October 25, 2016 (XXXIII:9) Sarah Elder and Leonard Kamerling: DRUMS OF WINTER (1988), 90 min.

(The online version of this handout has color images and hot url links.) UKSUUM CAUYAI: THE DRUMS OF WINTER Director, Producer, Writer… Sarah Elder and Leonard Directed by Sarah Elder and Leonard Kamerling Kamerling Editor…Sarah Elder Cinematographer…Leonard Kamerling Sound recordist…Sarah Elder Yup’ik language and culture consultant… Walkie Charles Re-recording mixer…Mel Zelniker Presented by…Emmonak Singers and Dancers and the Alaska Native Heritage Film Project

Awards 1991, Flaherty International Film Seminars, Riga, Latvia, National Film Registry, 2006 1990, Hawaii International Film Festival, Honolulu, 1989, The Best of the Mead, Margaret Mead Film Festival, 25 Neighbor Islands Festival Week of the Hawaii Year Anniversary, Osaka, Japan, 2000 International Film Festival, Kauai, Kona, and Hilo, 1989, Best Documentary, Best Doc. Director, Best Anthropos International Film Festival, Los Angeles, 1989, Cinematography, Festival of the Native Americas, Santa Musica Dei Popoli Festival of Ethnomusicology Films, Fe, 1996 Florence, Italy, 1989,Tallin International Ethnographic The Heritage Award, Alaska International Film Festival, Film Festival, Estonia USSR, 1988, Margaret Mead Film Anchorage, 1995 Festival, American Premier, New York, September 1988 Award of Excellence, American Anthropological Assoc., New Orleans, 1991 SARAH ELDER (b.1947) is an international award Special Commendation, Royal Anthropological Institute, winning documentary filmmaker and Professor of Film in International Ethnographic Film Festival, Manchester, the Department of Media Study in the University at UK, 1990 Buffalo. Her documentary career focuses on the ethics and Grand Prix Best of Festival, Third International Arctic challenges of filming across cultural boundaries and Film Festival, Fermo, Italy, 1989 explores the political and moral consequences of filming First Prize, Blue Ribbon, American Film Festival, real people. Working in rural Alaska for 30 years, Elder Chicago, 1989 collaborated with Alaska Native communities and Silver Apple Award, Educational Film and Video Festival, pioneered a new community-collaborative approach to San Francisco, 1989 making in which the individuals and the communities who are filmed share control in the International Film Festivals and Exhibitions filmmaking decisions. From 1973-1990, Elder co-founded Institut Lumière Centennial Anniversary of the Invention and co-directed the Alaska Native Heritage Film Project of Cinema, Lyon, , 1995, Northern Lights with Leonard Kamerling at the University of Alaska International Film Festival, Anchorage, 1996, Parnu Fairbanks. Her current film project, Surviving Arctic International Visual Anthropological Festival, Estonia, Climate Change, looks at the consequences of global Elder and Kamerling—DRUMS OF WINTER—2 warming on the small Yup’ik Eskimo village of Writing from UAF. In 1973, Kamerling co-founded and Emmonak, Alaska, near the coast of the Bering Sea where co-directed the Alaska Native Heritage Film Project with she filmed Drums of Winter some 35 years ago. Sarah Elder at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He joined the Creative Writing Faculty at UAF in 1999 where In 2006 Elder’s documentary, The Drums of Winter he specializes in teaching writing for film, theater and (1988) was named to the National Film Registry at the television. He recently produced and directed with Peter Library of Congress. Her films have won four First Prizes Biella the documentary, Changa Revisited: Thirty Years in the American Film Festival, three Cine Gold Eagles and in the Life of a Maasai Family (2016). In 2013 he directed two American Anthropology the feature documentary, Association Awards of Strange and Sacred Noise, on Excellence. Elder has the wilderness music received grants from the performance/composition of National Endowment for the Pulitzer winning composer, Arts, Ford Foundation, John Luther Adams. His film, Alaska State Council on the Heart of the Country (1997), Arts, Aperture Magazine, was nominated for the Atlantic Richfield Corp. and International Documentary others. For many years she Association prestigious Pare served on the board of the Lorentz Award. In 2006, his Society for Visual documentary, The Drums of Anthropology. Her films Winter (1988) was named to have exhibited at the the National Film Registry at Museum of Modern Art, the Library of Congress. Cinématèque Française, Throughout his career, Freiburg Film Forum, Musée Kamerling has been de L'Homme, ARTE TV in concerned with issues of Europe, International Center cultural representation in for Photography, Smithsonian film, cross-cultural Institution, American communication and the role Museum of Natural History, that film and film writing can Parliament of the World’s play in eliminating Religion, Sofia International stereotypes and in credibly Festival of Ethnographic Film translating one culture to and the Field Museum. In another. 1995, the Institut Lumière in Lyon, France, honored Elder as a distinguished filmmaker, inviting her to show her body of work and speak as part of the 100-year Andi Coulter: Q&A with Sarah Elder, October 2016 anniversary celebration of the Lumière brothers' invention AC: Walk me through your first memories of film. of cinema. A UB faculty member since 1989, Elder received a bachelor's degree from Sarah Lawrence College SE: My first film memories were of Danny Kaye in and a MFA in film from Brandeis University. Elder the Court Jester and Hans Christian Andersen. [1950s continues to conduct research and make films in Alaska actor known for his comedy, singing and dancing in such and keeps a small log cabin outside Fairbanks. noted films as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) and The Inspector General (1949)]. I was a small kid. He LEONARD KAMERLING (b.1945) Leonard Kamerling made me laugh my head off. I didn’t come from a is Curator of Film at the University of Alaska Museum of particularly happy home life, and I thought it was the North and Professor of English at the University of incredible that someone could make me feel so happy and Alaska, Fairbanks. Over the last 25 years he has produced have this mysterious power to affect a deep part of me. numerous critically acclaimed, international award winning documentary films about Alaska Native cultures AC: Were you an avid film goer as a kid? and Northern issues, as well as pioneered a collaborative approach to producing cultural films that serves as a SE: No. I only saw a few films each year. foundation for all his work. He received his training at the London Film School and earned his MFA in Creative AC: How did your interest in film come about? Elder and Kamerling—DRUMS OF WINTER—3

AC: What else interested or informed your work from SE: I first started in still photography when I was this time? around 8 years old. I didn’t take any classes; my first camera was a little Brownie box camera. I still have it in SE: I also studied anthropology in college and that my office. It was magic. It captured forever what was really excited me. And creative writing with Grace Paley, happening - out there in the world. You could stand here Harvey Swados and poet Alan Dugan. This was in the and get an image or you could stand there and get an early ‘60s, and I was extremely political often entirely different image. You could be high or you could participating in some life-altering event. I was part of be low, and you could begin to make more meaning of civil rights protests; and protests against the Vietnam War. reality than what you immediately saw. AC: Did you go to Washington? AC: What did you take pictures of? SE: I went to Washington; I had my head SE: I took pictures of cut open by the police batons. things like stones because I I was tear gassed. In college, thought they had personality. I co-led the takeover of our I took pictures of my beloved administration for 10 days. aging baby sitter and my We (the students), kicked out dog’s paws. My dog’s paws the President, kicked out the meant a lot to me, so I took deans, kicked out the their picture. And my family secretaries and ran the school. laughed at me and asked, We asked the school to divest “Why are you doing this?”. I investments in apartheid thought, “Someone in the South Africa; we wanted world loves a dog’s paws; more minority students and and they’ll get it.” It was a way to go into a different faculty, more scholarships, college recognition of the reality, a more intuitive reality. Black Students Association and access to our own academic records. We had an entire list of demands. Our AC: How did you start to transition from this interest takeover made the New York Times. Several faculty came in photography to film? in with us. It was an idealistic time in America’s history when you thought you could do anything. SE: The simple answer is, I didn’t for a long time. There was no easy way to learn film in those days. When AC: How did you start transitioning into film? I was in college at Sarah Lawrence, I took no film classes until my senior year. However, I did study with the SE: In my senior year at Sarah Lawrence College, I famous art historian and curator, William Rubin, Director took a film class, and the film process was instantly of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art. natural for me. Film reflected how I engaged with reality He taught me how to see. How to think and how to talk both visually and conceptually. I could merge politics, about color, shape, movement and the ineffable. He was a writing, anthropology and art making. My brain, my eye passionate professor who filled his lectures with standing and my heart could merge. When I saw Battle of Algiers room only. People from all over the NYC area would [Pontecorvo, 1966] that’s the film where I had my final drive hours to hear him perform every week. Our class conversion moment. I decided to apply to Brandeis was a freshman studies course, and there were only 15 of University for graduate work in film and where I could us with this internationally famous art historian. I began to study with Timothy Ash, who was considered one of the think about color, light and the frame in ways I’d never leading visual anthropologists and ethnographic thought before. We went to museums in New York City filmmakers. I picked Brandeis specifically because Tim all the time; we made our own art, and Bill (Rubin) helped was there. I had a hunch by then about what I ultimately us put the seeing and the making and the thinking about wanted to do. However, Brandeis didn’t have enough art all together. He was personally very close with all of cutting edge critical film studies or enough 16mm the New York modernists at the time—Pollack, Rothko, equipment so I went to M.I.T. and did a joint program Stella, de Kooning— it was very exciting for me to find between the two schools. I studied with Richard Leacock people who lived in the world of vision. at MIT who was Robert Flaherty’s last cinematographer. What stories I learned about Flaherty. Leacock was one of Elder and Kamerling—DRUMS OF WINTER—4 the early pioneers of cinema verite and was perhaps the best mentor I ever had. Tim, on the other hand, had SE: I went to Alaska after graduate school to make interned with photographers, Minor White, Edward ethnographic films. I knew that I first had to live in the Weston and Ansel Adams and studied with anthropologist culture, and I began teaching high school in Emmonak. I Margaret Mead – who I was also lucky to take a course taught all courses and all grades. I was trying to learn the with – and Tim was on fire culture, but along the way I developing ethnographic realized I wanted to work there filmmaking. perhaps for the rest of my life. The people stunned me by During those days in their traditional knowledge, Cambridge (Mass) I also their relationships with the interned at Documentary natural and spiritual world, Educational Resources with their survival skills, their story filmmaker John Marshall telling and their friendship. I who let me work on his could go on. I also realized seminal Ju/’hoansi that there was not one person Bushman film series. in all of the Native villages Boston was the crucible for who had ever seen anyone who new documentary then. looked like themselves on the Documentary was just screen. getting its sea legs. It wasn’t quite sure what it was, and AC: What types of movies it was exiting to be part of that discovery. did the Alaskans in these villages watch?

AC: What were your impressions of the documentaries SE: Westerns, musicals and comedies. They rooted you’d seen? for the cowboys to kill the Indians – to kill the Natives. It was part of my politics, perhaps feminist politics, that I SE: All of the documentaries I watched in college, and wanted to put more people on the screen who looked like many later in grad school, I mostly hated. I was disturbed Yup’ik people. I knew what it was like to see mostly boys seeing our dominant culture talk about people of color, or in my grammar school story books. Can you imagine if poor people, or people who were different -- where the you had never seen a person on the silver screen who point of interest seemed to be placed on the exoticism of looked like you? another culture. They were essentially racist. You were not presented with individuals with voices who had equal AC: Can you speak toward your ethnographic practice lives to ours. And… a lot of other docs I saw were just on Drums? boring. All these bad docs made me want to make good ones. SE: I started with the idea that we would practice a new collaborative method. It came out of my cooperative AC: Did your political interests and actions play a part experiences in my political past. First we (my film partner, in your move toward film, and specifically documentary? Kamerling and I) would share filming control with villagers. Control was the key factor. We gave the SE: Part of the underground anti war movement community complete rights to tell us what to film, whom during this time was smuggling in film from the North to film and what not to film. I was certain that there was Vietnamese. We were beginning to see non Western no way that I, as an outsider, could know the important documentaries, many of which had interviews with “the questions to ask. I wouldn’t know unspoken values. If I enemy” where they talked about their families and their was asking the questions and making the decisions, [the values. I was becoming aware of a vast part of the world film] would be from my point of view. So, my hope was population that was not being represented in the U.S. A to work with people who had equal power, who would parallel to this now is the continuing struggle for us to see say, “No you shouldn’t film that. This is more important.” average women on the screen – women of color, of all There was a lot of trial and error over the years working ages, of all body types. out this participatory filmmaking. Some of it I have abandoned now in the face of small budgets or my own AC: How did your association with Alaskan Natives aesthetics. come about? Elder and Kamerling—DRUMS OF WINTER—5

The other filmmaking factor essential to Len and me was pacing. We wanted to make what I call ‘slow film.’ We SE: I have shown the film all over the world, and I am wanted our pacing to force viewers to slow down and to always surprised how different audiences react. Western experience real time. To not be pulled along by frenetic audiences are quiet and thoughtful. I lose them sometimes editing. You might say we wanted to make viewers “be in the final Potlatch dancing. Yup’ik audiences are riveted here now”. We hoped also that our audience might sense and then laugh and cheer and talk back to the screen. the pace of remote village life. Polynesian audiences cried because they were so moved and stood up and AC: How did this testified about the collaborative vision strength of their actually play out in own culture. Once, Drums? at the Hawaii International Film SE: When Len and Festival, Roger I started in 1974, we Ebert got really put together our own excited by the film rules. We would not and asked for his film for the first own personal DVD month. We would wait and could not stop and watch. Allow talking about it. I people to know us. We was touched by his would only film what the community asked us to film. interest in a young filmmaker like me. When Drums was We never filmed anyone without asking. We visited every just finished, the famous documentary historian, Erik house and explained our intentions. In 1978 in the Barnouw, said it was the best film he had seen in decades. beginning of shooting Drums, villagers knew me from I was a young filmmaker and wanted him to inscribe his teaching in 1972, but they still weren’t really on board words on my dinner napkin. He laughed, but his widow, with the film project. We were not allowed to photograph later after his death, told me how much he really liked the at all within the sacred dance house without formal Tribal film. I was very gratified. Part of my goal was to make a permission, and so I made a special trip to negotiate that film that different audiences could respond to in permission two months before we even arrived to film. As meaningful ways. they saw our responsiveness to their input, they started bossing us around more and more. By the third month, we AC: What are you currently working on? started having young children sent by their parents run to our door saying, “Oh, come film this! Oh, film that.” SE: I’m looking at climate change now in the same And we were delighted. In the editing room, because of village. In the last 50 years, the average winter geographical distances and technology, we did not have as temperature in Alaska has increased 6 degrees F. It is much community collaboration although our 4 Yup’ik extraordinary how climate change has affected every level translators continued to guide us. of the ecosystem as well as peoples’ lives. The ice is not thick enough to travel on in winter, and so you can’t travel AC: You’ve been around this community for over or hunt safely; you fall through the ice. It’s treacherous. forty years now. What are aspects that have either changed The weather is unpredictable —a lot more people are or you find interest in? dying. More storms are eroding village houses and are killing hunters. Some animals and fish species are SE: Now, the children take videos of themselves and declining, other animals and plants are invading tundra are pretty active on social media. I’m interested in habitat. Life has changed. questions such as, how does a Yup’ik person think about themselves with one foot in their world and one foot in the AC: Beyond the cost, what are some of the most non-Native world? How do they gracefully, or not interesting technological advances for you as a gracefully, live a life that navigates those worlds? People filmmaker? have this problem all over the world dealing with dominant cultures. SE: I have actually been writing about this lately—the relationship between the subject and the film crew has AC: What are some of your recollections of audiences changed with technology. Back then, Lenny shot with a responding to the film? heavy camera that only could film 10 minutes at a time, Elder and Kamerling—DRUMS OF WINTER—6 and I took sound with a large heavy tape recorder and 3 experience an element of boredom and/or bias or just foot microphone. We worked very formally. Because I emotional distance. If a film represents that distance, I do knew the dancers (from living there as a teacher), I would not know what the good of it is, except at a very material suggest who and where to shoot, etc. This last time when level. You hear people sing, you can see their ritual, but I shot for my climate change film, I was the only crew. that is very superficial in the long run. So, how do you I’m holding the camera, which is smaller, and I don’t need make a film that allows us to sense the humanity between lights as much. I’m able to move my body. The us? How do you make viewers emotionally and experience feels more ‘natural’. The camera almost seems intellectually respond to someone else? Those are the like part of my body. kinds of things I am interested in.

AC: How has that Pulitzer Prize-winning changed things—being the composer John Luther Adams only person shooting? in Sight and Sound: “ My favorite film music is in SE: It is completely The Drums of Winter (1988) by different. It’s much more Sarah Elder and Leonard personal and intimate. I Kamerling. This music was not didn’t anticipate how composed for the film. The different it would be. I got music is the subject of the film. deeper more personal In The Drums of Winter we see interviews. People are and hear traditional songs of much more relaxed with me. the Yup'ik people of Western I’m also working as a single Alaska performed with dances woman, and I believe I get in the intimate setting of the different responses than potlatch ceremony. The sound when I am working with a and the cinematography are crew and or a man. equally strong. There is no narration, no one who tells us what to think. Rather than watching from the outside, we AC: Do you think this type of intimacy would have feel as though we're inside the dance house experiencing changed Drums? each moment with the community.”

SE: Completely. Drums is made in the old fashioned Documentary (from Wikipedia) mode of documentary. There was a certain kind of A documentary film is a nonfictional motion picture “fourth wall” between them and us. You can sense there intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for is a kind of formality in the film. Film subjects rarely the purposes of instruction, education, or maintaining a look into the camera. Now, they look at the camera as if it historical record. Such films were originally shot on film were part of me, an extension of my eyes. It’s how you stock—the only medium available—but now include and I are looking at each other right now –without the video and digital productions that can be either direct-to- camera. Technology will always change. If we had not video, made into a TV show, or released for screening in filmed back then, there would be no document of the old cinemas. "Documentary" has been described as a ways, of old stories, no images of elders dancing in old "filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of styles. If I want that kind of document of my own culture audience reception" that is continually evolving and is from 1978, I simply go to any film archive or Hollywood without clear boundaries.2 film and find it with a click. Definition AC: Do you think this level of intimacy gets at a The cover of Bolesław Matuszewski book Une deeper understanding? nouvelle source de l'histoire. (A New Source of History) from 1898 the first publication about documentary SE: Well, that’s complicated. I mean, whose function of cinematography. understanding? The people of Emmonak really like the Polish writer and filmmaker Bolesław film. They can repeat full interviews almost word for Matuszewski was among those who identified the mode of word. They recite exact scenes. But, if you don’t know the documentary film. He wrote two of the earliest texts on ways of this culture, or they are not your ancestors, cinema Une nouvelle source de l'histoire (eng. A New (almost all the adults in the film are dead now) you may Source of History) and La photographie animée (eng. Elder and Kamerling—DRUMS OF WINTER—7

Animated photography). Both were published in 1898 in boat docking, or factory workers leaving work. These French language and among the early written works to short films were called "actuality" films; the term consider the historical and documentary value of the film. "documentary" was not coined until 1926. Many of the Matuszewski is also among the first filmmakers to first films, such as those made by Auguste and Louis propose the creation of a Film Archive to collect and keep Lumière, were a minute or less in length, due to safe visual materials technological limitations. In popular myth, the word documentary was Films showing many people (for example, leaving coined by Scottish documentary filmmaker John Grierson a factory) were often made for commercial reasons: the in his review of Robert Flaherty's film Moana (1926), people being filmed were eager to see, for payment, the published in the New York Sun on 8 February 1926, film showing them. One notable film clocked in at over an written by "The Moviegoer" (a pen name for Grierson). hour and a half, The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight. Using Grierson's pioneering film-looping principles of documentary technology, Enoch J. were that cinema's Rector presented the potential for observing life entirety of a famous 1897 could be exploited in a prize-fight on cinema new art form; that the screens across the United "original" actor and States. "original" scene are better In May 1896, guides than their fiction Bolesław Matuszewski counterparts to interpreting recorded on film few the modern world; and that surigical operations in materials "thus taken from Warsaw and Saint the raw" can be more real Petersburg hospitals. In than the acted article. In 1898, French surgeon this regard, Grierson's Eugène-Louis Doyen definition of documentary invited Bolesław as "creative treatment of Matuszewski and actuality"6 has gained Clément Maurice and some acceptance, with this position at variance with proposed them to recorded his surigical operations. They Soviet film-maker Dziga Vertov's provocation to present started in a series of surgical films sometime before "life as it is" (that is, life filmed surreptitiously) and "life July 1898. Until 1906, the year of his last film, Doyen caught unawares" (life provoked or surprised by the recorded more than 60 operations. Doyen said that his first camera). films taught him how to correct professional errors he had The American film critic Pare Lorentz defines a been unaware of. For scientific purposes, after 1906, documentary film as "a factual film which is dramatic." Doyen combined 15 of his films into three compilations, Others further state that a documentary stands out from two of which survive, the six-film series Extirpation des the other types of non-fiction films for providing an tumeurs encapsulées (1906), and the four-film Les opinion, and a specific message, along with the facts it Opérations sur la cavité crânienne (1911). These and five presents. other of Doyen's films survive. Documentary practice is the complex process of Between July 1898 and 1901, the Romanian creating documentary projects. It refers to what people do professor Gheorghe Marinescu made several science films with media devices, content, form, and production in his neurology clinic in :11 Walking Troubles strategies in order to address the creative, ethical, and of Organic Hemiplegy (1898), The Walking Troubles of conceptual problems and choices that arise as they make Organic Paraplegies (1899), A Case of Hysteric documentaries. Hemiplegy Healed Through Hypnosis (1899), The Documentary filmmaking can be used as a form Walking Troubles of Progressive Locomotion Ataxy of journalism, advocacy, or personal expression. (1900), and Illnesses of the Muscles (1901). All these short films have been preserved. The professor called his History works "studies with the help of the cinematograph," and Pre–1900 published the results, along with several consecutive Early film (pre-1900) was dominated by the frames, in issues of "La Semaine Médicale" magazine novelty of showing an event. They were single-shot from Paris, between 1899 and 1902. In 1924, Auguste moments captured on film: a train entering a station, a Lumiere recognized the merits of Marinescu's science Elder and Kamerling—DRUMS OF WINTER—8 films: "I've seen your scientific reports about the usage of this time period, often showing how his subjects would the cinematograph in studies of nervous illnesses, when I have lived 100 years earlier and not how they lived right was still receiving "La Semaine Médicale," but back then I then. For instance, in Nanook of the North, Flaherty did had other concerns, which left me no spare time to begin not allow his subjects to shoot a walrus with a nearby biological studies. I must say I forgot those works and I shotgun, but had them use a harpoon instead. Some of am thankful to you that you reminded them to me. Flaherty's staging, such as building a roofless igloo for Unfortunately, not many scientists have followed your interior shots, was done to accommodate the filming way." technology of the time. 1900–1920 Paramount Pictures tried to repeat the success of Travelogue films were very popular in the early Flaherty's Nanook and Moana with two romanticized part of the 20th century. They were often referred to by documentaries, Grass (1925) and Chang (1927), both distributors as "scenics." Scenics were among the most directed by Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack. popular sort of films at the time.16 An important early film The city symphony to move beyond the concept of the scenic was In the Land City Symphony Films were avant-garde films of the Head Hunters (1914), which embraced primitivism made during the 1920s to 1930s. These films were and exoticism in a staged story presented as truthful re- particularly influenced by modern art: namely Cubism, enactments of the life of Native Americans. Constructivism, and Impressionism. According to Scott Contemplation is a separate area. Pathé is the Macdonald (2010), city symphony film can be located as best-known global an intersection between manufacturer of such films documentary and avant- of the early 20th century. garde film; "avant-doc". A vivid example is However, A.L. Rees Moscow clad in snow suggest to see them as (1909). avant-garde films. Biographical City Symphony documentaries appeared films include Manhatta during this time, such as (dir. Paul Strand, 1921), the feature Eminescu- Paris Nothing but the Veronica-Creangă (1914) Hours (dir. Alberto on the relationship Cavalcanti, 1926), between the writers Mihai Twenty Four Dollar Eminescu, Veronica Micle Island (dir. Robert and Ion Creangă (all Flaherty, 1927), Études deceased at the time of the sur Paris (dir. André production) released by the Sauvage, 1928), The Bucharest chapter of Pathé. Bridge (1928), and Rain Early color motion picture processes such as (1929), both by Joris Ivens. Kinemacolor—known for the feature With Our King and But the most famous city symphony films are Queen Through India (1912)—and Prizmacolor—known , Symphony of a Great City (dir. Walter Ruttman, for Everywhere With Prizma (1919) and the five-reel 1927) and The Man with a Movie Camera (dir. Dziga feature Bali the Unknown (1921)—used travelogues to Vertov, 1929). promote the new color processes. In contrast, Technicolor A City Symphony Film, as the name suggests, is concentrated primarily on getting their process adopted by usually based around a major metropolitan city area and Hollywood studios for fictional feature films. seek to capture the lives, events and activities of the city. Also during this period, Frank Hurley's feature It can be abstract and cinematographic (see Walter documentary film, South (1919), about the Imperial Trans- Ruttmann's Berlin) or utilise Russian Montage theory (See Antarctic Expedition was released. The film documented Dziga Vertov's Man with the Movie Camera). But most the failed Antarctic expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in importantly, a city symphony film is like a cine-poem and 1914. is shot and edited like a "symphony". 1920s The continental, or realist, tradition focused on Romanticism humans within human-made environments, and included With Robert J. Flaherty's Nanook of the North in the so-called "city symphony" films such as Walter 1922, documentary film embraced romanticism; Flaherty Ruttmann's Berlin, Symphony of a City (of which Grierson filmed a number of heavily staged romantic films during noted in an article18 that Berlin represented what a Elder and Kamerling—DRUMS OF WINTER—9 documentary should not be), Alberto Cavalcanti's Rien also created newsreels that were seen by their national que les heures, and Dziga Vertov's Man with the Movie governments as legitimate counter-propaganda to the Camera. These films tend to feature people as products of psychological warfare of Nazi Germany (orchestrated by their environment, and lean towards the avant-garde. Joseph Goebbels). Kino-Pravda In Britain, a number of different filmmakers came Dziga Vertov was central to the Soviet Kino- together under John Grierson. They became known as the Pravda (literally, "cinematic truth") newsreel series of the Documentary Film Movement. Grierson, Alberto 1920s. Vertov believed the camera—with its varied Cavalcanti, Harry Watt, Basil Wright, and Humphrey lenses, shot-counter shot editing, time-lapse, ability to Jennings amongst others succeeded in blending slow motion, stop motion and fast-motion—could render propaganda, information, and education with a more reality more accurately than poetic aesthetic approach to the human eye, and made a documentary. Examples of film philosophy out of it. their work include Drifters Newsreel tradition (John Grierson), Song of The newsreel Ceylon (Basil Wright), Fires tradition is important in Were Started, and A Diary for documentary film; newsreels Timothy (Humphrey were also sometimes staged Jennings). Their work but were usually re- involved poets such as W. H. enactments of events that had Auden, composers such as already happened, not Benjamin Britten, and writers attempts to steer events as such as J. B. Priestley. they were in the process of Among the best known films happening. For instance, of the movement are Night much of the battle footage Mail and Coal Face. from the early 20th century 1950s–1970s was staged; the cameramen would usually arrive on site Cinéma-vérité after a major battle and re-enact scenes to film them. Cinéma vérité (or the closely related direct 1920s–1940s cinema) was dependent on some technical advances in The propagandist tradition consists of films made order to exist: light, quiet and reliable cameras, and with the explicit purpose of persuading an audience of a portable sync sound. point. One of the most celebrated and controversial Cinéma vérité and similar documentary traditions propaganda films is Leni Riefenstahl's film Triumph of the can thus be seen, in a broader perspective, as a reaction Will (1935), which chronicled the 1934 Nazi Party against studio-based film production constraints. Shooting Congress and was commissioned by Adolf Hitler. Leftist on location, with smaller crews, would also happen in the filmmakers Joris Ivens and Henri Storck directed French New Wave, the filmmakers taking advantage of Borinage (1931) about the Belgian coal mining region. advances in technology allowing smaller, handheld Luis Buñuel directed a "surrealist" documentary Las cameras and synchronized sound to film events on Hurdes (1933). location as they unfolded. Pare Lorentz's The Plow That Broke the Plains Although the terms are sometimes used (1936) and The River (1938) and Willard Van Dyke's The interchangeably, there are important differences between City (1939) are notable New Deal productions, each cinéma vérité (Jean Rouch) and the North American presenting complex combinations of social and ecological "Direct Cinema" (or more accurately "Cinéma direct"), awareness, government propaganda, and leftist pioneered by, among others, Canadians Allan King, viewpoints. Frank Capra's Why We Fight (1942–1944) Michel Brault, and Pierre Perrault, and Americans Robert series was a newsreel series in the , Drew, Richard Leacock, Frederick Wiseman, and Albert commissioned by the government to convince the U.S. and David Maysles. public that it was time to go to war. Constance Bennett The directors of the movement take different and her husband Henri de la Falaise produced two feature- viewpoints on their degree of involvement with their length documentaries, Legong: Dance of the Virgins subjects. Kopple and Pennebaker, for instance, choose (1935) filmed in Bali, and Kilou the Killer Tiger (1936) non-involvement (or at least no overt involvement), and filmed in Indochina. Perrault, Rouch, Koenig, and Kroitor favor direct In Canada, the Film Board, set up by John involvement or even provocation when they deem it Grierson, was created for the same propaganda reasons. It necessary. Elder and Kamerling—DRUMS OF WINTER—10

The films Chronicle of a Summer (Jean Rouch), in the 1960s in which the use of portable camera and Dont Look Back (D. A. Pennebaker), Grey Gardens sound equipment allowed an intimate relationship between (Albert and David Maysles), Titicut Follies (Frederick filmmaker and subject. The line blurs between Wiseman), Primary and Crisis: Behind a Presidential documentary and narrative and some works are very Commitment (both produced by Robert Drew), Harlan personal, such as the late Marlon Riggs's Tongues Untied County, USA (directed by Barbara Kopple), Lonely Boy (1989) and Black Is...Black Ain't (1995), which mix (Wolf Koenig and Roman Kroitor) are all frequently expressive, poetic, and rhetorical elements and stresses deemed cinéma vérité films. subjectivities rather than historical materials. The fundamentals of the style include following a Historical documentaries, such as the landmark person during a crisis with a moving, often handheld, 14-hour Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years camera to capture more personal reactions. There are no (1986—Part 1 and 1989—Part 2) by Henry Hampton, sit-down interviews, and the shooting ratio (the amount of Four Little Girls (1997) by Spike Lee, and The Civil War film shot to the finished product) is very high, often by Ken Burns, UNESCO awarded independent film on reaching 80 to one. From there, editors find and sculpt the slavery 500 Years Later, expressed not only a distinctive work into a film. The editors of the movement—such as voice but also a perspective and point of views. Some Werner Nold, Charlotte Zwerin, Muffie Myers, Susan films such as The Thin Blue Line by Errol Morris Froemke, and Ellen Hovde—are often overlooked, but incorporated stylized re-enactments, and Michael Moore's their input to the films was so Roger & Me placed far more vital that they were often given interpretive control with the co-director credits. director. The commercial success Famous cinéma of these documentaries may derive vérité/direct cinema films from this narrative shift in the include Les Raquetteurs, documentary form, leading some Showman, Salesman, Near critics to question whether such Death, and The Children Were films can truly be called Watching. documentaries; critics sometimes Political weapons refer to these works as "mondo In the 1960s and 1970s, films" or "docu-ganda." However, documentary film was often directorial manipulation of conceived as a political weapon documentary subjects has been against neocolonialism and noted since the work of Flaherty, capitalism in general, especially in Latin America, but also and may be endemic to the form due to problematic in a changing Quebec society. La Hora de los hornos (The ontological foundations. Hour of the Furnaces, from 1968), directed by Octavio Documentary filmmakers are increasingly Getino and Arnold Vincent Kudales Sr., influenced a utilizing social impact campaigns with their films.22 Social whole generation of filmmakers. Among the many impact campaigns seek to leverage media projects by political documentaries produced in the early 1970s was converting public awareness of social issues and causes "Chile: A Special Report," public television's first in-depth into engagement and action, largely by offering the expository look of the September 1973 overthrow of the audience a way to get involved.23 Examples of such Salvador Allende government in Chile by military leaders documentaries include Kony 2012, Salam Neighbor, under Augusto Pinochet, produced by documentarians Ari Gasland, Living on One Dollar, and Girl Rising. Martinez and José Garcia. Although documentaries are financially more Modern viable with the increasing popularity of the genre and the Box office analysts have noted that this film genre advent of the DVD, funding for documentary film has become increasingly successful in theatrical release production remains elusive. Within the past decade, the with films such as Fahrenheit 9/11, Super Size Me, Food, largest exhibition opportunities have emerged from within Inc., Earth, March of the Penguins, Religulous, and An the broadcast market, making filmmakers beholden to the Inconvenient Truth among the most prominent examples. tastes and influences of the broadcasters who have become Compared to dramatic narrative films, documentaries their largest funding source. typically have far lower budgets which makes them Modern documentaries have some overlap with attractive to film companies because even a limited television forms, with the development of "reality theatrical release can be highly profitable. television" that occasionally verges on the documentary The nature of documentary films has expanded in but more often veers to the fictional or staged. The the past 20 years from the cinema verité style introduced making-of documentary shows how a movie or a computer Elder and Kamerling—DRUMS OF WINTER—11 game was produced. Usually made for Bodysong was made in 2003 promotional purposes, it is closer to an and won a British Independent Film advertisement than a classic Award for "Best British documentary. Documentary." Modern lightweight digital The 2004 film Genesis video cameras and computer-based shows animal and plant life in states editing have greatly aided of expansion, decay, sex, and death, documentary makers, as has the with some, but little, narration. dramatic drop in equipment prices. Narration styles The first film to take full advantage of Voice-over narrator this change was Martin Kunert and The traditional style for Eric Manes' Voices of Iraq, where 150 DV cameras were narration is to have a dedicated narrator read a script sent to Iraq during the war and passed out to Iraqis to which is dubbed onto the audio track. The narrator never record themselves. appears on camera and may not necessarily have National Geographic television collaborates local knowledge of the subject matter or involvement in the video production agencies to present the best content for writing of the script. viewers, APV delivered modern documentaries Silent narration programming focussed on Hong Kong Local region with This style of narration uses title screens to visually collaborating National Geographic. narrate the documentary. The screens are held for about 5– Without words 10 seconds to allow adequate time for the viewer to read Films in the documentary form without words them. They are similar to the ones shown at the end of have been made. From 1982, the Qatsi trilogy and the movies based on true stories, but they are shown similar Baraka could be described as visual tone poems, throughout, typically between scenes. with music related to the images, but no spoken content. Hosted narrator Koyaanisqatsi (part of the Qatsi trilogy) consists primarily In this style, there is a host who appears on of slow motion and time-lapse photography of cities and camera, conducts interviews, and who also does voice- many natural landscapes across the United States. Baraka overs. tries to capture the great pulse of humanity as it flocks and swarms in daily activity and religious ceremonies.

COMING UP IN THE FALL 2016 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XXXIII: Nov 1 Hal Ashby Being There 1979… Nov 8 Brian De Palma The Untouchables 1987… Nov 15 Norman Jewison Moonstruck 1987… Nov 22 Andrei Tarkovsky The Sacrifice 1986… Nov 29 Alfonso Arau Like Water for Chocolate 1992 Dec 6 Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck The Tourist 2010

CONTACTS:...email Diane Christian: [email protected]…email Bruce Jackson [email protected] the series schedule, annotations, links and updates: http://buffalofilmseminars.com...to subscribe to the weekly email informational notes, send an email to addto [email protected] cast and crew info on any film: http://imdb.com/ The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Dipson Amherst Theatre, with support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News.