Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Subtitles)
It's not new, just a little bit is. There was a ruin which we pulled down and added an extension. It was too small. We have our darkroom in there and our office. We need space to live comfortably and so we built this
48:10 Claudia and Jürgen renovating
48:23 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Subtitles)
It is of course more convenient not having to switch the alarm systems on and off all the time.
48:37 Jürgen Schadeberg sleeps – transcript?
48:46 Jürgen Schadeberg reads paper
48:51 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Subtitles)
It's a powder keg there. 40 percent of the population are unemployed. The intelligent people leave the country and one day people won't accept it any more. I have lived in South Africa for 35 years. But somehow I found out that I'm a European.
49:12 Jürgen Schadeberg in Hamburg, port and city - transcript?
49:30 Jürgen Schadeberg in German (Off, Subtitles)
What I enjoy about photography is the result, the pictures. The photos as such. And also that you take a picture of something and five minutes later it's history. It means you're making history.
49:43 Jürgen Schadeberg meets with dancers
49:57 Insert: Photo von Tänzerin Aminatu
50:00 Jürgen Schadeberg talks in German to dancer Aminatu
Schadeberg: Did you come here with your family?
Aminatu: No, I'm here on my own.
Schadeberg: On your own?
Aminatu: Yes.
Schadeberg: You must have been very young.
Aminatu: Yes, very young.
Schadeberg: How young? And why?
Aminatu: It's a long story. There was a war in Sierra Leone. Everyone ran away at night in every direction.
Schadeberg: And your parents are still in Sierra Leone?
Aminatu: No. I don't know. I've no contact.
Schadeberg: What are your plans for the future?
Aminatu: I'm fighting for a living but have no great opportunities at present. I've not been given asylum and I‘m not allowed to work. I'm not allowed any educational training and many other things. I'm not allowed to travel or to have my own apartment. They wanted to deport me anyway. It's like living in an eggshell. You can't breathe. You smell the fragrance of freedom but you can't see it. You sit for hours at the Aliens' Registration Office just for a stamp. And they treat people very badly
there. It's not good. Really not good at all.
Schadeberg: Many thanks ... for having allowed us to hear your story.
Vielen Dank, dass Sie uns erlaubt haben, Ihre Geschichte zu hören und ich hoffe, dass Sie irgendwie viel Glück haben und dass sich das irgendwie organisiert, dass Sie hier leben können.
Aminatu: Many thanks to you, too.
Schadeberg: I hope that you somehow are going to be lucky and that it somehow arranges itself so that you can live here.
Aminatu: Thank you.
51:36 Jürgen Schadeberg photographs Aminatu (German)
Schadeberg: Look a little into the light and now turn your eyes to the camera. Thank you.
51:56 Aminatu photographs Jürgen Schadeberg with mobile (German)
Schade: Let me have a look. (“There you are.” In English)
Aminatu: I want to take another one.
Schade: Of course, the two of us together.
Credir roll at TC 52:00
END TC 52:30
SCHADEBERG
BLACK & WHITE
a South African photographer
a film by
Peter Heller
written and directed by
Peter Heller
Photography
Hans Albrecht Lusznat
Sound Engineer
Gregor Kuschel
Film Editor
Wolfgang Grimmeisen
Music
Mpho (Sabela)
Alibeta (Guelwar Production)
Production Management and Assistance
Niklas Goslar
Editorial Assistant
Cornelia Schöffler
Production Manager
Nicole Deblaere (NDR)
Commissioning Editors
Ulrike Dotzer
and
Wolfgang Landgraeber
produced by
Filmkraft Filmproduktion Munich
commissioned by
NDR
in co-production with
WDR
Goethe-Institute
in collaboration with
ARTE
funded by
FFHSH
© NDR (Logo) 2009
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