Johannesburg in Transition: Representing Street Encounters as Racial Registers in Clint Eastwood's Invictus

Clint Eastwood's Invictus (2009) uses subtle interplay between various cinematic elements, including a social realist approach to the political narrative of a 1990s Johannesburg and dynamic framing of the street to reflect the changing political psyche of the city as it transitioned from apartheid to racial coexistence and finally racial cohesion. Yet, when read within the context of the political transition that the film pursues and the incipient symbols of unity including the erstwhile segregated streets, these cinematic devices index problematic racial encounters. This article puts forth the argument that the film's urgency to connect the races paradoxically posits the character of Nelson Mandela as a vortex of an unbridgeable race gap, and the street as the ultimate racial register of this stalled linkage. Representations of a cohesive Johannesburg through Mandela's perspective, the article argues, is countered by the film's formal devices.