Innovation In Ethnographic Film

This study is an analysis of recent innovation in ethnographic films during a period of rapid growth and change, written for anthropologists who would pay more systematic attention to films for research or teaching, and for film-makers who would make their films more serviceable to anthropology.

In the first coprehensive introduction to the nature and development of ethnographic film, Peter Loizos reviews fifty of the most important films made between 1955 and 1985. Going beyond programmatic statements, he analyzes the films themselves, identifying and discussing their contributions to ethnographic documentation. Loizos begins by reviewing works of John Marshall and Timothy Asch in the 1950s and moves through those of Jean Rouch, Robert Gardner, and many more recent filmmakers. He reveals a steady course of innovations along four dimensions: production technology, subject matter, strategies of argument, and ethnographic authentication. His analyses of individual films address questions of realism, authenticity, genre, authorial and subjective voice, and representation of the films' creators as well as their subjects. Innovation in Ethnographic Film, as a systematic and iluminating review of developments in ethnographic film, will be an important resource for the growing number of anthropologists and other scholars who use such films as tools for research and teaching.

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. Beyond Observation is structured by the argument that the ‘ethnographicness’ of a film should not be determined by the fact that it is about an exotic culture – the popular view – nor because it has apparently not been authored – a long-standing academic view – but rather because it adheres to the norms of ethnographic practice more generally. On these grounds, the book covers a large number of films made in a broad range of styles across a 120-year period, from the Arctic to Africa, from the cities of China to rural Vermont. Paul Henley discusses films made within reportage, exotic melodrama and travelogue genres in the period before the Second World War, as well as more conventionally ethnographic films made for academic or state-funded educational purposes. The book explores the work of film-makers such as John Marshall, Asen Balikci, Ian Dunlop and Timothy Asch in the post-war period, considering ideas about authorship developed by Jean Rouch, Robert Gardner and Colin Young. It also discusses films authored by indigenous subjects themselves using the new video technology of the 1970s and the ethnographic films that flourished on British television until the 1990s. In the final part of the book, Henley examines the recent work of David and Judith MacDougall and the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab, before concluding with an assessmentof a range of films authored in a participatory manner as possible future models.

From reviews of the first edition: “Ethnographic Film can rightly be considered a film primer for anthropologists.” —Choice “This is an interesting and useful book about what it means to be ethnographic and how this might affect ethnographic filmmaking for the better. It obviously belongs in all departments of anthropology, and most ethnographic filmmakers will want to read it.” —Ethnohistory Even before Robert Flaherty released Nanook of the North in 1922, anthropologists were producing films about the lifeways of native peoples for a public audience, as well as for research and teaching. Ethnographic Film (1976) was one of the first books to provide a comprehensive introduction to this field of visual anthropology, and it quickly became the standard reference. In this new edition, Karl G. Heider thoroughly updates Ethnographic Film to reflect developments in the field over the three decades since its publication, focusing on the work of four seminal filmmakers—Jean Rouch, John Marshall, Robert Gardner, and Timothy Asch. He begins with an introduction to ethnographic film and a history of the medium. He then considers many attributes of ethnographic film, including the crucial need to present "whole acts," "whole bodies," "whole interactions," and "whole people" to preserve the integrity of the cultural context. Heider also discusses numerous aspects of making ethnographic films, from ethics and finances to technical considerations such as film versus video and preserving the filmed record. He concludes with a look at using ethnographic film in teaching.

Charting the intersection of technology and ideology, cultural production and social science, Fatimah Tobing Rony explores early-twentieth-century representations of non-Western indigenous peoples in films ranging from the documentary to the spectacular to the scientific. Turning the gaze of the ethnographic camera back onto itself, bringing the perspective of a third eye to bear on the invention of the primitive other, Rony reveals the collaboration of anthropology and popular culture in Western constructions of race, gender, nation, and empire. Her work demonstrates the significance of these constructions--and, more generally, of ethnographic cinema--for understanding issues of identity. In films as seemingly dissimilar as Nanook of the North, King Kong, and research footage of West Africans from an 1895 Paris ethnographic exposition, Rony exposes a shared fascination with--and anxiety over--race. She shows how photographic "realism" contributed to popular and scientific notions of evolution, race, and civilization, and how, in turn, anthropology understood and critiqued its own use of photographic technology. Looking beyond negative Western images of the Other, Rony considers performance strategies that disrupt these images--for example, the use of open resistance, recontextualization, and parody in the films of Katherine Dunham and Zora Neale Hurston, or the performances of Josephine Baker. She also draws on the work of contemporary artists such as Lorna Simpson and Victor Masayesva Jr., and writers such as Frantz Fanon and James Baldwin, who unveil the language of racialization in ethnographic cinema. Elegantly written and richly illustrated, innovative in theory and original in method, The Third Eye is a remarkable interdisciplinary contribution to critical thought in film studies, anthropology, cultural studies, art history, postcolonial studies, and women's studies.

The Routledge International Handbook of Ethnographic Film and Video is a state-of-the-art book which encompasses the breadth and depth of the field of ethnographic film and video-based research. With more and more researchers turning to film and video as a key element of their projects, and as research video production becomes more practical due to technological advances as well as the growing acceptance of video in everyday life, this critical book supports young researchers looking to develop the skills necessary to produce meaningful ethnographic films and videos, and serves as a comprehensive resource for social scientists looking to better understand and appreciate the unique ways in which film and video can serve as ways of knowing and as tools of knowledge mobilization. Comprised of 31 chapters authored by some of the world’s leading experts in their respective fields, the book’s contributors synthesize existing literature, introduce the historical and conceptual dimensions of the field, illustrate innovative methodologies and techniques, survey traditional and new technologies, reflect on ethics and moral imperatives, outline ways to work with people, objects, and tools, and shape the future agenda of the field. With a particular focus on making ethnographic film and video, as opposed to analyzing or critiquing it, from a variety of methodological approaches and styles, the Handbook provides both a comprehensive introduction and up-to-date survey of the field for a vast variety of audiovisual researchers, such as scholars and students in sociology, anthropology, geography, communication and media studies, education, cultural studies, film studies, visual arts, and related social science and humanities. As such, it will appeal to a multidisciplinary and international audience, and features a dynamic, forward-thinking, innovative, and contemporary focus oriented toward the very latest developments in the field, as well as future possibilities.

A sophisticated theoretical consideration of the related aesthetics and histories of ethnographic and experimental non-fiction films.

One of the most influential figures in documentary and ethnographic filmmaking, Jean Rouch has made more than one hundred films in West Africa and France. In such acclaimed works as Jaguar, The Lion Hunters, and Cocorico, Monsieur Poulet, Rouch has explored racism, colonialism, African modernity, religious ritual, and music. He pioneered numerous film techniques and technologies, and in the process inspired generations of filmmakers, from New Wave directors, who emulated his cinema verite style, to today's documentarians. Cine-Ethnography is a long-overdue English-language resource that collects Rouch's key writings, interviews, and other materials that distill his thinking on filmmaking, ethnography, and his own career. Editor Steven Feld opens with a concise overview of Rouch's career, highlighting the themes found throughout his work. In the four essays that follow, Rouch discusses the ethnographic film as a genre, the history of African cinema, his experiences of filmmaking among the Songhay, and the intertwined histories of French colonialism, anthropology, and cinema. And in four interviews, Rouch thoughtfully reflects on each of his films, as well as his artistic, intellectual, and political concerns. Cine-Ethnography also contains an annotated transcript of Chronicle of a Summer--one of Rouch's most important works--along with commentary by the filmmakers, and concludes with a complete, annotated filmography and a bibliography. The most thorough resource on Rouch available in any language, Cine-Ethnography makes clear this remarkable and still vital filmmaker's major role in the history of documentary cinema.

Video Ethnography in Practice is a brief guide for students in the social disciplines who are required to produce an ethnographic video, the most significant new methodological technique in 21st century social analysis. It shows students at any level how to plan, shoot, and edit their own ethnographic videos within three weeks using desktop technology and widely available software.