The Cinema of Darrell James Roodt

Abstract

THE JOURNEYS OF THE MARGINALISED: THE CINEMA OF DARRELL JAMES ROODT South African director Darrell James Roodt is one of the most dominant and prolific figures in the South African film industry (Armes 2008: 112), having made a total number of 34 feature films and several television series to date. Surprisingly, few academics have devoted chapters in books or doctorate dissertations to his work (Blignaut & Botha 1992; Botha & Van Aswegen 1992; Murphy & Williams 2007; Treffry-Goatley 2010). Roodt's oeuvre includes some of the milestones in South African cinema since 1980s, as well as genre films such as Dracula 3000 (2004) which received negative notices by critics (Murphy & Williams 2007). This article forms part of an ongoing investigation into the cinema of Roodt and is a follow-up to an earlier attempt to explore some of the major themes in his oeuvre (Botha 2011). Darrell Roodt was born...