Ahmed Zaki is one of the many legendary figures of Egyptian cinema. During his lifetime (1949–2005), he reached the status of icon in Arab culture, since he played the roles of some of the key figures of these cultures, such as both presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat and singer Abdel Halim Hafez. In star studies, the emergence of a star is often interpreted as the sign of an era coming into being: according to Edgar Morin, Marilyn Monroe gave birth to a new liberated feminity that emerged in the second half of the 20th century (1). Walter Armbrust believes that Farid Shawqi, the popular male star of Egyptian cinema in the 1950s and 1960s, is the token of masculinity par excellence in the early Nasser era (2). Ahmed Zaki’s career can also be understood within the frame of such an interpretation. But Zaki is not just one unique figure that incarnates a single historical role: there are at least three moments in the career of the “Black Tiger” that in turn are linked to three eras in the history of Egyptian cinema and society: the post-modern era inaugurated by the early 1970s play Madrasat al-Mushaghibin (The School of Hooligans), the 1980s neorealism period, and the era of the nostalgic filmic biographies of modern cultural and political icons produced since the late 1990s.
Schools and Rebels
Madrasat al-Mushaghibin, in which Ahmad Zaki played his first principal role, is more than an ordinary commercial play that dominated the Cairo stage in the early 1970s, it is one of the cultural products that mark the beginning of the Arab post-modern era. As Paul de Man argues, the trope of the Father’s murder is central to radical supporters of modernity: one “murders” tradition in order to build modernity (3). But in the context of Arab cultures, it was the Father—the enlightened despot such as Nasser—who enforced modernization in social and political institutions. Thus, radical disenchantment with such incarnations of Arab modernity amounts to the critique of major legitimization narratives—such as those of modernity and nationalism—that is seminal to Jean-François Lyotard’s definition of the post-modern.
The students of the “school of hooligans” acted out on stage the murder of the Father figure, which encompasses all patriarchal institutions, including family, the education system and the government. Performing in the aftermath of the literal death of the Father of modern Arab societies (that is, Nasser) and three years after the Arab defeat in the 1967 war, which put an end to the Arab nationalistic mega-narrative, the actors were so impressive that most of them went on to become stage or cinema stars in Egypt. Adel Imam, for instance, has dominated comic cinema (and on stage) for more than 25 years; Said Saleh and Younes Shalabi were popular on stage for 20 years.
The influence of al-Mushaghibin was so strong that certain expressions in today’s Egyptian dialect stem directly from that play. Adel Imam’s character retorts to his father the memorable interjection translatable as, “Because you are my father, you think you have the right to steal me?” Said Saleh improvised an expression that today is used to describe an aphasic person: “The phone is unable to dial the number!” Younes Shalabi is known for having invented the now famous, “Yippee! My father burned!” These actors’ irreverence vis-à-vis the authority figure, especially that of the paterfamilias, clearly contributed to their long-term success.
Although he was sitting on the same bench, Ahmed Zaki had to wait for another decade before becoming a star himself. His own role in Madrasat al-Mushagibin was not one of a rebel. Instead, he played a young man perfectly willing to submit to law and order. He respects the symbols of authority, refrains from indulging in “reprehensible” practices (tobacco, alcohol, flirting with girls, etc.) and works hard at school. His eventual failure at school is due to the institution’s inability to recognize his special talent as a poet—a situation that changes when a new, modern-spirited teacher joins the staff. In short, his character did not draw attention because it was one of a conformist, especially when compared to the play’s other characters, who expressed the outrage of Arab youth in the early 1970s. Zaki was reproducing the traditional melodramatic archetype of victimized youth; furthermore, his character was an orphan, so he literally had no father against whom he could rebel.
Neorealism and New realities
Ahmed Zaki’s consecration in cinema, at least in terms of critical appreciation, came with the beginning of Egyptian neorealism. He incarnates this type of cinema born in 1981, according to the consensus of historians. He played the taxi driver in Tayer ‘ala al-Tariq (A Bird on the Road, 1981), by Mohamed Khan, the journalist in Khairy Beshara’s Awwamah 70 (Barge Number 70, 1982), and the young government employee in Hubb fawq Habadat al-Ahram (Love on the Pyramids Plateau, 1984), directed by Atef al-Tayeb and adapted from a short story by Naguib Mahfouz.
Yet he confirmed his status as a star thanks only to a successful film that mixes realist aesthetics and an “imported” commercial sensibility. In 1984’s Al Nimr Al Aswad (The Black Tiger), he plays an Egyptian immigrant to Germany who became a famous boxer. This film—which is among the last ones made by Atef Salem, an icon of Egyptian realism in the 1960s and 1970s—clearly “quoted” the Rocky cycle, the Hollywood films featuring Sylvester Stallone. At the heart of the narrative is the rise of a boxer who overcomes his modest social origins and establishes himself with a spectacular victory in an important fight. The editing and the framing of the training and fight scenes are obvious reproductions of the Rocky films. But the Egyptian film was perceived as realist because it was based on a true story and it had a “patriotic” social dimension: it was about an Egyptian fighting racial prejudice in Europe, thus establishing himself as a sportsman in a hostile environment. In any case, The Black Tiger’s fight scenes make it highly entertaining, and the film satisfied critics as well, thanks to its restrained reliance on pathos, compared with the traditional melodramatic trend.
But most importantly, the title of the film gave Ahmed Zaki his nickname, one that emphasized his ethnic difference. Physically, Ahmed Zaki stood apart from the majority of stars, with their sleek hair and fancy clothes, who had until then dominated the Egyptian “Nile-wood” cinema. His frizzy hair and dark skin, his Nubian features, his untidy clothes, simple and often casual, contrasted with the usual look and outfits of Arab stars. Because it was strikingly different from the dominant visual code of the time, Ahmed Zaki’s presence seemed “realistic” and his type closer to that of “real people.” Moreover, the characters he portrayed belong to disempowered social categories that were rarely at the center of a film narrative before 1981.
Although an icon of Egyptian cinematographic neorealism, Ahmed Zaki did not appear in the two films that gave birth to that cinematic trend. It was Nour El-Cherif, enfant terrible of Egyptian cinema of the 1970s, who starred in Sawaq al-Utubis (The Bus Driver, 1981) by Atef al-Tayeb and Ahl al-Qima (Upper Crust, 1981) by Ali Badrakhan . El-Cherif had the charm of a funny adolescent, slightly impertinent and quietly rebellious; he was handsome but not icy, and he often dressed informally. Yet it was Ahmed Zaki who radicalized the tendency to refuse the clothing of business executives and ban the suit in cinema, especially because the characters he played came from outside the usual middle class. In his films, Zaki often plays a marginalized character, whereas El-Cherif in the 1970s was just a rebel within his own middle class. The latter had the fair skin of typical Arab cinema stars, but Zaki set a precedent in a context where actors with Nubian features were entitled only to stereotyped characters belonging to subaltern social roles, such as doormen and butlers. The dissolution of the middle-class norm imposed by the Nasser era paved the way to new subcultures in the 1980s as well as to new types of masculine beauties, until then marginalized by the norm. Economic liberalization in the 1980s also decolonized the territory of stars’ looks (5). Yet, just as Sidney Poitier remained for a long time the sole African-American star in Hollywood, Ahmed Zaki has so far been the only star with Nubian features on the Egyptian screen.
