This course will introduce the students to the ever-developing dialogue between film and anthropology, the diverse filmic expressions conceived by this dialogue throughout the past century, and the very practice of ethnographic filmmaking. While choosing their own field of research within the culture and society surrounding them and planning their filmic inquiry, the students will learn about works of the most influential filmmakers in the field of ethnographic film: Margaret Mead’s positivist research films, Jean Rouch’s ciné-trance, ethno-fiction and cinema vérité, David MacDougall’s observational cinema, Chris Marker’s auto-ethnography, Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel’s sensorial ethnography and recent experimentations and contributions to the field.
Throughout the discussion of these approaches, the students will encounter questions central to this inter-disciplinary field:
• What distinguishes ethnographic filmmaking from other film practices?
• What can the art of film gain from an acquaintance with the study of man and the research of cultures?
• Conversely, how can anthropology benefit from the use of the visual medium?
• What is the effect of various aesthetic and narrative choices on the representation of “others”?
• What can a filmmaker learn from the ethical consciousness that characterizes contemporary anthropology?
• What ethical complexities cannot be avoided when working with people from other cultural and social backgrounds?
With these questions in mind, the students will submit a 10-minute ethnographic film shot in the field of their choice. The filmmaking work will be evaluated in three stages: a presentation of the field of research and research question; a presentation of a rough cut in class; a submission of a final film.