On the Edges of Ethnography: Kim Longinotto’s Institution of Feminist Discourses

Abstract

The free cinema movement that began in the 1950s aimed to achieve the closest approximation to reality without undue artifice in the filmmaking process. Aided by the development of the lightweight camera that also synchronises sound, the free cinema movement was able to lead to the emergence of a documentary practice that professed a distinct aesthetic. The late film historian Erik Barnouw asked whether the free cinema camera serves as observer or provocateur, and concluded that it is neither. Instead, Barnouw observes that both cinéma vérité and direct cinema achieve their impact ‘by inquiry, rather than protest. In both these genres, documentarists were trying to throw light on dark places, while avoiding editorializing’ (1993, p. 262). Such an approach is rather different from the somewhat earlier documentary practice of, say, Jill Craigie, as discussed in the previous chapter, where commentary, protest, and commitment to an ideological position are paramount in her films’ exploration of particular subject matters. What-ever the rhetoric of the direct cinema movement, the aesthetic choices made to privilege observation and inquiry over argu-ment and protestation signal yet another approach through which to invigorate feminist politics or instil a feminist ethics in film culture and documentary practice.