[Frameworks] Ethnographic films / studies of The Other

Fri May 1 20:50:51 UTC 2015

Thanks, Dennis, for this much more nuanced view on the Johnsons' films.

Andy Ditzler

On Fri, May 1, 2015 at 4:12 PM, Dennis Doros <milefilms at gmail.com> wrote:

> There's also many more considerations in this question as we have found
> out over the years.
>
> As Andy points out, the Martin and Osa Johnson theatrical films have some
> fairly racist elements to them. We released SIMBA as the most inoffensive
> (and their most famous) film and worked with experts of the area to see
> what they thought. Most times when we release these
> documentaries/docudramas (and we have a lot of them in our Age of
> Exploration series that is in its 25th year), it's that many of these films
> are seen now -- even if they have white directors -- as literally home
> movies. There are the great grandfathers, grand aunts that they have only
> heard about or seen in pictures up on the screen. Over the years, we've had
> hundreds of these phone calls from the children who are very thankful. That
> doesn't excuse any racism -- though some should be seen in context of the
> time they were made, we should also consider that they were racist even
> back then -- but it does add a layer.
>
> The second concept is that in these films, there are cultural artifacts
> that are very valuable to their descendants. Some of the dances, the
> rituals, the art have been lost to time and modernization while some were
> outlawed. You can't understand them as well in photographs or writings from
> the time. We have a film CHANG that a film historian insisted it was
> racist. When I explained that it's a national treasure of Thailand (at the
> time, this was 1994 or so) and that the King played it every year on
> television since it was so popular, the historian declared that the people
> of Thailand obviously didn't understand racism!
>
> The third and most important concept is that some of these directors were
> as "modern" as we are and as in love and respectful of the cultures and
> people. It's always a mistake to consider previous generations as more
> primitive or less socially aware. (We're not doing so great with race in
> America these days either.) So! although the Martin and Osa theatrical
> films did have some typical old tribesmen trying to play a phonograph or
> open a bottle of beer (Flaherty started this with Nanook) because that's
> what they thought the American public wanted, it's little known that they
> also had at least six different version of the films and their "scientific"
> versions that they did for the American Museum of Natural History are
> incredible records of "lost" tribes and rituals. You can see the love they
> have for the African tribes in these films and in their huge number of
> photographs (many of their trips were sponsored by George Eastman and
> therefore, Kodak). I have the George Eastman House laserdisc with about
> 6000 of their photos and they are incredibly moving.
>
> So, there are many racist films by white directors over the history of
> cinema (Adam Sandler and the Navahos, just last week!) but I do think that
> they need to be evaluated not only by film historians but also members of
> the tribe, people who know the cultures extremely well, etc. We really try
> to work with the tribes and people involved in these films before we
> release to make sure we are not doing anything that would displease their
> communities, and they always find something that we can do to be more
> respectful in our release.
>
>
> Best regards,
> Dennis Doros
> Milestone Film & Video
> PO Box 128 / Harrington Park, NJ 07640
> Phone: 201-767-3117 / Fax: 201-767-3035 / Email: milefilms at gmail.com
>
> Visit our main website!  www.milestonefilms.com
> Visit our new websites!  www.mspresents.com, www.portraitofjason.com,
> www.shirleyclarkefilms.com,
> To see or download our 2014 Video Catalog, click here
> <http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0150/7896/files/2014MilestoneVideoCatalog.pdf?75>
> !
>
>
> Support "Milestone Film" on Facebook
> <http://www.facebook.com/pages/Milestone-Film/22348485426> and Twitter
> <https://twitter.com/#!/MilestoneFilms>!
>
>
> On Fri, May 1, 2015 at 3:47 PM, Andy Ditzler <andy at andyditzler.com> wrote:
>
>> 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?
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> FrameWorks mailing listFrameWorks at jonasmekasfilms.comhttps://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
>>>>
>>>>   _______________________________________________
>>> FrameWorks mailing list
>>> FrameWorks at jonasmekasfilms.com
>>> https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> FrameWorks mailing list
>>> FrameWorks at jonasmekasfilms.com
>>> https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Andy Ditzler
>> www.filmlove.org
>> www.johnq.org
>> Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts, Emory University
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> FrameWorks mailing list
>> FrameWorks at jonasmekasfilms.com
>> https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> FrameWorks mailing list
> FrameWorks at jonasmekasfilms.com
> https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
>
>

-- 

Andy Ditzler
www.filmlove.org
www.johnq.org
Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts, Emory University
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/pipermail/frameworks/attachments/20150501/d777c2ff/attachment.html>