[Frameworks] Ethnographic films / studies of The Other

Fri May 1 19:47:02 UTC 2015

Nanook of the North is far from the cliche of a white man adventurer making
an anthropological film in a faraway place. Although it's been disparaged
that way at times, notably by Fatimah Tobing Rony, the film and Flaherty
have also been vigorously defended as a primary example of "shared
anthropology," not least by Jean Rouch. Another foundational film from this
era is "Grass," by Merian Cooper who went on to make King Kong. Grass is
not a cliched film either, for that matter. (Not that these films are free
of problems.) For more explicitly egregious examples from this era, I would
look at the films of Martin and Osa Johnson, such as "Borneo." One of their
films is imported directly (perhaps in full, I'm not sure) into Ken Jacobs'
"Star Spangled to Death," which is where I learned about them. Important to
note here that Martin and Osa currently have a clothing store chain named
after them here in the U.S. The legacy continues.

Also look at Bunuel's "Land Without Bread" for a very wicked and very early
parody of exactly what you're describing.

It's not so much that a given film personifies the cliche uncomplicatedly
(though I'm sure we can come up with more examples of that), but that much
of documentary filmmaking practice to this day replicates the conditions of
early anthropological (colonialist) uses of photography and film.
Non-diegetic music (usually a giveaway), slow-motion reaction shots
currently in vogue (of a subject saddened by tragedy, for instance),
"secret" filming (often staged as such, of course) - all of these
contribute to othering and other forms of exploitation (often ostensibly
with the opposite goal, but nonetheless...).

Some of the most shocking current videos are those made for the "social
experiment" trend on Youtube, such as:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiWxrpikWgs or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD1VT7YRJ5I. As with most things at this
level of toxicity, it would take awhile to unpack the interlocking
oppressions, both formal and societal, behind these videos and their
success. I will just note here that the self-reflexive techniques developed
by many 60s/70s ethnographic and documentary filmmakers in order to
critically examine the filmmaker's relation to subjects, are here deployed
for the opposite purpose. As I say, pretty toxic stuff.

Regarding Jean Rouch, I might disagree with Jonathan that Rouch "turns the
'other-izing' gaze of the ethnographic documentary to a group of white
Parisians" in Chronicle of a Summer. I think Chronicle is not about turning
the tables particularly, but about applying Rouch's concept of shared
anthropology in Paris rather than among the Songhay. If any tables are
turned in the film, it's on the filmmakers themselves, as evidenced by the
movie's final scene. Rouch's "Petit a Petit" (I think that's the one) does
have a hilarious scene in which Rouch's African collaborators take the
camera and mic out on the streets of Paris, turning the tables and treating
Parisians as anthropological subjects. They even take measurements of their
subjects on camera, in a parody of 19th-century anthropological
photography.

I would agree that if you're looking for films that merit "the collective
eye-roll," Flaherty, Rouch, Gardner, Mead, Asch, Marshall et al are not
where I'd turn.

Andy Ditzler

On Fri, May 1, 2015 at 1:19 PM, Jonathan Walley <walleyj at denison.edu> wrote:

> Jean Rouch and Robert Garnder come to mind. Both were prolific
> ethnographic filmmakers, but for Rouch I’d recommend *Chronicle of a
> Summer* (1960), *The Mad Masters* (1955), and *Jaguar* (1967), and for
> Garnder *Dead Birds* (1964). Chronicle is especially interesting because
> Rouch turns the “other-izing” gaze of the ethnographic documentary to a
> group of white Parisians.
>
> There are plenty of others, but Rouch and Garnder stand as the major
> figures of ethnographic documentary, at least as far as white male
> filmmakers are concerned (obviously Trinh Minh-ha and Germaine Dieterlen,
> among others, are important filmmakers in this canon, not to mention
> Margaret Mead). But I wouldn’t say that their films deserve a collective
> eye roll; if the genre has declined into cliche (I’m not saying it has,
> just that I don’t know) I wouldn’t fault these filmmakers. Certainly when
> the representatives of one culture make films about another there are all
> sorts of potential pitfalls, but Rouch and Garnder approached the task
> knowingly and reflexively. I don’t believe they worked under the assumption
> that their acts of “putting minorities onscreen” was a simple matter (and
> are the African men and women in many of their films “minorities?” They
> would be a members of a racial minority in the U.S. or Europe, but not in
> Africa, I’d say).
>
> Hope this helps.
> Jonathan
>
> Dr. Jonathan Walley
> Associate Professor
> Department of Cinema
> Denison University
> walleyj at denison.edu
>
>
> On May 1, 2015, at 12:54 PM, Chris Freeman <
> christopherbriggsfreeman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I've seen them by independent filmmakers at micro cinema screenings.  I
> mean what are the big ones that have come over the last 100 years of cinema
> that have made it a trope?  I only know Nanook of the North.
>
>
>
> On Friday, May 1, 2015, <nicky.hamlyn at talktalk.net> wrote:
>
>> You seem to contradict yourself: you say 'whenever I see' etc, but then
>> ask 'what are some (of these films)'? If you know you've seen some, how
>> come you can't identify them?
>>
>> Nicky.
>>
>>
>>
>>  -----Original Message-----
>> From: Chris Freeman <christopherbriggsfreeman at gmail.com>
>> To: frameworks at jonasmekasfilms.com
>> Sent: Fri, 1 May 2015 13:15
>> Subject: [Frameworks] Ethnographic films / studies of The Other
>>
>>  Whenever I see an ethnographic travelogue or some study of "the other"
>> by a white male at a screening, there's always a collective eye roll of
>> "great, another white male putting minorities on the screen."  I know the
>> trope, but I don't actually know any of those specific cliche films.
>> What are some?
>>
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-- 

Andy Ditzler
www.filmlove.org
www.johnq.org
Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts, Emory University
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