Au rythme des percussions : tambours rada et images exotiques territorialisées dans les films de zombis (et de) vaudou

Abstract

Ever since the release of White Zombie (Halperin, 1932) and the subsequent golden age of voodoo zombi films from the 1930s to the 1950s, on-screen representations of voodoo have regularly relied on motifs and leitmotifs that exacerbate the exoticism of these practices. Already described in detail in travelogues such as The Magic Island (Seabrook, 1929), ceremonial drums became a staple of an imaginary form of voodoo, on which many sensationalistic representations of these practices have been based. The Voodoo rada drums exoticize the cinematic spaces of Haiti and the Caribbean and affect the temporalities of these films. The resulting cinematic geography is as much musical as filmic. This article analyzes the role of music in the creation of an audiovisual geography that projects visual and musical Otherness onto Haitian and Caribbean cinematic spaces.

Keywords

• cinema
• Caribbean
• music
• voodoo
• rada drums
• United States