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Concept
Ethnographic film
Summary
An ethnographic film is a non-fiction film, often similar to a documentary film, historically shot by Western filmmakers and dealing with non-Western people, and sometimes associated with anthropology. Definitions of the term are not definitive. Some academics claim it is more documentary, less anthropology, while others think it rests somewhere between the fields of anthropology and documentary films.
Anthropologist and ethnographic filmmaker David MacDougall wrote in a 1978 paper: "Ethnographic films cannot be said to constitute a genre, nor is ethnographic film-making a discipline with unified origins and an established methodology. Since the first conference on ethnographic film was held at the Musée de l'Homme 30 years ago, the term has served a largely emblematic function, giving a semblance of unity to extremely diverse efforts in the cinema and social sciences."
The genre has its origins in the colonial context.
Prospector, explorer, and eventual filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty is considered to be the forefather of ethnographic film. He is most famous for his 1922 film Nanook of the North. Flaherty's attempts to realistically portray Inuit on film were considered valuable for exploring a little-known way of life. Flaherty was not trained in anthropology, but he did have a good relationship with his subjects.
The contribution of Felix-Louis Regnault may have started the movement. He was filming a Wolof woman making pottery without the aid of a wheel at the Exposition Ethnographique de l'Afrique Occidentale. He published his findings in 1895. His later films followed the same subject, described to capture the "cross cultural study of movement." He later proposed the creation of an archive of anthropological research footage.
The Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to the Torres Straits, initiated by Alfred Cort Haddon in 1898, covered all aspects of Torres Straits life. Haddon wrote to his friend Baldwin Spencer recommending he use film for recording evidence.
Official source
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