Paul Henley

British ethnographic film: recent developments.

Paul Henley is a specialist on Amazonia and is currently an RAI Leverhulme Training Fellow at the National Film and Television School, Beaconsfield. An earlier and considerably shorter version has appeared in a German publication (see bibliography), which was reviewed in RAIN 62. Perhaps the most remarkable fact about the recent history of ethnographic film-making in Britain is that any high-quality films have been made at all. For Britain is unique among countries with a strong intellectual tradition in anthropology in having no academic or cultural institute that disposes of funds necessary to finance the making of ethnographic films. By contrast, in France ethnographic films are financed by the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); in the USA, there are ethnographic film-making units attached to the Smithsonian Institution and several of the most distinguished American universities; in Germany, there is the Institut fur den Wissenschaftlichen Film (IWF) and in Canada, the National Film Board. In Australia, there are two ethnographic film-making units, one at the Institute of Aboriginal Studies, the other an Australian federal government unit. Two emigre Britons, Roger Sandall and Ian Dunlop, were leading figures in these units in their early days.

Ethnographic film: Technology, practice and anthropological theory

Despite the enthusiasm of the pioneer generation of anthropologists for the camera as a means of ethnographic research, filmmaking remained marginal to the anthropological project for most of the course of the last century. However a combination of technological developments and recent theoretical paradigm shifts within anthropology generally now offers the possibility of greater integration of filmmaking into ethnographic research. This article1 seeks to identify the basis for this theoretical incorporation and discusses some of the practical ways in which film can now be used as a means of generating ethnographic understanding,

Cine etnográfico: tecnología, práctica y teoría antropológica

Despite the enthusiasm of the pioneer generation of anthropologists by the camera as a means of ethnographic research, the film was left out of the anthropological project for almost the entire course of the last century. However, a combination of technological advances and recent changes in theoretical paradigms in anthropology now offers the possibility of greater integration of film within ethnographic research. This article pretend to identify the basis for this theoretical incorporation and discusses some of the practical ways for which the film can now be used as a means to generate ethnographic understanding.

Thick Inscription and the Unwitting Witness: Reading the Films of Alfred Haddon and Baldwin Spencer

Due to the ability of a cine-camera to record more than the filmmaker realizes at the moment of filming—a quality referred to here as “thick inscription”—it is often possible, many years later and in the light of subsequent comparative ethnography or changing historical circumstances, to reinterpret the ethnographic significance of film footage in terms that go well beyond those imagined by the original filmmaker. In the course of a detailed analysis of their films and in combination with a comparison of their filmmaking practices, this article will show how this principle applies to the work of Alfred Haddon and Baldwin Spencer, two of the most important early practitioners of ethnographic filmmaking. The article concludes with a brief appraisal of their cinematographic legacy.

The authoring of Observational Cinema: conversations with Colin Young

Based on a series of conversations with Colin Young that have taken place over more than thirty years, this article explores how a certain set of practical and institutional circumstances, in combination with a series of philosophical and aesthetic ideas about the nature of cinema, first led to the emergence over the late 1960s and early 1970s of the approach to ethnographic filmmaking that would become known as “Observational Cinema.” Although it was those whom Colin Young trained, inspired or simply influenced who worked out the practical filmmaking applications of his ideas, it was he who initially formulated the foundational concepts underpinning this approach to ethnographic filmmaking. As such, although he has been a “filmmaker-maker” rather than a filmmaker himself, Colin Young has a rightful claim to be considered, in the sense defined by Roland Barthes, as the original “author” of Observational Cinema.

From Documentation to Representation: Recovering the Films of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson

Although the seven films made by Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, based on footage shot in Bali and New Guinea during 1936–39, are identified as a landmark in various histories of ethnographic film, these films have been the subject of remarkably little analysis in the anthropological literature. In contrast, their photographic work has received much more extended commentary. Making a close reading of the films in their final edited form, this article aims to recover this aspect of Mead and Batesons work from its relative neglect. We consider the circumstances under which the films were made, the theoretical ideas that informed them, and the methods employed in shooting and editing. Notwithstanding recent skepticism about both the theoretical ideas and the quality of the research on which Mead and Batesons work in Bali was based, as well as the naiveté of some of the filmmaking ideas found in the films themselves, when considered as a group, they continue to be interesting examples of a particular transitional phase in the history of ethnographic film.

The First Ethnographic Documentary? Luiz Thomaz Reis, the Rondon Commission and the Making of Rituais e Festas Borôro (1917)

Although rarely mentioned in English-language texts, Rituais de Festas Borôro has long been acknowledged as a masterpiece of early ethnographic film in the French and Brazilian literature. Shot in 1916 by a Brazilian army officer, Luiz Thomaz Reis, and released in 1917, the film is mainly about the funeral ceremony of the Bororo, an indigenous people of Central Brazil. Here we contrast this work with other ethnographic films of the period and suggest that it has a strong claim to be seen as the first ethnographic documentary in the modern sense of the term. We also consider the political circumstances that led to the filming in this particular form, its status as an ethnographic account of the funeral, and its place in the personal filmography of Luiz Thomaz Reis.

Principles of visual anthropology reconsidered

Paul Hockings, ed. Principles of Visual Anthropology. 2nd edition. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1995. xi + 562 pp.

Film-making and ethnographic research

59.95 hdbd.,

The Adventure of the Real: Jean Rouch and the Craft of Ethnographic Cinema

29.95 paper.