Intimacy, Integrity, and Indulgence in Anthropological Film

Abstract

I WANT TO ADDRESS THREE INTERRELATED themes in this article: first, how, as an anthropologist, I have responded to challenge of making anthropological films for television; second, question of what degree of intimacy is acceptable in anthropological film; and third, how subjects of my films have taken advantage of filming situation. It is interesting to note that when anthropologists talk about films made by or in consultation with anthropologists, they call such films ethnographic, whereas W producers call them anthropological. By calling such films ethnographic, anthropologists imply that they have lowly status of unanalyzed, non-theorized data, in contrast to anthropological writings that aim at theoretical analysis of ethnographic data. W producers, on hand, like to raise status of such films by calling them anthropological, implying that they reveal knowledge and understanding of their subject matter. In this article I use two terms interchangeably to refer to documentary films made by or in collaboration with anthropologists who have become acquainted with subjects and topic of their film through fieldwork, that is to say participant observation. In this respect I share Paul Henley's view that necessary feature of any film one might describe as 'ethnographic' would be fact that it had been made under circumstances conforming to norms associated with characteristically anthropological fieldwork method of participant observation (Henley, Promise 14-15). The Challenge of Television for Anthropology When an anthropologist does fieldwork, he or she usually goes and lives with people who reside in a remote place and observes seemingly exotic customs. Through getting to know individual persons, participating in their lives, and being taught and enlightened by them, an anthropologist gains knowledge and understanding of their customs. Anthropological films parallel this process of knowledge acquisition in so far as they allow to gain an understanding of other by viewing people and events and hearing individuals explain things to an often invisible anthropologist. The of such an anthropological film does not need to be a professional anthropologist or student of anthropology in order to appreciate and understand subjects of film, who themselves are usually non-academics. For same reason, anthropological films are appropriate for all kinds of audiences and are very suitable for TV, as many anthropological film series have proved ever since Disappearing World series in Britain started being broadcast in 1970. Paul Henley pointed out that the Disappearing World series managed to satisfy several constituencies at once. The film-makers' colleagues were sufficiently impressed to give series a highly prestigious and Television Academy (BAFTA) award in 1974. The senior executives of Granada were happy because viewing figures remained high: in 1978, public voted series best programme of its kind on commercial television. Furthermore, the Disappearing World films are now widely used as teaching resources in anthropological departments of universities (Henley, British Ethnographic Film 7). Ten years later, Paul Henley warned, trend towards international co production means that all sorts of compromises have to be made to meet expectations of several different kinds of W viewer (Henley). But how can one know what expectations are, and why should anthropological films have to meet expectations in any case? Surely purpose of any anthropological film, whether for television, schools, or archives, is to document things as they appear to be and as people interpret them, whether this accords to expectations or not. Werner Dutsch, long-standing producer of an exceptional TV slot for lengthy (up to twohour) documentary films at West Deutsche Rundfunk in Germany, pointed out how difficult, if not impossible, it is to know what viewers think of films, let alone what they might want or expect: It's always like this with W productions. …