The ‘‘Great White” of Lambarene
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The film depicts Albert Schweitzer as the ultimate figurehead of white supremacy,
which masqueraded as "benevolent” and "great” within the colonialist system.
Here, we observe the "great white” imperial man as paternalistic, disrespectful,
egotistical and ultimately blind to his own failure to connect with the very people
he claims to love. His failure is tragic. His depiction is not at all one-sided, however.
Schweitzer conforms to African perceptions of whiteness: he is sometimes a
caricature, theatrical, obsequious, affected, ruled by time and by his own inability
to view life through a decolonized gaze, but he is nevertheless portrayed as a human
being who is multi-faceted and beyond white stereotype.
To some degree. The ''Great White ” leads us to the conclusion that Albert
Schweitzer was unable to define himself and unable to move beyond the boundaries
of whiteness and a white imperial mentality. His paternalistic attitude towards his
employees, and especially Koumba, the young boy who announces his intention to
become a doctor, is a critique of whiteness. There is a strong subtext in this film
that suggests that white blindness made it impossible for Schweitzer to truly respect
cultural difference. For example, Schweitzer’s arrogance and paternalism is
displayed by his lack of desire to learn the languages of Africa, or to learn from
African medicine men. In addition, Schweitzer is limited by his white imperialist
understanding of sexuality and kinship systems. Early in the film, for example,
Schweitzer treats an African woman who has gonorrhea. He lectures her on
sexuality, "It’s not like food! You can do without.” What he totally misses is that
he has shown her a lack of respect, and asked her to disobey her husband.
At another point in the film, Schweitzer visits a respected griot, or
storyteller, out of desperation, seeking the secret of the iboga. Schweitzer’s attempt
to purchase the secret is summarily refused. The griot explains that he cannot sell
Schweitzer the information, and besides, the medicine is owned by the people and
he must have the pennission of the chief Though seemingly in control of his hospital
compound, Schweitzer expresses in this scene his own fear of that which he cannot
comprehend, of the forces he calls the "darker powers.” In a subsequent scene,
Schweitzer’s wife Helene is teased by one of her servants for being afraid of the
cries of the forest animals in the night. "They eat men,” the servant teases Helene,
who seems very ill at ease throughout the film, confined by her position as
Schweitzer’s silent wife, a witness to events that she cannot control or predict.
Schweitzer is not only trapped by his whiteness but he is defined by it in
ways that mean he must continue the upkeep and maintenance of being the "Great
White Man.” This is remarkably demonstrated by the sequences involving
Schweitzer playing the organ and tiying to drown out the sounds of African drums
outside his window. It is both pathetic and telling that Schweitzer literally tries to
erase the sound of African culture, either with European music, particularly Bach,
or the sound of his own voice, lecturing on the "greatness” of the Bible. As an