Ethnographic film
Encyclopedia
An ethnographic film is a documentary film
related to the methods of ethnology
. It emerged in the 1960s as an important tool for research in the domain of visual anthropology
, when filming human groups in society. There are two main types of ethnographic films: those created specifically by ethnographers in the course of their professional work and those created by others, but used in the study of culture. Programs in visual anthropology train professionals to make the first kind of film; Hollywood movies, documentaries by non-anthropologists and even home movies and Youtube fall into the second category. While the actual medium of "film" is strongly associated with early ethnographic attempts, today ethnographic films are made in video
and digital media
as well, and may contain elements of text and animation.
Gregory Bateson
discovered in the 1930s that using film, frame by frame, was an essential component of documenting complex rituals in New Guinea; John Marshall
made what is likely the most-viewed ethnographic film in American colleges (The Hunters
), his filming of the Ju/'hoansi of the Kalahari (the !Kung-San) spans from 1951 to 2000. His ethnographic film N!ai, the Story of a !Kung Woman
is not only ethnography but also a biography of the central character, N!ai, incorporating footage from her childhood through adulthood. Napoleon Chagnon
and Tim Asch
's two famous films, The Ax Fight
and The Feast (filmed in the 1960s) are rarely forgotten by those who get the chance to view this up close and carefully documented ethnographic account of an Amazonian rainforest people, the Yanomamo. Robert Gardner
and Karl Heider
were among the first to carefully plan to use filming and editing as crucial research techniques, resulting in the classic multi-point of view Dead Birds (1964), while David Mayberry-Lewis was among the first to receive enough funding to send many video cameras into the field, in one field setting, gaining multiple simultaneous points of view.
is often considered as the forefather of ethnographic film. His film Nanook of the North
falls into the second category, combining home movie, documentary and stagecraft. Flaherty's attempts to realistically portray Inuit people (although he actually used actors and staged a good deal of the production) were nevertheless valuable pictures of a little-known way of life, and with good reason, viewers saw his films as "real." Flaherty had no method of study nor training in anthropology, but he did have good relationships with his subjects, at least most of the time.
The genre flourished in France in the sixties due to the role of ethnographers as Marcel Griaule
, Germaine Dieterlen
and Jean Rouch
. Light 16 mm
cameras synchronized with light tape-recorders would revolutionise the methods of both cinema and anthropology, founding a new discipline, visual anthropology
.
Rouch, who has developed the concept in theory and practice, went against the dogma that in research, the camera must stay out of the event, taking some distance, as simple observer. He decided to make the camera interfere and he himself became an actor in the action and so became one of the pioneers of docufiction
. This was of course earlier deemed the "observer effect
" by Gregory Bateson, who was perhaps unaware of the dogma Rouch was attempting to violate. Bateson, as one of the earliest to write about using cameras in the studies of humans, was not only aware of the observer effect, but both he and his partner, Margaret Mead, wrote about many ways of dealing theoretically and practically of that effect.
The Academy Award-winning film Black Orpheus
can be considered another milestone in the second category. Much like Flaherty's work, director and producer Marcel Camus strove to depict the mythos of a culture, in his case, a favela
in Rio de Janeiro
at the time of Carnaval
. He managed to preserve some of the few scenes of a mid-20th century Carnaval, as most scenes were filmed without preparation. The actors were hired, but the extras were real participants.
founders
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
related to the methods of ethnology
Ethnology
Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...
. It emerged in the 1960s as an important tool for research in the domain of visual anthropology
Visual anthropology
Visual anthropology is a subfield of cultural anthropology that is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media...
, when filming human groups in society. There are two main types of ethnographic films: those created specifically by ethnographers in the course of their professional work and those created by others, but used in the study of culture. Programs in visual anthropology train professionals to make the first kind of film; Hollywood movies, documentaries by non-anthropologists and even home movies and Youtube fall into the second category. While the actual medium of "film" is strongly associated with early ethnographic attempts, today ethnographic films are made in video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
and digital media
Digital media
Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital form. It can refer to the technical aspect of storage and transmission Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital (as opposed to analog) form. It can refer to the technical aspect of...
as well, and may contain elements of text and animation.
Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. He had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe...
discovered in the 1930s that using film, frame by frame, was an essential component of documenting complex rituals in New Guinea; John Marshall
John Marshall (filmmaker)
John Marshall was an American anthropologist and acclaimed documentary filmmaker best known for his work in Namibia recording the lives of the Ju/'hoansi tribe...
made what is likely the most-viewed ethnographic film in American colleges (The Hunters
The Hunters (1957 film)
The Hunters is a 1957 ethnographic film about a giraffe hunt in the Kalahari Desert by four members of the JuǀʼHoansi tribe. The footage was shot by John Marshall during a Smithsonian-Harvard Peabody sponsored expedition in 1952–53....
), his filming of the Ju/'hoansi of the Kalahari (the !Kung-San) spans from 1951 to 2000. His ethnographic film N!ai, the Story of a !Kung Woman
N!ai, the Story of a !Kung Woman
N!ai, the Story of a !Kung Woman is a film by ethnographic filmmaker John Marshall.The film was first broadcast in 1980 as part of the Odyssey series on PBS and is distributed by Documentary Educational Resources....
is not only ethnography but also a biography of the central character, N!ai, incorporating footage from her childhood through adulthood. Napoleon Chagnon
Napoleon Chagnon
Napoleon A. Chagnon is an American anthropologist and retired professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was born in Port Austin, Michigan...
and Tim Asch
Tim Asch
Timothy Asch , was a noted anthropologist, photographer, and ethnographic filmmaker. Along with John Marshall and Robert Gardner, Asch played an important role in the development of visual anthropology...
's two famous films, The Ax Fight
The Ax Fight
The Ax Fight is an ethnographic film by anthropologist and filmmaker Tim Asch, his wife Patsy Asch, and anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon about a conflict in a Yanomami village called Mishimishimabowei-teri, in southern Venezuela...
and The Feast (filmed in the 1960s) are rarely forgotten by those who get the chance to view this up close and carefully documented ethnographic account of an Amazonian rainforest people, the Yanomamo. Robert Gardner
Robert Gardner (academic)
Robert Gardner is a Scottish Canadian television writer, director and producer. He is a professor emeritus of Ryerson University, having served three times as Chair of the School of Radio and Television Arts before retiring in 2003....
and Karl Heider
Karl G. Heider
Karl Heider is an American visual anthropologist.-Early life and education:Heider was born in Northampton, Massachusetts. Heider is the son of psychologists Fritz and Grace Heider. He had two brothers; John and Stephan....
were among the first to carefully plan to use filming and editing as crucial research techniques, resulting in the classic multi-point of view Dead Birds (1964), while David Mayberry-Lewis was among the first to receive enough funding to send many video cameras into the field, in one field setting, gaining multiple simultaneous points of view.
Origins
Prospector, explorer and, eventual filmmaker Robert J. FlahertyRobert J. Flaherty
Robert Joseph Flaherty, F.R.G.S. was an American filmmaker who directed and produced the first commercially successful feature length documentary film, Nanook of the North...
is often considered as the forefather of ethnographic film. His film Nanook of the North
Nanook of the North
Nanook of the North is a 1922 silent documentary film by Robert J. Flaherty. In the tradition of what would later be called salvage ethnography, Flaherty captured the struggles of the Inuk Nanook and his family in the Canadian arctic...
falls into the second category, combining home movie, documentary and stagecraft. Flaherty's attempts to realistically portray Inuit people (although he actually used actors and staged a good deal of the production) were nevertheless valuable pictures of a little-known way of life, and with good reason, viewers saw his films as "real." Flaherty had no method of study nor training in anthropology, but he did have good relationships with his subjects, at least most of the time.
The genre flourished in France in the sixties due to the role of ethnographers as Marcel Griaule
Marcel Griaule
Marcel Griaule was a French anthropologist known for his studies of the Dogon people of West Africa, and for pioneering ethnographic field studies in France....
, Germaine Dieterlen
Germaine Dieterlen
Germaine Dieterlen was a French anthropologist. She was a student of Marcel Mauss and wrote on a large range of ethnographic topics and made pioneering contributions to the study of myths, initiations, techniques , graphic systems, objects, classifications, ritual and social structure.She is most...
and Jean Rouch
Jean Rouch
Jean Rouch was a French filmmaker and anthropologist.He is considered to be one of the founders of the cinéma vérité in France, which shared the aesthetics of the direct cinema spearheaded by Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker and Albert and David Maysles...
. Light 16 mm
16 mm film
16 mm film refers to a popular, economical gauge of film used for motion pictures and non-theatrical film making. 16 mm refers to the width of the film...
cameras synchronized with light tape-recorders would revolutionise the methods of both cinema and anthropology, founding a new discipline, visual anthropology
Visual anthropology
Visual anthropology is a subfield of cultural anthropology that is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media...
.
Rouch, who has developed the concept in theory and practice, went against the dogma that in research, the camera must stay out of the event, taking some distance, as simple observer. He decided to make the camera interfere and he himself became an actor in the action and so became one of the pioneers of docufiction
Docufiction
Docufiction is a neologism which refers to the cinematographic combination of documentary and fiction. More precisely, it is a documentary contaminated with fictional elements, in real time, filmed when the events take place, and in which someone - the character - plays his own role in real life...
. This was of course earlier deemed the "observer effect
Observer-expectancy effect
The observer-expectancy effect is a form of reactivity, in which a researcher's cognitive bias causes them to unconsciously influence the participants of an experiment...
" by Gregory Bateson, who was perhaps unaware of the dogma Rouch was attempting to violate. Bateson, as one of the earliest to write about using cameras in the studies of humans, was not only aware of the observer effect, but both he and his partner, Margaret Mead, wrote about many ways of dealing theoretically and practically of that effect.
The Academy Award-winning film Black Orpheus
Black Orpheus
Black Orpheus is a 1959 film made in Brazil by French director Marcel Camus. It is based on the play Orfeu da Conceição by Vinicius de Moraes, which is an adaptation of the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, setting it in the modern context of a favela in Rio de Janeiro during the Carnaval...
can be considered another milestone in the second category. Much like Flaherty's work, director and producer Marcel Camus strove to depict the mythos of a culture, in his case, a favela
Favela
A favela is the generally used term for a shanty town in Brazil. In the late 18th century, the first settlements were called bairros africanos . This was the place where former slaves with no land ownership and no options for work lived. Over the years, many freed black slaves moved in...
in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
at the time of Carnaval
Brazilian Carnival
The Carnival of Brazil is an annual festival held forty-six days before Easter. On certain days of Lent, Roman Catholics and some other Christians traditionally abstained from the consumption of meat and poultry, hence the term "carnival," from carnelevare, "to remove meat." Carnival celebrations...
. He managed to preserve some of the few scenes of a mid-20th century Carnaval, as most scenes were filmed without preparation. The actors were hired, but the extras were real participants.
See also
- Visual anthropologyVisual anthropologyVisual anthropology is a subfield of cultural anthropology that is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media...
- Direct CinemaDirect CinemaDirect Cinema is a documentary genre that originated between 1958 and 1962 in North America, principally in the Canadian province of Quebec and the United States...
- DocufictionDocufictionDocufiction is a neologism which refers to the cinematographic combination of documentary and fiction. More precisely, it is a documentary contaminated with fictional elements, in real time, filmed when the events take place, and in which someone - the character - plays his own role in real life...
- EthnofictionEthnofictionEthnofiction is a neologism which refers to an ethnographic docufiction sub-genre, a blend of documentary and fiction film in the area of visual anthropology. It is a film style in which the portrayed characters play their own roles as members of an ethnic or social group.Jean Rouch is considered...
- Salvage ethnographySalvage ethnographySalvage ethnography is a term used by anthropologists beginning in the 1960s used as part of a critique of 19th century ethnography and early modern anthropology. The term was coined by Jacob Gruber, who identified its emergence with 19th century ethnographers documenting the languages of peoples...
founders
- Mikhail KalatozovMikhail KalatozovMikhail Kalatozov born Mikheil Kalatozishvili was a Georgian/Russian film director. Born in Tiflis , he studied economics before starting his film career as an actor and later cinematographer....
- Gregory BatesonGregory BatesonGregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. He had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe...
- John MarshallJohn Marshall (filmmaker)John Marshall was an American anthropologist and acclaimed documentary filmmaker best known for his work in Namibia recording the lives of the Ju/'hoansi tribe...
- Marcel GriauleMarcel GriauleMarcel Griaule was a French anthropologist known for his studies of the Dogon people of West Africa, and for pioneering ethnographic field studies in France....
- Germaine DieterlenGermaine DieterlenGermaine Dieterlen was a French anthropologist. She was a student of Marcel Mauss and wrote on a large range of ethnographic topics and made pioneering contributions to the study of myths, initiations, techniques , graphic systems, objects, classifications, ritual and social structure.She is most...
- Jean RouchJean RouchJean Rouch was a French filmmaker and anthropologist.He is considered to be one of the founders of the cinéma vérité in France, which shared the aesthetics of the direct cinema spearheaded by Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker and Albert and David Maysles...
- Tim AschTim AschTimothy Asch , was a noted anthropologist, photographer, and ethnographic filmmaker. Along with John Marshall and Robert Gardner, Asch played an important role in the development of visual anthropology...
- Karl HeiderKarl G. HeiderKarl Heider is an American visual anthropologist.-Early life and education:Heider was born in Northampton, Massachusetts. Heider is the son of psychologists Fritz and Grace Heider. He had two brothers; John and Stephan....
Further readings
- Loizos, Peter: Innovation in Ethnographic Film: From Innocence to Self-Consciousness, 1955-1985, University of Chicago Press, 2nd edition 1993, ISBN 0226492273
- MacDougall, David: Transcultural Cinema, Princeton University Press 1998, ISBN 0-691-01234-2
- Ruby, Jay: Picturing Culture. Explorations of Film and Anthropology. University of Chicago Press 2000, ISBN 9780226730981
External links
- The Death of Ethnographic Film - Article by Jay RubyJay RubyJay Ruby is an American scholar who was a professor in the at Temple University until his recent retirement. He received his B.A. in History and Ph.D...
- The Promise of Ethnographic Film – Article by Paul Hanlay
- The Emergence of Ethnographic Film Practice: Past Travels and Future Itineraries – Article by Prerana Reddy
- Ethnographic Cinema - Note by Jay Ruby
- Definition - Encyclopaedia Britannica\
- Legends Asch and Myerhoff Inspire A New Generation of Visual Anthropologists - article by Susan Andrews http://college.usc.edu/news/stories/634/legends-asch-and-myerhoff-inspire-a-new-generation-of-visual-ant/
- Articles on Fieldwork