[Frameworks] Ethnographic films / studies of The Other

Fri May 1 20:53:18 UTC 2015

Andy, I knew you'd like all that!

Best regards,
Dennis Doros
Milestone Film & Video
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Phone: 201-767-3117 / Fax: 201-767-3035 / Email: milefilms at gmail.com

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On Fri, May 1, 2015 at 4:50 PM, Andy Ditzler <andy at andyditzler.com> wrote:

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