DIVERSIPEDEIVERSIPEDE UAAU AGAS Volume 1, Number 2 May 2012 Journal of the University of Alberta Anthropolog y Student Associations “Powered by diversity.” Published by the University of Alberta Anthropology Undergraduates (UAAU) and the Association of Graduate Anthropology Students (AGAS) ISSN 1927-971X (Print) ISSN 1927-9728 (Online) Editor Gabriel Yanicki Web Editor Nicole Eckert-Lyngstad Publication Committee Megan Caldwell and Aileen Reilly Review Board Amanda Abbott, Megan Caldwell, Cory Cookson, Nicole Eckert-Lyngstad, Reid Graham, Brent Hammer, Catherine Kmita, Todd Kristensen, Mathew Levitt, Sean Lynch, Car- men Norris, Nora Pedersen, Aileen Reilly, Catherine Scheelar, Jo-Anne Schenk, Hannah Schmidt, Hilary Sparkes, and Rene Studer-Halbach Faculty Advisor Dr. Marko Zivcovic Cover illustration Justina Smith, www.justlittleart.com Cover design elements adapted from W. Popp and O. Standke, Marches célèbres / transcrites pour violon et piano (violoncelle et piano ou fl ûte et piano) (Braunschweig: H. Litolff, 18--?) and used as public domain under Canadian copyright law IVERSIPEDE Journal of the University of Alberta D Anthropolog y Student Associations Volume 1 May 2012 Number 2 GET THAT CAMERA OUTTA MY FACE: ETHICS IN DOCUMENTARY MEDIA Matthew Hayes n 2011, I completed a fi lm project for a most documentary fi lms struggle to simply Igraduate seminar on ethnographic meth- break even at the box offi ce (if they make it odology. The exercise involved three hours there in the fi rst place), I think this focus is of observant participation (Tedlock 1991; see misplaced. Instead, I argue that more focus also Castañeda 2006, 95-96), during which I should be put back upon the participants of set up my camera on a tripod in three differ- a fi lm study: the subjects in front of the cam- ent locations for an hour in each, in front of era. This idea is in no way radical. It should a sign that read: “If you wish to be in a fi lm, be a fi rst principle of carrying out social re- please stand here.” An arrow pointed down search: do no harm, and ensure the welfare to the spot directly in front of the lens. I of your subjects. However, I also think it is waited to see what would happen, and the re- very rarely carried out to its fullest these days. sults, frankly, surprised me.1 What were most The important point here is that the issues unexpected were the particular ethical con- I raise in this paper do not apply solely to siderations that arose. Among others, the op- visual anthropology or the practice of using portunity for self-presentation (MacDougall visual methods. They apply to all social sci- 1992, 97); the signifi cance of ethnographic entifi c research, regardless of the scope (see refusal (Simpson 2007); and the (largely un- Grimshaw 2011, 257). It is simply that, as I fulfi lled) promise of reciprocity (Jackson have noticed since I began using fi lm, visual 2005,169-170; Mauss 1990 [1950]). methods tend to make explicit many of the This exercise led me to rethink my pri- issues inherent in all social scientifi c research. orities when using visual methods to conduct The issues I encountered while con- research. I argue that, particularly in main- ducting the above-mentioned exercise made stream public consciousness, a major focus me aware of what exactly I was hoping of the fi lmmaker while making and editing would happen: I wanted streams of people a fi lm is placed on how well it will screen lining up to sing and dance in front of my with the audience, and perhaps how much camera. I wanted action! As Simpson (2003, revenue it will produce (see Winston 2000). 105) writes: “Anthropology is a practice of While this often coheres with the fact that desire.” I desired for these things to happen, 1 The concept was inspired by the last scene in David and Judith MacDougall’s Photo Wallahs (1991). The seminar was taught by my supervisor Dara Culhane. The fi nished fi lm based on the exercise can be viewed here: http://vimeo. com/24566964. Graduate student, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Simon Fraser University Author contact: [email protected] DIVERSIPEDE, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 1-11, 2012 1 DIVERSIPEDE VOL. 1, NO. 2, 2012 to prove to myself (and to prove a previous gists. Most of the fi lmmakers who produced theory I held), that people in fact love being the body of work from which major aspects on camera. I was hoping this was true and of visual anthropology developed were out- was disappointed at times when this action side of the discipline altogether. Indeed, did not occur. However, this disappointment many of the most radical innovations and was useful (Simpson 2007, 78). I realized that advancements in the discipline have come my goal should never have been to wish for from either outsiders or “rebels” within the dancing monkeys; this was unethical. At the fi eld, such as Jean Rouch and John Marshall expense of the agency of my imagined par- (MacDougall 1998, 67). ticipants, I was too focused on the fi nished Flaherty and his fi lms have caused product and what kind of entertainment a great deal of debate over the years since the viewer would see in the fi nished fi lm. I their release (see Pink 2006, 24). Before his should have initially placed my emphasis on death in 1951, he had made, in addition to ensuring that I do no harm to my partici- Nanook, two lesser-known documentaries pants, focusing on what they wanted from the of similar quality: Moana (1926) and Man of exercise, not what I wanted (see MacDougall Aran (1934). The debate about these fi lms 1994). Thankfully, I do not believe I caused often concerns the fact that everything, or any harm. At least, no one angrily told me to nearly everything, in his fi lms was staged (see get my camera out of his or her face. But this Pink 2006, 23; Banks 2001, 148). The people holds an important lesson, which I outline in are real and the places in which he shot are this paper. I trace a history of documentary real, but all the scenes were planned out and fi lm in order to highlight from where some scripted ahead of time. These “fabrications” of this attitude of privileging the audience were largely due to the technology available at has come, and where fi lmmaking perhaps the time: hand-crank powered cameras with should have gone instead. Priorities need to no capacity for recording sound. These early shift. I think by doing so social researchers, fi lm cameras had to be continually mounted including myself, can make more ethical use on tripods because they were so heavy and of documentary media. awkward. This early technology did not allow FLAHERTY’S RECONSTRUCTIONS the fi lmmaker to go mobile with the camera I begin almost at the very beginning, and follow the action like we can today with with an example from Robert Flaherty. In lighter, handheld camcorders. As was the 1922 he produced the world’s fi rst commer- standard at the time (see Winston 2000, 20), cially successful feature-length documentary Flaherty thus had no choice but to recon- fi lm, Nanook of the North (see Ruby 2000, 67). struct and dramatize the scenes for his fi lm, Flaherty was neither an anthropologist, nor simply because the camera was not mobile was he in any way trained as a fi lmmaker. He and fl exible enough to do otherwise. was actually an American mining prospector Two examples may suffi ce here to in- who was conducting research in Northern dicate the lengths that Flaherty at times had Quebec for his employer prior to making the to go to in order to get his shot. There is a fi lm (Grimshaw 2001, 47; Ruby 2000, 7). He scene in Nanook in which the title character ended up building relationships there with goes ice fi shing and while holding his line, the people who later featured in Nanook (one is thrown around on the ground by the seal of whom was his indigenous wife!). Flaherty’s that is apparently fi ghting for its life under path to a fi lmmaking career seems somewhat the ice. The subsequent documentary fi lm typical of many ethnographic fi lmmakers. It Nanook Revisited (Massot 1990) reveals that seems that only recently have fi lmmakers of Flaherty actually had two holes cut in the ice, this type actually been trained as anthropolo- with a fi shing line threaded from one hole 2 MATTHEW HAYES ETHICS IN DOCUMENTARY MEDIA underneath to the other. While Nanook was I argue quite the opposite of critics like pulling on the line from one end, two men Antonio. I think that anyone who criticizes were pulling on it from the other, causing his a documentary for telling lies or not telling titanic struggle and the ensuing hilarity of the truth because it has, for example, used the scene. A more infamous scene from the reconstruction or has not let the action un- fi lm is that of Nanook (whose real name was fold as it “normally” would, or has not used Allakariallak) and his family preparing for the “natural” light, retains a misguided view of night in an igloo. We see them get undressed, what documentary is in practice, and how it settling comfortably into their blankets. The started. I think these critics do not fully un- igloo was actually built about three times as derstand what documentary is for and how a large as it normally would have been, and it documentary fi lm is produced (see Winston was halved (Barbash and Taylor 1997, 25).