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Cezar ENACHE CINEMATIC RESOURCES of VISUAL 170 Cezar ENACHE Cezar ENACHE CINEMATIC RESOURCES OF VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY FOR DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKERS Abstract. This paper looks for the methodo- Visual anthropology is a branch logical resources of visual anthropology that of the cultural anthropology, which can be integrated into cinema production studies photography and film ethnogra- and especially in the documentary film. phical productions as well as (starting The question how to generate believable from the early 90’s), new media. We information about human behavior is tackled by discussing the importance of participative can also use the term of “Ethnographic documentary approaches as means for a film”. Visual anthropology incorporates dialogue between filmmakers and their the anthropological study of visual repre- subjects. sentation, including live performan- ces, museums, art, and mass-media productions. It deals with visual repre- sentations of all cultures, such as sand drawings, tattoos, sculptures and bas- reliefs, wall paintings, ivory statuettes, jewelry, hieroglyphs, paintings or photo- graphy. Human vision, its psychology, the properties of the different media, the relation between form and functionality, the evolution of representation in a certain culture, they all belong to visual anthropology. Because anthropology is such a fragmented science, its central domains are the ways visual repre- sentation link to the rest of the human EKPHRASIS, 1/2009 Integrating Methodologies culture. in Visual Culture Research pp. 170-178 Cinematic Resources of Visual Anthropology for Documentary Filmmakers 171 Even before anthropology became visual anthropology was defined by the an academic discipline, in 1880, the work of four people, all active in the ethnologists used photography in their second half of the twentieth century: Jean research. A great deal of their work was Rouch, John Marshall, Robert Gardner preserving data so they tried to record the and Tim Asch. We can see the shape of life of societies threatened by extinction ethnographic film by focusing on them”. (as an example the Native American In the US, visual anthropology was Indians pictures of Edward Curtis). for the first time used in an academic History of anthropologic film is environment in 1958, with the founding closely linked by that of the documentary of Films Study Center in Peabody and non-fiction, although ethnology- archaeology and ethnology Museum at fiction can be considered a sub-genre Harvard. John Collier Jr. wrote in 1967 of ethnographic film. One of the earliest the first book in the field, and many ethnographic films was made with visual anthropologists in the 70’s relied Lumière equipment (“The Elephant on semioticians like Roland Barthes for Promenade at Phnom Penh”, in 1901). essential critic perspectives. Robert Flaherty, who’s better known Today the Society for Visual Anthro- by his Eskimo movies (“Nanook of the pology (SVA) represents a sub-section of North”, 1922), became a film producer in the American Anthropology Association. 1913, when his administrator suggested In America, ethnographic films are being he took a camera in an expedition he was presented every year at the Margaret planning up north. Flaherty focused on Mead Film Festival. the Inuit traditional way of life and left Unlike the art historians, interested out any trace of modernity from his movie in the same items and processes, visual (he even refused to use a gun to kill a anthropology places these items in a harpooned walrus; this scene featured cultural context. Particularly archaeo- the movie as a proof of their unaltered logists use phases of visual development culture). This pattern persisted in lots in an attempt to understand the spread of of following movies (Robert Gardner’s the human species and its culture on vast “Dead Birds” for example). areas. By 10,000 BC, boat people used a Toward the 1940’s, scholars like quite sophisticated pictogram system Hortense Powdermaker, Gregory Bateson in writing, navigation as well as art. and Margaret Mead (“Trance and Dance Older visual representation use female in Bali”, 1952), were bringing the bodies, wearing clothing from around perspectives of the anthropology into 28,000 BC, that period corresponding to mass-media and visual representation. weaving invention in Europe. Here’s an Karl G. Heider wrote in the revisited example of the fragmentary character of edition of “Ethnographical Film” (2006): anthropology: a clay figurine representing “after Bateson and Mead, the history of a woman wearing a cloth is not just a 172 Cezar ENACHE piece of art, it is a window towards the shows and films were used to illustrate ways of that time, to a household (where the most important theories of the day. it was found), the material transfer (where Technology development made it clear the clay is coming from), processes (when that visual media could serve to a wider baking clay was used), when weaving palette of intercultural research. Some was invented, what kind of cloth was anthropologists still relied on photos in represented, and what kind of cultural their studies upon communities. Mead exchange happened with other societies and some other colleagues turned to in that time. film in the research and documenting “Visual anthropology is a sub-disci- the traditional patterns of non-verbal pline that has enormous potential to communication, such as body language be active in the world. Rather than and use of the social space. Others used simply producing more anthropology camera to document the extinct worlds for academic audiences, visual anthro- of hunter gatherer tribes far away. The pologists have a unique opportunity to production of ethnographic film really communicate across academic disci- took off in 1960, after the invention of the plines and cultural boundaries. The camera with synchronized sound. Due to effectiveness of the visual as a mode of its maneuverability and combination of social intervention is well established in colors and sound, this equipment opened historical and interdisciplinary contexts. the road to new recording possibilities for In this chapter I have demonstrated the field anthropologists. effectiveness of making anthropologically In 1965, ethnographic film reviews informed visual interventions.”1 becomes usual feature in American Anthropologist magazine. During the 1.1. Anthropological approach next year, the American Anthropologist in documentary film Association featured an ethnographic Producing visual representation in film section in their annual meeting anthropology is as old as the discipline program. Also Wenner - Gren Foundation itself. Even in 1870, ethnography based for anthropological studies sponsored the anthropologists made field photos. From establishment of the first professional 1890 on, they started using filming organization in ethnography visual. cameras too. After filming, they used the Shortly the visual anthropology term images not just as documentaries, but became officially adopted. With more also as a study material in conferences, in than ethnographic film (which became museums or universities. Pictures, slide- an issued category), visual anthropology became a discipline on its own. In 1970, at the Smithsonian Institute, 1 Pink, Sarah – “The Future of Visual Anthro- Mead co-organized a visual ethnography pology,” Taylor & Francis e-Library, New media interdisciplinary meeting with York, USA, 2006, 100. Cinematic Resources of Visual Anthropology for Documentary Filmmakers 173 researchers and practitioners. This group 5) Media for television or other mass started the National Human Studies Film communication forms; Center, with the purpose of preserving 6) Applied media made for the benefit existing data about the disappearing tribal of a community, government or enterprise cultures as a permanent scientific source – from the editor of “Visual Anthropology”, and producing and keeping of scientific Harald E.L. from Prins Kansas State research films. Informative notes turned University, adopted at the 9th International to professional journals and the scarce Anthropology and Ethnographic Studies meetings between anthropologists and Congress, Chicago, 1973.2 film makers became annual conferences. In 1972, the Society of Anthropology Film, sound and video tape are today and Visual Communication (SAVICOM) indispensable scientific resources. was founded. This organization, entirely They held believable information about dedicated to visual anthropology, later human behavior, which can be later became a section of AAA and started analyzed by independent investigators a journal called “Visual Anthropology in the light of new theories. These may Communication Studies”. The next year contain other information than language National Humanity Foundation made and preserve some unique facts of the the first annual visual anthropology way of life. Today is no longer a time conference in Chicago. of change, but a time of uniformity and Visual ethnographic media (film, consequently cultural loss. In order to video, photo and digital multimedia) stop this process and correct the human plays an important role in the application potential poor vision, it is essential that of anthropological knowledge as an active the legacy of mankind to be recorded in part of this science. all its remaining richness and diversity. Anthropologists involved in visual work production bring a valuable contribution The Anthropology and Visual Commu- to this discipline. Just like in printed nication Society proposes: media, film, video and multimedia,
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