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Early educational films and anthropology
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Early educational films and anthropology
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EARLY EDUCATIONAL FILMS AND ANTHROPOLOGY
by
Clark Arnwine
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(ANTHROPOLOGY)
December 2003
Copyright 2003 Clark Arnwine
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90089-1695
This thesis, written by
k A
under the direction o f h tZ thesis committee, and
approved by all its members, has been presented to and
accepted by the Director o f Graduate and Professional
Programs, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree o f
Director
Date December 17. 2003
Thesis Committee
fid
Chair
u
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ii
Acknowledgements
This project has been cultivated over a period of time, and many
people have contributed directly or indirectly to the process. My sincere
appreciation goes to David Shepard, who initially suggested the topic of
educational films and steered me to the archive of older teaching films that
he donated the University of Southern California School of Cinema-
Television Moving Picture Archive, and he read an early version of this
research. Valarie Schwan of the Moving Picture Archive graciously allowed
access to film prints for study. Alexander Moore provided considered
feedback and encouragement over the process of returning to finish this
project. David James has been a consistent stimulus and advocate. Dorothy
Scott of the Graduate School has been unfailingly helpful in negotiating the
bureaucratic obstacles in obtaining this degree. Pat Kervick of the Peabody
Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University provided
useful assistance, as did Michelle Gachette of the H arvard University
Archive. Charles Wolfe allowed me to present portions of this research on a
panel he chaired at the Visible Evidence Conference.
Paul Bertino was an invaluable technical advisor on the visual
component of this degree, and has remained a steadfast friend. Jesse Lerner
provided encouragement and learned discussion. My mother Lou Arnwine
and father Bill Arnwine should be relieved that I have finally put this
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particular project to rest, as they have watched it unfold over a period of
time; each has nourished its genesis with unconditional love and support.
Shelley Saunders has been a stalwart figure of patience and has offered
myriad forms of assistance as I have endeavored to finish this and other
academic undertakings.
Thanks to Tim Asch for saying "Courage!" and exemplifying same.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ...... ii
Abstract ...... v
Early Educational Films and Anthropology. ..... 1
Endnotes ..... 47
Bibliography ............ .53
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V
Abstract
This thesis explores aspects of anthropological films in the first years of the
twentieth century, focusing especially on the early use of the medium of
motion pictures in education. Following a brief history of silent-era non-
fictional filmmaking, the emergence of the educational market for films is
explored through primary documents. The specific case of the Harvard
University Anthropology Department's collaboration w ith the film
distributor Pathe in the late 1920s is examined, especially as evidenced in the
educational film short The Masai. This film illustrates the intended strategies
of analyzing hum an geography, but also reveals assumptions, biases and
prejudices operative at that time. This discussion raises issues on the status
of the documentary image as evidence, of the relationship of film producer
to subject, and of the multiple layers of meaning embedded in the image
that can work at cross purposes to intended strategies.
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1
Early Educational Films and Anthropology
Visual anthropology, and specifically the anthropological use of film,
has been around longer than it has generally been given credit for. Standard
histories of ethnographic film typically move from a founding moment by
the father figure Robert Flaherty with Nanook in 1922, to the uses of film and
photography by Mead and Bateson, and on to the work of John Marshall and
Jean Rouch in the fifties (see for instance Karl Heider's history1 ).
Occasionally reference is made to earlier uses of film by anthropologists; de
Brigard notes a number of early practitioners, but in a fashion that stresses
names, titles and dates, and does not engage in an analysis of representation
or the reception and uses of these films.2 A similar, later effort initiated by
the Musees de Marseilles catalogs a number of the earliest film images of
exotic foreign cultures in a way that purports to list the first hundred films
that engage non-Western subjects, though a num ber of omissions in their
tabulation can be cited.3 The role of still photography in anthropological
efforts of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has received scholarly
attention, with some commentators noting the birth of photography and
anthropology in the same historical moment, and their similar relationships
to travelers.4 But by and large the uses of early film for anthropological
purposes have not been addressed.
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2
This thesis explores one aspect of the history of this subject,
attitudes towards how anthropologically based film was used in teaching. 1
am interested in discourses surrounding the evidentiary value of non-fiction
film in relation to the study of different social groups. This is a subject that
mirrors other debates about documentary film, and which has remained a
constant discussion in ethnographic film circles. My contention is that
anthropologically related uses of film did not emerge as a full-blown, self-
sufficient medium, but rather should be understood in relation to existing
media and cultural forms such as the stereograph, the illustrated travel
lecture, the picture postcard, the native village at the international
exposition, and the museum exhibit of life groups. The use of film should
also be understood in the context of competing issues and factions in the
history of the discipline itself.
In looking at these materials which embody racial attitudes and
sometimes negative stereotypes that would be considered offensive in our
current situation I will necessarily engage in a critique of representational
strategies, but I recognize that their historical and cultural context shapes
their production, and will try to understand the images in relation to existing
attitudes. By trying to understand how people at the time saw these films
rather than dismissing them outright allows us to trace attitudes to the film
presentation of reality. They also allow us to understand aspects of an era
that may not come across in theatrical films of the time. After all, this was
the period of the International Exhibition that displayed examples of exotic
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3
cultures, the years that saw the rise of National Geographic, a time when
the U.S. began to administer far flung territories and "interests." It would be
worthwhile to explore relationships to other cultural artifacts that trade in
the exotic; the position of educational travelogue films to such commercial
successes as Moana, Chang, or Congorilla would be one starting point.
One of the less recognized areas of nonfiction motion picture practice
is the non-theatrical short film, which remains under-analyzed as part of
cinematic tradition, despite the thousands of films released and the millions
of people that have viewed them. The following work will attempt to shed
light on this area of film practice by taking for its subject a sub-genre of the
non-theatrical documentary short, the travelogue view of exotic or non-
western cultures at a particular historical moment in the nineteen twenties
and thirties. I am particularly interested in one of the main markets for these
types of films, their use in primary and secondary education. It might be
easy to simply dismiss films of this genre for their shallow illustration, the
condescension exuded in intertitle commentary, the tendency to an
exoticizing gape. But opening up this neglected documentary niche does
more than merely air out a dusty historical corner. This type of film offers
insight into what was an evolving consideration of the relationship between
reality-based film footage and the presentation of propositions about the
processes filmed; a matter of relevance today as we discuss forms of "visible
evidence." Early attitudes about the ability of film to transparently record an
existent reality, or to more vividly represent cultures than words resonate
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4
within (or against) current discourses about the use of visual texts in
argument. To look concretely at how such texts were considered in their
own time can offer insight into these discussions.
Indeed, the educational short might well be influential beyond its
relative anonymity in the critical field. Numerous students over the years
have been exposed to these at impressionable stages of their development. A
1936 Office of Education study of junior high schools found that a third used
motion pictures often, and three quarters at some times.
But how does one effectively study these types of films today? Solely
viewing a body of films collected in an archive will provide a certain kind of
reading. From our distance in time and visual sophistication their
conventions are easy to sneer at. To examine these films only through such a
textual analysis would provide a reading far removed from the way they
were considered in their own time. One problem presented is that, like
other early films dating from an era when value beyond an immediate use
was not considered, many of these films simply are no longer extant. The
types of films that do remain may say more about archival priorities than
actual output. And when ephemera from an earlier age so clearly dated by
prevailing attitudes or visual style are brought to light, they are easily
adapted as entertaining kitsch, as in the case of the film Atomic Cafe, which
compiled footage of atomic tests, propaganda and civil defense to parodic
effect, the "Ephemeral Films" compilations of older industrial and classroom
footage published by Voyager as laserdisc and cd-ROM from the Prelinger
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5
collection. Recent DVDs have compiled collections of educational health
and drug films, primarily from the fifties and sixties.5
In the attem pt to understand the social uses of these films several
resources are available. Starting in the twenties a num ber of books were
published that offer overviews of the types and use of visual aids in the
classroom. Catalogs from various distributors can be unearthed, such as the
guide to the Kodascope rental library, or the annual publication " 1 000 and
One': The Blue Book of Non-Theatrical Films," which by the nineteen thirties
actually lists several thousand films and over two hundred distributors.6
Catalog listings offer a wealth of information about the types of films that
circulated beyond those immediately available for viewing today, and the
organization, titles, and brief captions offer some insight into the attitudes
toward conveying information through documentary images . A very useful
source in tracing the contours of this area of film is the professional journal
The Educational Screen, which from 1922 offered educators a forum for
discussion of issues and debates pertinent to the then emerging field of
visual instructional aids. But before turning to this publication and some of
the insights it offers I would like to sketch some of the history and features of
the travelogue field, and especially look at the history of anthropological film
in the early period.
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Early H istory of a Genre
Actuality or "documentary" (the word was coined for film by
Grierson in 1926 in a review of Robert Flaherty's film Moana) filmmaking
dates back to the inception of the medium. Even before the debut of
projected film in 1895, Thomas Edison had invented the Kinetoscope in 1894,
which presented short films through a peephole type viewer. Some of the
first titles for this arcade device included "Sioux Indian Ghost Dance,"
"Indian War Council," and "Buffalo Dance," which were shot in Edison's
New Jersey studio, the "Black Maria" w ith performers from Buffalo Bill's
Wild West show which had just finished a rim in Brooklyn.7 Though
obviously staged to a stationary camera, these might well be called the first
ethnographic films. A contender for this title might be the work of Felix-
Louis Regnault. Strictly speaking his pioneering work were not films as we
know them, but a form of chronophotographs based on the work of the
scientist and inventor Etienne-Jules Marey, where sequential photographs
depict motion, though not in the continuous fashion of cinema. Also,
Regnault's work such as "Female Wolof Pottery Maker," shot in 1895 at the
Exposition Ethnographique de l'Afrique Occidentale and intended for a
study of comparative anatomy was not comprised of actual filmed records,
but line drawings based on sequential photography.8 Still, these experiments
were the work of motion photography in the service of specifically
anthropological ends (albeit to affirm racializing differentiations and
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7
implicitly supporting a colonial agenda), a distinction from the
spectacular entertainment intentions of Edison's Kinetoscope, which had the
added attraction of the Buffalo Bill's established name.
Soon the new invention of cinema was recording the curiosities of
foreign lands: in the latter 1890s agents of the Lumiere Brothers firm fanned
out over the globe, using the multi-purpose cinematographe apparatus both
to project items from the company catalogue, as well as to film local sights
(that were shipped back to Lyon to join the swelling catalogue). The
Lumiere catalogue from the first few years lists views from Saigon, Egypt,
Jerusalem, Japan, Mexico, Algeria, Tunisia, and Lebanon, as well as Ashanti
scenes filmed during the Lyon Exhibition in 1897 and numerous locales in
other European countries. These were generally single shot films of less than
a minute, presented by operators directly affiliated w ith the company or by
licensed agents, on a program of selected short films that were marketed as a
novelty rather than as a new cinematic institution or industry.
In 1898 A.C. Haddon used a Lumiere camera and Edison wax cylinder
phonograph to film indigenous life as part of the Cambridge University
Torres Straits expedition, which included researchers representing a number
of fields, though the impact on the field. This effort was followed by W. B.
Spencer's footage of Aboriginal life in 1901, though m ost of the extensive
footage is now lost.9 The Austrian Rudolf Poch was influenced by Haddon's
work and incorporated film cameras in his work in New Guinea in 1904 and
among the Bushmen in South Africa in 1907-1909. Though much of this film
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8
was lost even shortly after filming due to bad weather and poor storage
conditions, some has been conserved and restored.1 0 Among the work of
these men are the earliest specifically anthropological uses of film to record
rituals, document processes, and conduct anthropometric studies. The
impact on the profession seems rather limited, though. Issues to consider in
this regard in terms of the acquisition of images include cost, difficulties to
using a new technology in the field, cinematographic aptitude.1 1 This period
of anthropology is also marked by the growing relevance of ethnography— an
experiential, written endeavor, perhaps an important consideration. I will
stress, though, that in noting these first uses of film for anthropological ends
I do not want to suggest that there is an organic evolution of documentary
seeing, but rather a series of instances, each inflected by other social,
historical, technological and institutional factors.
The Paper Prints Collection of the Library of Congress, a repository of
paper positive copies of films deposited for copyright purposes before films
were covered by copyright law in 1912, contains m any records of foreign
scenes, including a series of street scenes in Shanghai, Canton, and Hong
Kong in China, and from Yokohama and Kyoto in Japan, all copyrighted in
1898. Later films include a series of films depicting Egyptian daily life, dated
1903, as well as more views of the Far East, and a num ber of films made
among Indian groups in the American West and among indigenous groups
in Hawaii.1 2
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Robert Allen places the exhibition of early foreign-locale movies in
the vaudevillian tradition that featured magic lantern slides depicting far
away places, and he argues that indeed the exhibition practice was similar,
presented as a discrete section within a mixed vaudeville program
comprised of various live performances and visual spectacles. In this role
they were popular at the time; "the travelogue was one of the most
frequently made types of film between 1896 and 1903."1 3 One should note
that the w ord "travelogue" can be traced to a first use by the lantern slide
travel lecturer Burton Holmes in a 1903 engagement in London (who himself
became a prolific producer of travelogue films); these foreign views were
typically called "scenics" at the time.1 4 In addition to slots among programs
on the vaudeville bill, in this early period travelling exhibitors such as
Lyman Howe presented actuality films as part of a program of "refined,
educational entertainment" (which qualified for Sunday viewing)
accompanied by a lecturer in the manner of lantern slide exhibitors,
screenings that cost more and appealed to a more middle class, educated
audience and smaller towns that were not served by the type of music hall
found in the larger cities. Despite the increased num ber of fiction films that
were more predictable to shoot, though more expensive even as they were
subjected to an increasingly rationalized production process, Allen asserts
that "between 1904 and 1906, documentary films accounted for nearly half
(42 per cent) of total American film production."1 5 Charles Musser looks at
the figure of actuality popularity in a different light. Using Edison
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production records Musser notes that in 1904-05, staged or acted films
sold three and half times as well as actualities, which he extrapolates to
succeeding years and to the industry as a whole. While actuality films might
have been made as often, they were not the principle moneymaker.1 6
By 1907 the cinema as an industry had shifted course. The increasing
institutionalization of film as profitable enterprise led to more rationalized
production methods that subdivided and delegated production
responsibilities, in contrast to the individual cameraman style of production
that characterized the early period of cinema (and also m uch non-theatrical
work, even to this day). Exhibition patterns changed as well, as nickelodeon
theaters offering a program of moving pictures supplanted vaudeville as the
principle viewing format. Film length was standardized at 1000 feet. Sharp
demand for product led to increased use of fiction films, which could be
economically produced to length specifications within the emerging
industrial organization, as opposed to the uncertain project of distant
location shooting with unpredictable subjects. Also, audiences began to
prefer the escape of identification with characters in a narrative to the escape
provided by views of distant lands. An example of this change in audience
and exhibitor preferences is suggested by the case of Gaston Melies, brother
of the famous trick filmmaker Georges, who had come to the U.S. to make
westerns in 1910-11, and then went on a tour making films in the South Seas
in 1912-13 of native life and customs. Eileen Bowser in her history of the
American film quotes a St. Louis based film distributor saying why he did
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not buy any more Melies films. "The exhibitors were complaining of the
fact that these films were highly educational and were describing methods of
acting in the South Seas, and also scenics, and educational films generally"1 7 .
Thus, the role of the travelogue as part of a commercial distribution pattern
dwindled.
Barnouw cites other considerations in the demise of actuality films in
the main cinematic sphere. For instance, supposed documentary footage
was subject to faking, as in the case of the 1907 Selig production featuring a
Teddy Roosevelt look-alike who walks through a "jungle" with his black
"porters," then shoots an aged lion: all shot in the Chicago area. Selig had
purchased an ailing zoo whose animals ended up in a num ber of
productions. In Denmark, Nordisk founder Ole Olsen produced a similar
film that involved zoo animals, photographed so as not to reveal their real
location; the shooting of an aged lion purchased from the zoo also played a
prominent role.1 8 In 1910 regular newsreel installments were instituted as
part of cinematic programming, with negative repercussions for the then
state of the documentary field; "they tended to turn the customary
documentary items into a ritual composite: a royal visit, a military
maneuver, a sports event, a funny item, and a native festival in costume."1 9
Later, by the 1930s, there still remained a niche for theatrically distributed
travelogue, but it was generally in a supplementary position rather than the
primary focus it had early on in the emergence of film. With the advent of
the feature length film, travelogues shared an opening spot on the bill with
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cartoons, one reel comedies, newsreels, and the like. Independent
producers filled some of this demand, but MGM produced their own
travelogues, James A. Fitzpatrick's Traveltalks ("The Voice of the Globe")
that presented superficial, tourist postcard itineraries of picturesque locales.
Expeditions
But even as the conventional commercial distribution was drying up
as a venue for non-fiction films, other outlets were beginning to emerge.
One such area for non-fiction use of film was in the num erous expeditions
undertaken in the first three decades of the century which carried
Enlightenment ideals to the far flung comers of the earth. Attaching the
new method of the feat seemed a natural development, although harsh
weather conditions and the weight of equipment proved to be obstacles. An
example of this is the footage taken for Commander Scott's ill-fated polar
expedition. Though the explorers did not survive, images of their exploits
did, and were later made into the film 90° South documenting the crew amid
the austere beauty of Antarctica.2 0
Expeditionary uses of film served several functions, not least a
measure of self aggrandizement and notoriety for the explorer and sponsors,
a record of authenticity and flavor of the journey, a vicarious sense of travel
for those unable to venture to far flung destinations at this time, an itinerary
for later lectures. Sometimes such records were also used for education and
promotion in a m useum setting in this trium phant era of the natural history
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13
museum— for museum based teaching (as in teacher training programs
run by the AMNH), for fundraising, and public lectures along the then
prevalent lantern slide model.2 1 Yet expeditionary films were typically not
shot with a specific intent for educational uses, and w hen available for such
uses they served more as a prompt for lectures and as reference to the
collections. Different training and sensibilities between the knowledge of
experts in a particular area, instructors in the classroom, and cinematic
technicians in the field, as well as the technical limitations of the cinematic
equipment led to rather superficial documentation of expedition activity.
Often the expeditions were designed to procure specimens for the
collection, and film was merely an ancillary activity. Donna Haraway
discusses some of the connections between taxidermic collecting and the
invention of the famous Akeley camera w ith separate panning and tilting
heads (used extensively by the Army Signal Corps during the First World
War, and which was later used by Robert Flaherty to shoot Nanook of the
North and Moana), which was designed by Carl Akeley, the chief AMNH
taxidermist, and used on his AMNH sponsored expeditions to Central Africa
to obtain gorilla specimens. The development of the Akeley camera frames
an interesting conjunction of the verb "to shoot." He endeavored to capture
wildlife both through the fixity of the film negative as well as to kill and stuff
(formerly) living examples; both activities involving "shooting." Akeley had
also mounted expeditions under AMNH auspices in 1909-11 in Africa, which
were followed in 1914 by African trips undertaken by Paul Rainey, Cherry
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Kearton, James Barnes.2 2 Expeditionary footage was ongoing through the
1920s (and even into the forties and fifties) as a number of film records exist
in the AMNH catalog alone; though typically these were not intended for
theatrical release, and were often disjointed shots that do not form a coherent
film. One difference is the husband and wife team of M artin and Osa
Johnson, who m ade exploitation travelogues like Cannibal of the South Seas,
Congorilla, and Simba, often under the AMNH supervision (Akeley
encouraged this association). These films typically lauded the Johnson's
marksmanship and humor, while degrading native porters and offering
threatening wildlife that needs to be killed.
Development of a Non-Theatrical Market
In 1910 the successful distributor George Kleine m erged the
informative films of Charles Urban2 3 (whom Kleine represented) with
various used films from his distribution company, offering a catalogue of
one thousand films to the New York City Board of Education, whose
Superintendent was widely known for his "fads and fancies" approach to
teaching. This effort was not immediately implemented by the schools--
projectors were not available, teachers did not know how to operate them
anyway, and many of the theatrical films were not really suitable for
classroom use. Thus, the gesture did not have the result Kleine anticipated—
creation of the education and church market as a site for the recycling of
films that have expended their commercial possibilities. But though this
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effort did not reap immediate results, it did set the stage for later
elaboration of visual education, and helped identify and define the potential
non-theatrical sector. The year 1910 also saw the Motion Picture Patents
Company, which for a time controlled m uch of American production and
exhibition through licensing and tough litigious stance, institute a ban on
advertising films as part of public exhibitions, which relegated sponsored
films to the emerging non-theatrical circuit.2 4 Ben Singer notes the
proliferation of a discourse around the issue of educational possibilities of
motion pictures, from scattered articles beginning in 1907 to a number of
articles in 1911 in the trade journals The Moving Picture World and The Motion
Picture News (including a three part series by Charles Urban himself), as well
as coverage in the mainstream press. But it appears that despite the interest
in the possibilities for the relatively new medium, institutional and
technological problems inhibited a full-scale approach.2 5
In Exporting Entertainment, Kristin Thompson has rather persuasively
shown how the First World War helped to establish American hegemony in
the global film industry, as the early combatants lost m arket shares to
shortages of raw materials and disruption of international distribution
networks.2 6 The Great War also had a tremendous impact on the
development of the non-theatrical film market. W hen America entered the
war in 1917, there was suddenly a huge demand for films to screen at the
armed forces camps in Europe, as well as to fill the void from the reduced
production by the initial combatants. To augment ongoing Hollywood
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production the Community Motion Pictures Bureau was established,
which compiled all films without theatrical commercial potential and
shipped them to Europe, over 7000 one thousand foot reels per week at its
peak. When the war ended, much of the projection equipm ent and film
footage was returned to the U.S. Large quantities of the surplus equipment
was sold at rock-bottom prices in the empty dome of the historic Siegel-
Cooper department store building on Sixth Avenue in New York.2 7 This
equipment entered the service of numerous schools and churches that
previously could not have afforded projection machinery. The government
disbursed 4000 reels of surplus non-theatrical films to a group of seventy-five
educational institutions who agreed to circulate them for free to the public.
Thus, non-theatrical exhibition venues were created and supplied with a
distribution network of free films, which were rapidly augmented by other
donated film collections, and serviced by agencies w ith similar aims such as
the Y.M.C.A. Motion Picture Bureau.2 8
The organizations that entered the field as exhibitors of non-theatrical
films in this historical moment soon needed more—and more
specialized—programming material. The regular commercial producers did
not have much interest in this market, as educational institutions and church
groups could not afford much in the area of compensation compared to the
lucrative established venues. However, a number of small independent
producers were satisfied operating in this margin. These individuals became
the main producers for this market, supplying the various agencies that
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sponsored non-theatrical films: religious organizations, larger educational
institutions, advertising and public relations departments of companies,
sportsman's groups. Other producers included wealthy tourists, explorers,
research expeditions, and later organized film units of government agencies
(especially in the areas of agriculture and public health) and even units
within corporations. Given the nature of the enterprise, w ith limited
resources and varying assignments, the level of technical skill and artistic
vision that was applied could vary quite a bit.
The cost of exhibiting non-theatrical film became m uch more
accessible with the introduction by Eastman of the 16mm gauge format in
1923 in an effort to stimulate the institutional and especially amateur
markets. While most educational films were still shot in the more optically
precise 35mm, the finished prints could be reduced for projection on the
cheaper projectors. Postal costs for rentals were also m uch more affordable,
partly due to the use of newly developed safety print stock that did not
necessitate the use of heavy lead shipping parcels that were required for
nitrate films. Of course, prints in the new, lighter film gauge could be sent
through the mail at a fraction of the cost of the industry standard 35mm, an
important consideration for the development of a rental trade, which made a
whole library of films available to educators w ithout the expense and
uncertainty of outright purchasing.
In the mid twenties an institutionalization of the educational film
market began to occur with the emergence of organizations like the
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University Film Foundation of Harvard and especially Eastman
Classroom Films, which engaged in production, rental, and sales, as well as
corporate film departments and film units of government agencies. Tourist
related industries sponsored films that entered the non-theatrical market, as
in the case of Anchor Steamship Lines subsidizing free travelogues of
destinations they serviced; and national tourist boards like that of New
Zealand and especially Japan produced films that directly or indirectly
promoted tourism. Church and missionary groups sponsored films that
occasionally entered into the educational curriculum, some that depicted the
heathens crying out for good missionary work, others showing the success of
such efforts. This rise in non-theatrical production was stimulated by the
increasing interest of educators in film as a teaching tool, usually justified
with deference to new "progressive" methods in the field, and sometimes
offered as a counterweight to the immensely popular theatrical cinema.
After the introduction of sound cinema in the late twenties the non
theatrical market was torn. Many institutions, having only recently invested
in silent equipment, could not justify a change-over to the new technology.
Others in the field saw the possibilities inherent in an added dimension of
the presentation, though typically the sound consisted of music and or
narration as opposed to location sound, which was still hard to achieve at
this time. Some viewed the necessity of switching to sound merely to keep
pace with the commercial cinema— thinking perhaps that students would not
respect such an outmoded medium. Still, the use of silent non-theatrical
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shorts continued through the thirties and well into the forties. A 1940
survey found equal numbers of silent and sound 16mm projectors in schools,
while for the lesser numbers of 35mm projectors silent equipm ent prevailed
by a three to one ratio.
Non-Theatrical Film Usage: The Educational Market
In 1919 the Society for Visual Education was established at the
University of Chicago by public utilities magnate Harley L. Clarke along
with a group of university professors and educators interested in
pedagogical uses of the new medium.2 9 It was also an endeavor of the time,
as similar organizations sprouted up at Yale and other institutions. Their
monthly newsletter Visual Education developed into the journal The
Educational Screen in 1922, which provided a forum for discussion of the use
of visual media in the classroom. This magazine offers insight into the
philosophy of use of visual media at the time, which included lantern slides,
stereographs, and stereopticons in addition to film. The articles can be
grouped into several categories: lesson plans that incorporate visual media,
technical pointers, brief reviews of both theatrical and non-theatrical films
(the former viewed with a moralizing air, the latter rather enthusiastically
and uncritically reviewed). Perhaps the most frequent and consistent feature
to be found through the years, though, are extensive arguments extolling the
benefits of visual education, and discussions concerning the nature of visual
education (and w hat it is not): a general defense and redefinition of the field.
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From this one might infer the controversial nature of the practice within
the larger field of education, that this particular discipline is under watch,
and thus conducts a vigorous self-scrutiny. Repeatedly correspondents
argue that films do not supplant good teaching, and that an educational film
differs greatly from a Hollywood film. Yet the journal pays a significant
amount of attention to the current Hollywood releases—often more than to
films produced for the non-theatrical circuit—perhaps to offer guidance for
teachers and religious counselors as to proper fare for their charges (and
themselves). I will focus my exploration of visual education here primarily
to the field of geography, which most lends itself to the types of films I am
interested in for this study.
The benefits of visual education as viewed by the contributors to The
Educational Screen occur in two areas: stimulating interest in the pupils, and
as a vivid representation of facts covered in the lesson. Some teachers feel
the most important aspect of films is to stimulate the attention of tired or
bored students. One High School Geography instructor w rites of "the great
service which visual aids rightly used in the classroom can render in
arousing keen interest in the pupil and promoting natural learning."'3 0 He
adds, though, that "visual instruction does not involve, however, any drastic
change in good teaching practice, but merely the presenting of material
through the ’ seeing experience.’" In a study of the use of films in the Santa
Barbara school system, one teacher of third through fifth graders who used a
series of films on East Asia was quoted: "The motion pictures were one of the
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21
strongest interest-motivating sources we ever had....Each moving picture
stimulated m uch oral discussion in which nearly every child in the group
could and did take part."3 1
Yet, besides the captivating quality of visual imagery, some
instructors saw in visual education new and distinct learning opportunities.
"An understanding of the life of the Norwegian people no longer depends
merely upon verbal description and chance comprehension. "3 2 Students
bring to bear their own observations as they draw conclusions about other
cultures, rather than merely accepting abstract verbal descriptions.
With a pictorial background, how much more enthusiastically will the
child approach the printed page, what increased understanding and
insight he will bring to its study, and how clear-cut we may expect his
conclusions to be when he finds that the statements in his text tally
with the results of his own observations.3 3
Thus, within the regular lesson plan, the image has a particular usefulness in
the study of geography, by making vivid and specific a foreign culture. The
same writer elsewhere makes even stronger claims for the power of the
image:
No other means can so readily bring to our minds the conditions of
life in other lands as can the picture. Through that agency we are for a
little while projected into surroundings other than our own, living the
lives of other people, going with them in their work and their play,
entering vicariously for a time into their experiences.3 4
But despite the visionary power allotted to visual imagery in this
formulation, this author as well as others regularly insist on the value of
discussion both prior to and after the use of projected images, so that they
will approach the films with "a whetted attention that insures results," and
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2 2
to provide a context for the scenes viewed. The "visible evidence"
presented in the classroom thus works more to illustrate or confirm
anticipated conclusions.
Not all of the contributors to the journal embrace film as an
unproblematic visual representation. One correspondent points to perceived
drawbacks of the medium:
The motion picture has the disadvantage that it can be very dogmatic.
Unless what it shows is suitably qualified and interpreted the
ordinary spectator carries away convictions that rest on an
ineradicable impression. This is not because the film is necessarily
false as to w hat it shows, but because what one sees is not necessarily
adequate testimony for what one thinks it means."3 5
Such a measured view of the use of film in education seems to anticipate
later discussions of representation, and of the power of imagery to offer
various levels of inherent meaning. It also calls to m ind the work of Wilton
Martinez at USC's Center for Visual Anthropology on the use of
ethnographic films in today's classroom as often unwittingly reinforcing
stereotypes rather than offering sensitive cross-cultural insights. However,
the author of this 1934 article makes his point by way of arguing for the
value of turning to sound films as a remedy from the ambiguity of the image,
which is perhaps a misplaced sense of hope. The use of voiceover sound in
this early period to anchor the interpretation of the image (a function
previously handled by intertitles and the skill of the instructor) merely shifts
the terrain of the ineradicable impression.
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The innovation in teaching brought about by visualizing
technologies parallels other new approaches to education in this time period.
A primary venue for the travelogue shorts were w ithin a branch of social
studies called "hum an geography," which marked a shift in pedagogy from
earlier conventions of the discipline. One writer in 1922 discusses the
development of the teaching of geography, which had m oved from the
identification of borders and place-names, to an emphasis on describing
physical features of the land, to the then current stage, "hum an geography,"
which comprises:
A study of people against a background of their environment, carrying
on the industries which conditions of climate, soil and natural resources
permit them to carry on; getting their living as uncompromising
geographical factors decree that they shall....We see them as actors in
the great dram a of civilization, and hum an life becomes not a matter of
chance, but a response to definite facts of environm ent....From a new
understanding of the conditions surrounding different peoples of the
world, and governing their lives, there comes quite naturally a new
respect for other life, other customs besides our own— something which
is the beginning of a world viewpoint.3 6
The new scientific, rationalistic approach explains cultural traits through
environmental adaptation, accounting for difference; at the same time such a
view espouses a humanistic, nonjudgmental attitude to others. But the level
of analysis offered typically eschews any attention to contingent political or
historical realities. Another writer echoes the need for a sympathetic global
awareness as a way to intervene before prejudice takes root in children. She
stresses how the motion picture is "of vital importance in revealing true
living conditions and picturizing great stretches of country at one time....all
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24
alike can read the message of pictures."3 7 This author asserts that through
reading the message of pictures, a sense of cultural relativism and tolerance
can be instilled in children.
The greatest need of the world today is universal harmony. The
outstanding objective in teaching geography in every school throughout
the world ought to be to develop a sympathetic appreciation and
understanding of the peoples and nations of the globe. The people of
the United States, particularly, need to learn to think of the world as a
whole, as the home of the great hum an family, and to realize America's
present responsibilities in the family of nations. Racial prejudices grow
out of ignorance and are best removed by understanding. The time to
lay this foundation is early in life before prejudices have been
acquired.3 8
While well-meaning in standing up to enduring racialist attitudes, an
excessive faith seems put into an unproblematic view of geographical film.
The power of images to convey multiple meanings depending upon
reception context, and perhaps inadvertently reinforcing stereotypes that it
ostensibly seeks to dispel is not considered. And indeed, this optimistic view
is belied by the implied cultural superiority or even outright derision
displayed in many of the educational film intertitles.
In an effort to more accurately assess the social significance of these
travelogue films one should not consider them only through a model of the
historical development of commercial motion pictures. Of course, the
earliest travelogue films were an integral part of the emerging cinematic
phenomenon, but such films were subsequently pushed aside in favor of
fictional escapes and star identification. In many respects such films operate
more along the lines of other travelogue media that were prevalent in the
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latter part of the nineteenth and the early twentieth century, such as the
newly invented postcard, then in its heyday, the extremely popular
stereograph views of foreign lands, and the lantern slide lecture. Indeed, the
term "travelogue" was coined in 1903 by the indefatigable world traveler
Burton Holmes with regard to his lantem-slide illustrated travel lectures;3 9 he
also went on to form an educational travel film company of prodigious
output. These types of films were discussed in professional books and
journals as part of a wider "visual education," among articles on the use of
other visual materials ranging from maps and globes to stereopticons and
lantern slides. And, in a similar fashion to these types of still images, the
educational geography film often operates more at the level of the static
view, illustrating a concept conveyed through the intertitles, and needing
further contextual elaboration. It is the information or concept that comes
first, confirmed by the image (though certainly received ideas often shape
the interpretation of a particular image— prevailing notions concerning the
Oriental, the Primitive, etc.)
Ancillary materials from this time will occasionally refer to the need
for educational motion pictures to show movement, otherwise the choice of
film as a medium is not necessary. To stretch this idea, that movement could
occur through the editing, across the cuts, as in a process film that shows
different stages in a process. In practice, though, most educational films
from this period work at the level of the illustrated lecture. They lack the
ability of the narrative cinema to knit together a particular situation across
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time and space. Narrative functions remain rudimentary: the steps in an
industrial process, the various stereotyped views of a culture, the tourist
itinerary.
In a way, the level of organization of knowledge is not at the level of
the individual film text, but rather at the level of the archive or library, the
catalogue from which lessons can be drawn, the organization of the world as
set up according to the group areas and capsule descriptions. A catalogue of
available films published by The Educational Screen has general areas
("Geography") with subheadings ("Islands") and further divisions ("East
Indies," "Pacific and Indian") that divide the world into conventional
geographic areas. However, relevant material may also be found under
other general headings "How Batik is Made in Java" is in Clothing, Textiles
and Leather" section of "Industry and Engineering"). Larger questions
about historical, political and social causes underlying the organization of
such categories are subsumed under the authority offered by the taxonomic
array of the catalogue index. These films are quite earthbound, committed to
a rather mechanistic world-view. Structured according to genre categories
(the process film, the geographical survey) they have internalized a
particular relation to the construction of physical reality, and of the position
of the camera w ith respect to that perceived reality. The indexical works to
reify the iconic; the particular stands for the type. Culture, which appears in
its most physical forms, is preconceived; the films offer illustration rather
than illumination. These attributes raise issues of the status of
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(documentary) film as a medium, highlighting the difference between the
poles of documentary of film as a research tool (or souvenir, token of
authenticity) and the didactic function of corroborating an existing view.
Churches and Motion Pictures
Similar aims as those in the educational sphere motivated the use of
films in church organizations. An article in The Educational Screen quoted the
Reverend Johnson of Elm Street Congregationalist Church in Southbridge,
Massachusetts, who conducted church services for children between the ages
of nine and sixteen that was organized around the movie projector.
It is also my belief that the communication of religious truth must be
made vivid and interesting and that it m ust deal w ith life in all its
aspects. At first there was some doubt in my m ind as to whether
worship in the traditional sense, and visual education in the modem
sense, w ould mix. Experience has shown me, however, that my doubt
arose from a fear of novelty rather than from psychological
actualities.4 0
The program included "Girdling the Globe in the Graf Zeppelin," "Inland
Sea: The Land and People of Japan," "China's Home Life and How China
Makes a Living," "The Word of God in India," "Forest People of Africa,"
"Medical Missions in Africa," and "Head Hunters of Ecuador," among other
films, which were interspersed with prayer, hymns, and reading of the
scripture. Despite the novelty of the motion pictures, a churchly environment
was maintained. "Before the screen the cross and an open Bible were placed.
Special music was rendered by a junior choir."4 1 Today the juxtaposition of
the Graf Zeppelin as a tool to make the world smaller and the (putatively)
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28
innocent youth at this religious service stands as grimly ironic, given that
quite possibly some of the youths of this congregation served if not died on
German soil (the service took place in 1935). From the sermon: "And since
we are all one family we want to get acquainted w ith one another and live
together in peace."4 2 But this type of service proved successful at the time.
"The attendance steadily increased during the period in which motion
pictures were shown."4 3
Of course, the other attraction of films in a church context was in the
representation of the good works of the church, and in depicting the heathen
that offer more fertile ground for missionary activity. These uses of the
medium were not so overtly discussed in this journal, but accepted as givens.
The list of titles from Mr. Johnson's service proves useful as an example in
this regard. In addition to "getting acquainted" w ith the diverse humanity
in the world, which quite likely included films that were not produced under
the auspices of a religious group but rather were standard travelogues,
several films show the works of church organizations such as medical
missions, while others show "savages" that presumably should be looked on
with a mixture of understanding and compassion, but also as creatures that
need to hear the w ord of the Lord. A notice in the January, 1933 issue of The
Educational Screen promotes some new mission films.
The Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church...has
available on a rental basis the following 16mm films: "China Today"
(a series of three reels) 1. Everyday Life, 2. The Church at Work, 3.
Young China Takes a Hand. "Babes in Chinaland" (one reel). "Siam—
the Land of the White Elephant" (one reel).4 4
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The notice also indicates that these are "the finest we have yet produced/'
and that they have films on three other countries ready for impending
release. But there was not always this enthusiasm for the medium. An
article from June, 1922 notes that "certain church leaders have believed that
they discover in the movie the very incarnation of the devil," and may still.4 5
Yet the author argues that "Churchly resistance to the movie m ust yield,
must compromise, must recognize that unconditional opposition means
defeat, not to the movie, but to the churchly resister." To do otherwise will
lead to being "doomed by the divinely beneficent laws of hum an progress."
By adjusting to the medium, churches can help steer its development. The
writer, J. E. MacAfee, cautions that movie-making is an art, and he derides
much of the religious film output, which are lacking in the "mechanical
features of the art." "Insipid, blunderingly m anipulated movies are an
impious imposition upon any community, and churches frustrate the very
purposes of their existence by indulging in them."4 6
One wonders exactly what MacAfee means by manipulating movies.
In a program of early film depictions of Aborigines organized by Michael
Leigh and Walter Saunders for the Australian Film Commission, several
lengthy clips represent the work of missionary groups.4 7 They show
Aboriginals herded into camps, regimented, lackluster, devoid of their
traditional culture, and forced instead to wear Western clothes and pray.
Examples exist from 1913 as well as 1936, though the format does not change
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much over time. While the self-satisfied position of the filmmakers comes
across as incredibly tragic and misguided today, clearly the producing
entities felt a sense of purpose in this work. These works show "success,"
the transformation of a "primitive" people to a new way of life (under force
of arms in m any cases, though this is not shown); a representation of the
power of the church, and a useful document in raising funds from parishes.
Would these films qualify as "insipid" and "manipulating" by MacAfee? If
so, what are better films for his purposes? If not, where then does one make
that distinction?
Educational Film Genres
Several subgenres appear within the category of the educational
travelogue films. One is the country survey. This approach, common in
films from the Eastman Classroom Films series, typically shows several
geographical regions of a country, occasionally preceded by an animated
map, with brief depictions of the people, landscape or industries of each
region. These views are usually limited in the am ount of specific detail they
offer: a peasant dance provides particulars of dress and dance step, but is
not placed within a cultural scheme; a herd of goats indicates a wool
industry, but the separate processes that constitute an industry are not
shown. Mining industries are conveyed through a few shots that depict ore
carts or smelting operations. Intertitles are very im portant in identifying the
images. A country is reduced to a series of postcards, the stereotyped
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31
signifiers that are a visual shorthand for a country that provide a basic
orientation for young students.
Another type of film is the industrial process film, which shows
various steps within an industry. One catalogue from the late thirties lists
twenty different films on the making of sugar, one of which, "Cuban Sugar
Cane," moves from Cuban cane cutters through stages of refining and
distribution.4 8 Numerous titles about Japanese fishing industries also
abound. The question arises as to degree these choices of films are politically
motivated. Is the emphasis on knowledge of industrial practices, or on
drawing attention to particular geographic situations? Who sponsors such
endeavors? In the case of the numerous views of Japanese fishing the usual
sponsor is the Japanese Tourist Board, though presumably operating as an
arm of a general propagandizing effort of an expanding world power.
Other models of travelogue film include the tourist itinerary highlight
film, and the children's life film. But the educational film category most
pertinent to my discussion is the case study film, focusing on the practices of
a specific cultural group or even a narrow range of activity. Some of the
Human Geography Series co-sponsored by the H arvard University
Anthropology Department and Pathe films fall into this category, as in the
case of The Masai of 1928, which presents more or less through still shots
various distinctive aspects of their culture. DeVry School Films also
advertises a nine-lesson World Geography series at this time, organized by
Professor DeForest Stull of Columbia University. A less-common subset of
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32
this category is the comparison film/ wherein two cultures in vastly
different environments are contrasted/ as with the films Boats and Fishermen
of the Tropics and Boats and Fishermen of the Arctic, and the similar pair Houses
of the Arctic and Houses of the Tropics; all from Pathe-Harvard.4 9 These
"anthropological" films merit a closer examination.
Realism and Representation
The Masai (1928) offers an example of a film explicitly created within
an anthropological context for teaching purposes. The "School Department"
in the January 1929 issue of The Educational Screen lauds a new ten-part
Pathe-Harvard Hum an Geography Series. "The subtitles show careful
editing and are within the reach of upper elementary school children. Of
course the photography is superb."5 0 The author also notes that a "Teacher's
Aid Pamphlet" accompanies each film/ which includes a list of the titles in
the film, and a series of headings that include suggestions for the instructor.
As far-flung location film production and subsequent post-production and
distribution would have been ambitious for an academic departm ent at this
time/ the endeavor was a joint production. Pathe was looking to maximize
its archival holdings of far-flung places through exploitation of the new and
burgeoning educational market created through the general rise of motion
pictures in m odem life and especially by the advent of safety film and the
accessibility offered by lighter weight 16mm film gauge projectors and
prints. The esteemed Harvard title gave this effort the imprim atur of
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33
educational authority. Pathe provided archival footage and offered
distribution utilizing their professional film experience and industrial
framework, while the film was subtitled and organized by the Harvard
University Anthropology Department. The arrangement was raised in
discussions between representatives of Pathe and the chair of the Harvard
Anthropology division, Dr. Earnest A. Hooton in 1927. During the
negotiations leading up to the partnership one sees H arvard mindful of its
reputation and of having an unseemly commercial connotation to the point
of refusing much direct compensation for services; yet the venture could
prove quite lucrative to Pathe even if specifically labeled as educational and
not for theaters. Harvard received film projecting and editing equipment,
salaries for a couple of workers (primarily grad students who did the editing
and subtitling), access to m any reels of footage for research and classroom
use, and some support for filmmaking on future expeditions, and the chance
to plant its flag in the new medium of motion pictures. Pathe got the name
association, the expertise for the actual editing, advice on future
expeditionary filming. By the summer of 1928 several films were prepared
and taken to various Teacher's colleges and universities for feedback from
educators, and the films were in general classroom release later in 1928.5 1
Pathe Freres was one of the oldest film organizations, originally based
in France but which had soon spread around the world, w ith U.S. operations
since 1904. Pathe’ s efforts included early forays into international newsreels,
as well as the longest running U.S.-based newsreel service, established in
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1911.5 2 The series draws upon source material from newsreel footage and
other Pathe resources for the film series.5 3 For instance, another title in the
series, Boats and Fishermen of the Arctic, clearly recycles footage from Nanook of
the North, a Pathe release (including what are apparently outtakes from that
film).5 4 The Masai footage was filmed by Prince William of Sweden's
Zoological expedition to Central Africa in 1921, and subsequently donated or
licensed to Pathe, possibly appearing in Pathe newsreels. This retitling of
footage for presentations in both entertainment and educational arenas was
not uncommon. One example is the Martin Johnson film Adventures of
Martin Johnson Among the Cannibals of the South Sea Islands (1918). The
Nederlands Filmmuseum has two versions of the film with more or less the
same images, one with exploitative titles, the other more "serious" for the
educational circuit.5 5
A closer look at The Masai presents the chance to explore some of the
relationships between anthropological theory, pedagogy, and the role of film
in providing visual evidence. For while the film attempts to provide an
introductory ethnographic survey of a culture, the information provided is
primarily textual, with the filmed images working as a supplement or
illustration of pre-formed ideas, as authentication of the theoretical position,
but without being able to "speak for themselves"—though at times they
seem to offer information that subverts the voice of the intertitle text. The
film reflects an innate curiosity that people have for those who live lives
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35
different from them, though those differences might be couched in terms
of disgust or condescension.
The film begins with a common device in geographical films of the
time from various producing countries,5 6 and what has become the classic
anthropological film trope (re: the Yanomamo series of Timothy Asch and
Napoleon Chagnon): a series of animated maps that gradually narrow in
scope to depict the geographical location of the Masai in East Africa. This
device that clearly renders the power relationships at stake: the distant,
anonymous, authoritative researcher, and the delimited subject of study.
The first photographic shots are panning shots of the grasslands, followed by
a herd of cattle, then finally a herder comes into the frame. A title card
introduces "The Masai," and there they are: tents, then m en in front of tents,
then a man facing the camera with a shield and possibly w ith some sort of
weapon in hand, posed for visual delectation. A larger group follows, staged
for frontal portrait presentation, much like the "class picture" of grade
school class. The film then moves into some dubious racial speculation.
Against such a group lineup the ensuing titles proclaim
The Masai are negroes who long ago received a mixture of white
blood from Hamites who probably crossed to Africa from
Arabia....Thin noses and lips betray the white blood in this dark-
skinned people.
Such absorptions reflect prevailing social fascination w ith issues of racial
difference and miscegenation. This is probably not the original message seen
in the images by the original camera operators. The film reveals two levels
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36
of selection: the original choices of the newsreel cinematographers, then
the selection of particular images and labeling them to look for specific
details by the Harvard Anthropology Department. Issues of representation
are already implicitly coded, conveying received notions of race, the
primitive, the nature of colonial subjects. That these particular offensive
examples stem from one of the first departments of anthropology reveals a
strand of the discipline steeped in a racialist comparative evolution and
eugenics at odds with the tradition of ethnography beginning to emerge.
The film then moves into a consideration of their livelihood against
their environment, focusing on their characteristic cattle herding that is
suited to the grasslands they inhabit. The film makes the claim that "The
Masai warriors eat no vegetable food, but live on a diet of cow's blood and
milk....They usually eat no meat, except on im portant occasions or when the
animals die." To illustrate there are shots of the gourds used for collecting
and storing milk, the act of milking (followed by a calf drinking from the
same source of milk), and a bleeding of a cow from the neck with a blunt
arrow. "The blood and milk are stirred up in a gourd and drunk with
apparent relish," the labored pun a staple of newsreel commentary. This
establishing of characteristic cultural traits related to the geographic
circumstances is similar to an important study of the time, Melville
Herskovits' "The Cattle Complex in East Africa," the publication of a
Columbia doctoral dissertation in the pages of the American Anthropologist
over several issues in 1926.5 7 This work follows on Clark Wissler's work
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37
establishing culture patterns based on distribution of traits across different
groups among the Indians of North America; taking the concept and
applying it to varied cultures of Africa; and differentiating from the German
concept of the "Kulturkreis." The former idea follows on the pioneering
work of Franz Boas and focuses on traits that diffuse among groups which
are historically and geographically linked, while the latter derives the
concept of a fixed type of social grouping that moves, based primarily on the
enumeration of culture-traits found in artifacts collected in comparative
museological practices rather than through accumulated fieldwork.5 8
The film calls attention to women plastering a hut with
dung—ostensibly to show the group's total dependence on cattle, even for
the skins for the women's dresses and the plaster of the houses. But the
image alone is hard to read, as it is high contrast, and merely shows some
women at work on top of a dark mound. W ithout the title, the specific
activity and materials used would not be apparent. But it also seems that
some of the attention given here has a sensationalizing air about it,
condescendingly pointing to the warped habits of a "primitive" people who
would freely handle and live among dung. Indeed, in test screenings held at
various university education schools the report back to Dr. Hooton was that
"Many of the female teachers seemed a little shocked at the dung houses,
and at the idea of mixing blood and milk to drink. Evidently they don't care
to teach real hum an geography."5 9 With this emphasis on a very physicalist,
environmentalist approach that stresses only cultural practices related to
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38
geographic concerns, note what is left out: categories of social
organization, m yth and religion, burial, family structure, subjectivity.
In this vein the film also pays close attention to those markers that are
radically different from Western life. Interest is shown in the neck hoops
worn by women for life after marriage, and in the lion m ane headdresses
worn by males after their initiation by killing a lion. In both instances
lingering shots allow close inspection of the dress. In this instance, as in the
earlier group portraits that opened the film, the subjects look directly into the
camera (and by implication, at the audience). In one case a wom an is
apparently directed from off camera to turn to the side, then return to a
frontal presentation. This practice of frontal and side views—a staple of
early filmed encounters of so called primitive people—is a convention
derived from anthropometric photography, while the portraiture of such
practices as postcards, or portrait photography. The group portraits also
resemble the tableaux that were a feature of lantern slide presentations and
early cinema, a group posed for a still shot by a moving picture camera. The
direct address, along with instances where subjects are obviously prompted
from off-screen, contradicts the fiction of the ethnographic present that the
film strives to m aintain in otherwise obliterating any evidence of the
conditions of filming. Often newsreels at the time reflexively commented
upon the newsgathering, paparazzi process. But in this case the emphasis is
on conventions of authenticity—to show the Masai as untouched in their
primitiveness, even by the camera crew revealing this.
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39
Other points of reference for this film include the stereotyping and
condescending claim that "Dancing plays an important part in the lives of
the Masai; as it does in the lives of most primitive peoples" which
accompanies a snaking line of women gently bobbing, one w ith a baby on
her back and several with large neck hoops. Men are shown dancing in a
vertical hop, stated to be part of a military drill. Following on received
accounts, the film stresses the warrior nature of the Masai, showing several
staged scenes of warriors hurling spears and holding shields, and posing
with various types of dress, including the lion mane acquired through
individual spearing. Warriors are also shown playing a game described as
like backgammon. But the film occurs in a vague ethnographic present— no
mention is made of the violent wars of suppression waged by the British in
the 1890s (fought ostensibly over clitoridectomy, these were initially won by
the Masai, but eventually the British dispossessed them of their land.) And
the film strives to overlook any reference of dealings the Masai might have
with the outside world through trade.
The "View" Film as Early Genre of Non-Fiction Film
Aspects of this curious film are similar to other nonfiction films of the
period from around 1906 through the late teens. And while this film is dated
1928, it can be classified with this particular earlier period for several
reasons: it is quite possible and even likely that the footage was shot years
before its compilation in this form (the series companion Boats and Fishermen
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40
of the Arctic contains footage from Nanook of the North, released six year
earlier), and this type of nonfiction style continued on through the twenties
thirties even as other more sophisticated uses of documentary were be
introduced. As discussed by Tom Gunning, nonfiction film styles changed
much more slowly than fiction films in the first three decades of the
cinematic medium.6 0 He contrasts what he calls "the view" aesthetic with a
more complex "documentary." The view is about presentation and
authenticity.6 1
The view film can also be characterized by intertitles, and by
individual images that are not linked together in a sequence. Several reasons
can be attributed to this. A nonfiction film of this type w ould have been
accompanied by a lecturer in the earlier days of the cinema, which followed
upon similar expositional strategies of the illustrated slide lecture, and the
intertitles that ensued in documentary film tend to follow on this strategy,
pointing out salient details to observe in the frame, as opposed to narrative
cueing in the fiction film. Thus, there is also a tendency to focus on discrete,
individual images, while in fiction film there was a movement to tell stories
through the interconnection of images, as in the work of D.W. Griffith as he
experimented with and refined film grammar through the production of
over 400 films in just a few years between 1910 and 1912 for Biograph. It was
not until Robert Flaherty started to narrativize actuality filmmaking with
Nanook of the North in 1922 that documentary film started to link images to
convey more complex ideas, a process that was improved in an increasingly
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41
sophisticated fashion with films such as Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie
Camera (1928).
Gunning identifies two principle types of the "view": the landscape
film, and industrial process film.6 2 The Masai has elements of both: it is
certainly a landscape film that shows views of the topography of Masailand
in Eastern Africa; but it has some elements of process, as in the steps of
gathering milk and cow blood to mix for sustenance. There is a claim to
authenticity in that the activities that the images document would have taken
place without the camera's presence. Yet this aspect of the film is
complicated. Certainly the tribal people would have existed, the camera
aside. Yet, the staging for the camera, with individual and group portraits,
and in the apparent "direction" of activities from behind the camera, renders
this the documentation of an intercultural interaction, and one with
colonialist, imperialist overtones. Yet this slippage of authenticity versus
staging is complicated because we do not know the circumstances of the
camera /culture interaction. In some cases of the "contact zone," the
indigenous subjects negotiate their status for their own purposes. For
instance, the famous Margaret Mead film Trance and Dance in Bali was a work
commissioned for her birthday, and which drew upon several different
rituals; for a long time the Balinese were aware of the value of their
"unspoiled" status and staged it for adroitly for monetary compensation.6 3 It
is highly possible that the Masai also negotiated the presentation of aspects
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42
of their culture for tourists and newsreel cameraman, possibly for
remuneration.
This film tends to resemble early cinema rather than the highly-
developed techniques in place in feature films at the height of the silent
cinema period (which was ending just as this film came out). The shots are
rather static for the most part, showing examples of men's and women's
dress, and aspects of food production such as bloodletting from the cow's
neck, and the use of gourds to store milk. While these are illustrative, they
work more as a series of stills categorizing important details of physical
culture that a student should note, as opposed to using film to show motion,
or convey aspects of social organization. The editing is rather crude, not
used towards any but the most basic cinematic purposes, as in a close-up to
isolate a detail from a wider shot, usually returning to the establishing shot.
In one instance there is a shot of a m an tending cattle, then a jump cut to the
same shot (same trees in background), but then cutting to a closer view of the
same scene. However, it is not just that there have been frames cut out from
a long take, but the camera has been positioned closer, yet the ensuing cut
upon placing the two shots adjacent to each other is jarring, because the
shots are not different enough. There is little evidence of the use of film to
show continuity, but rather isolated shots that catalogue traits of this culture.
An attempt to show continuity would be showing the bleeding of a cow
followed by drinking, but the links are rather basic. And the film shows little
use of the cinematic property of using composition in depth: most shots are
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43
flat, still shots showing one object or group of people composed in the
center of the frame, with the emphasis on the object or people, and not on
their relation to space (again, reminiscent of postcard or still photography,
and not very "cinematic" in the usual sense of the word).
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of a complicated authenticity in
this film, and a characteristic of nonfiction films of the period, is the nature of
the returned gaze in the film. In the fiction film there was a move away from
the direct gaze by the filmed subject into the camera, and thus towards the
spectator when viewed in the frame; with rather a tendency to make the
apparatus invisible.6 4 Across a range of films the returned look can be angry,
resistant to the power relationships involved in the filming moment; but that
does not appear to be the case here. Most likely, too, these people have
never seen a projected film; perhaps the returned gaze is merely to the
camera operator. But while the returned gaze in the nonfiction film of the
time emphasizes the moment of interaction of subject and film crew, if
fleeting (and even as other strategies of filmmaking might be trying to
minimize this interaction), at the level of reception it has a different effect.
The returned gaze creates a bond of intimacy between subject and viewer; it
appears that the subject is looking at us, returning the gaze we cast on them.
Considerations of this dynamic can enter into a realm of psychoanalytic
processes,6 5 but it seems that the gaze humanizes subjects that are treated as
objects.
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44
As w ith any work from a film archive, it is not always clear if the
print is a complete version of the original film and thus any emendations
might change the interpretation of the film. There is evidence in the frame of
having been reprinted at some point (a continuous hair in the gate in the film
frame), possibly to make more copies to rent by a rental house. If it was
reprinted, that reprint would not contain any previously cut footage cut. But
on inspection this particular print appears to be about the length of a
classroom film (ca. 400 feet, the standard classroom film length—about ten
minutes long), and there are no splices that would indicate that this
particular reel has been shortened.
Conclusion
While the film The Masai is presumably intending to convey
information about the relationship of the grassland environment to some
cultural practices of the Masai, and to simply present different types of
society to schoolchildren, the staging of the images, and the images
themselves, seem to offer other messages. As an anthropological text, this
film offers information both about the ostensible subject, the Masai, but
reveals also the contexts of social environment, attitudes and conventions
from which the film was produced. An interesting relationship exists
between the idea of an authentic reality that pre-exists the camera, yet which
is mediated through the use of images that support an analysis which
actually prefigures the mounting of these images. Language anchors the
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45
interpretation/ the pictures do not "speak for themselves." They m ay even
have a thrust that undermines the authority of the governing written text.
The use of images to illustrate pre-existing concepts gets at issues of
taxonomy, of required authenticity, of spectacle. Ideologies inherent in the
culture of the society shooting and selecting and presenting these images are
reflected, offering received notions of race, the primitive, the staging of
colonial subjects. This awareness is especially visible to contemporary
viewers with more sophisticated media literacy, and with more enlightened
awareness of power relationships and beliefs that structured social views at
that time.
With regard to these issues, The Masai can be placed within prevailing
practices of non-fiction film of the time, and within the practice of classroom
films. The history of the early non-fiction film is starting to receive more
critical attention, as evidenced by several conferences and publications of the
Nederlands Filmmuseum. This heightened critical attention situates
filmmaking within prevailing discourses and imaging practices (the dime
museum, stereograph and postcard views, native "types,"). This larger
critical movement, primarily performed through analysis of archival bodies
of work rather than an emphasis on individual texts or producers, also looks
at the evolution of a cinematic language of non-fiction film that is not
continuous or homogenous, but rather protean, halting, sometimes
experimental or innovative, but at times drawing on received assumptions,
which does show the emergence of rhetorical strategies over a period of time.
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46
This study is primarily through analysis of archival bodies of work, rather
than an emphasis on individual texts or producers.
The Masai also serves as an example of the educational or classroom
film at a crucial point in the development of the field, an area of film that is
still rather unevaluated. The conditions of its production exemplifies aspects
of the growth of the educational film. It was specifically conceived to help
exploit the archival holdings of a large film company, it is part of a series
designed offer coverage of a subject area for better marketing and curricular
effect, it embodies an emphasis on the rare, unusual or exotic that
characterizes m any films at this stage in the movement, it specifically
capitalizes on the advent of 16mm safety film and its portability.
Rhetorically it serves as an early example of educational film that is still in
the form of the illustrated lecture, without a cinematic consciousness. This
study attempts to offer some insights into the history and practice of
classroom films, which have had exposure in terms of num ber of viewings
far in excess of many films that are fodder for academic research and
discussion.
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47
Endnotes
Karl Heider, Ethnographic Film (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978).
Emilie de Brigard, "The History of Ethnographic Film" in Principles of Visual
Anthropology, ed. Paul Hockings (The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1975), 13-44.
Pierre-L Jordan, Cinema/Cinema/Kino, part 1 of the seriesFirst Contact— First
Look— Erster Blick, (Marseilles: Musees de Marseilles—Images En Manoevres
Editions, 1992).
Elizabeth Edwards, ed., Anthropology & Photography (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1992).; Melissa Banta and Curtis Hinsley, From Site to Sight: Anthropology,
Photography, and the Power of Imagery (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1986).
Ken Smith, Mental Hygiene: Classroom Films 1945-1970 (NY: Blast Books, 1999). Also,
the Educational Archive series of DVDs, focusing on drug and health films of the
1960s and 70s.
Greene, Nelson, et a l, eds. "1000 and One": The Blue Book of Non-Theatrical Films.
(Thirteenth Edition), (Chicago: The Educational Screen, 1937).
Hendricks, Gordon. "The Kinetoscope: Fall Motion Picture Production" in Film
Before Griffith, ed. John L. Fell (Berkeley: University, of California Press, 1983), 13-21.
de Brigard, 15-17; Fatimah Tobing Rony, "Those Who Squat and Those Who Sit: The
Iconography of Race in thel895 Films of Felix-Louis Regnault," Camera Obscura 28
(Jan 1992): 263-289; Jordan, 29-31.
Michael Leigh, "Curiouser and Curiouser." in Back of Beyond: Discovering Australian
Film and Television. (North Sydney: Australian Film Commission, 1988), 78-89.
This footage was incorporated into the Austrian film The Anthropologist. My thanks
to Nancy Lutkehaus for providing access to a videotape of this film.
Based on research in the publication Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie in the years 1907-1911,
Roland Cosandey writes on this subject:
one gets a fairly precise idea of how these films were shot in tropical
locations, of the equipment and the logistical problems posed at this period
by an expedition that added cumbersome cinematic apparatus to the usual
list of supplies. Reporting to his colleagues on the use of an unusual
resource, the ethnologist simply presents an objective account of the
problems, without bothering to present a flattering image of the filmmaker.
Roland Cosandey, "Some Thoughts on 'Early Documentary,'" in Uncharted Territory:
Essays on Early Nonfiction Film, ed. Daan Hertogs & Nico De Klerk, (Amsterdam:
Stichtung Neder lands Filmmuseum, 1997), 44.
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48
Kemp Niver, Motion Pictures from the Library of Congress Paper Print Collection, 1894-
1912. Ed. Bebe Bergsten. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967).
Robert C. Allen, "The Movies in Vaudeville" in The American Film Industry, ed.
Agonino Balio (Madison: Wisconsin Univ. Press, 1985, [1976]), 72.
See X. Theodore Barber, "The Roots Of Travel Cinema: John L. Stoddard, E. Burton
Holmes and the Nineteenth-Century Illustrated Travel Lecture," Film History 5
(1993): 68-84.
Allen, 76.
Charles Musser, The Emergence of American Cinema to 1907 (NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1990), 375.
Eileen Bowser, The Transformation of Cinema, 1907-1915. (NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1990), 104.
Erik Barnouw, Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film. Revised edition.
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 26.
op cit.
The film came out in 1933, though the footage was shot twenty years earlier by
Herbert Ponting during the voyage south and the establishing of a base camp at
Ross Island. The actual final push to the pole, and the five-man party's demise,
were conveyed through animated maps, still photographs, and typical footage of the
sledding operation shot before the final part of the ill-fated journey.
On the American Museum of Natural History Film Collections see Nina J. Root, ed.,
Catalog of the American Museum of Natural History Film Archives, (New York: Garland
Publishing, Inc., 1987); also Alison Griffiths has researched in their collections as in
"To 'disappoint the ravages of time': precinematic ethnography at the American
Museum of Natural History" in he cinema au tornant du siecle/Cinema at the turn of the
century, ed. Claire Dupre La Tour, Andre Gaudreault, Roberta Pearson, (Lausanne:
Editions Payot/ Quebec: Nuit Blanche, 1997). On Carl Akeley see Donna Haraway,
Primate Visions: Gender, Race and Nature in the World of M odem Science (New York:
Routledge, 1989), especially the chapter "Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the
Garden of Eden, New York City, 1908-1936," 26-58. On expeditionary
cinematography see also Andre F. Liotard, Samivel, and Jean Thevenot. Cinema
D'Exploration, Cinema au Long Cours (Paris: Chavane, 1950). On colonial
propaganda, see Guido Convents, "Film and German Colonial Propaganda for the
Black African Territories to 1918" in Before Caligari: German Cinema, 1895-1920. ed.
Paolo Cher chi Usai and Lorenzo Codelli (Pordenone: Le Giomate del Cinema Muto
and Edizioni Biblioteca dell'Immagine [University of Wisconsin Press], 1990), 58-76.
Root, xv.
Charles Urban was a pioneer of film, inventing a projector called the Bioscope, but
encountering patent difficulties he moved to Britain, where he made newsreels,
documentary, and scientific films. He also experimented with color, making a color
process called Kinemacolor, which was used in the 1911 film The Durbar at Delhi.
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49
The process was ultimately unsuccessful, but he continued to make scientific,
educational films back in the US in the 1920s.
Arthur Krows, "A Quarter Century of Non-Theatrical Films." The Educational Screen
15/6 0une 1936): 170.
Ben Singer, "Early Home Cinema and the Edison Home Projecting Kinetoscope."
Film History. 2/1 (1988): 51.
Kristin Thompson, Exporting Entertainment: America in the World Film Market, 1907-
1934 (London: British Film Institute, 1986).
Built in 1896, closed in 1914; now home to a Bed Bath and Beyond and other
corporate chain stores.
Krows, 171.
One commentator notes that the effort was a commercial venture, intended to pay
its own way and take advantage of the new field of opportunity, in the educational
field. (Krows, 171) Yet in an advertisement for their journal Educational Screen in the
inaugural issue stresses:
The Educational Screen, Inc. was organized with the sole purpose of
publishing a magazine in the field of visual education which should be at
once impartial and authoritative, scholarly and tolerant, critical and
optimistic.
We have taken this step because we believe that thinking American want
such a magazine and will furnish all the support needed to insure
reasonable success. (There is not a dollar of commercial money behind this
organization, directly or indirectly.)
You can prove that our belief was justified by subscribing immediately, and
thus enable the Educational Screen to become better with each succeeding
issue.
YOUR Support is All We Need
Educational Screen, v ln l, 0anuary, 1922): 4.
Paul Williams, "A Visit to the New England Capes: A Unit of Study in Economic
Geography (part one)." The Educational Screen 15/5 (May 1936): 142.
Reginald Bell, Leo F. Cain and Lillian Lamoreaux. "Motion Pictures in a Modem
Curriculum: A Report on the Use of Films in the Santa Barbara Schools," in
American Council on Education Studies Series 1 1 — Motion Pictures in Education. v5n6
(May 1941): 42.
M.E.G., "A Presentation Lesson." The Educational Screen 1/1 0anuary 1922): 23.
op cit.
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50
M.E.G., "Human Geography with Pictures," The Educational Screen 1/5 (May 1922):
149.
Benjamin C. Gruenberg, "Sensory and Motor Aids," The Educational Screen 13/12
(December 1934): 260.
M.E.G., "Human Geography," 149-150.
Anna Verona Dorris, Visual Instruction in the Public Schools (New York: Ginn and
Company, 1928), 274-5.
ibid., 247.
See Barber.
Mary Beattie Brady, "A Young People's Church With Motion Pictures," The
Educational Screen 15/2 (February 1936): 49.
op cit.
ibid., 50.
op cit.
The Educational Screen 12/1 January, 1933. The branch of the Presbyterian Church is
not specified; the address given is 156 Fifth Avenue, New York.
J.E. MacAfee, "Movies and the Church," The Educational Screen 1/6 (June 1922): 181.
ibid., 182.
Leigh.
Greene, et al.
Note that this same exploration of extremes occurs in a contemporaneous
publication. In a National Geographic article in the January 1927 issue entitled "The
Columbus of the Pacific" by J. R. Hildebrand, there is extensive treatment of both
Papua New Guineans and Eskimos. The National Geographic Magazine v. LI n. 1
(January 1927): 85-132.
F. Dean McClusky, "Pathe-Harvard Films Released," The Educational Screen 6/1
0anuary 1929): 54.
Two invaluable resources for this research were the E.A. Hooton Collection at the
Peabody Harvard Museum, and the papers of President A. Lawrence Powell from
the Harvard University Archives.
Raymond Fielding, The American Newsreel, 1911-1967. Norman, OK: Oklahoma
University Press, 1972. Fielding asserts that Pathe was the best U.S. newsreel
organization until after the Second World War. The U.S. division had access to
footage shot from the French and British arms of the company.
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51
For instance, Roland Cosandey notes that two Pathe expeditions to Sudan in 1907
and 1909 were reported in detail in a ten part newspaper series in the Easier
Nachtrichten, "Mit Kinematograph und Biichse in der afrikanischen Wiidnis" by the
expedition leader, zoologist Adam David (who was not the cameraman). Cosandey,
44-45.
This was pointed out to me by Flaherty scholar Robert Langer when I showed clips
of the film at a Visible Evidence documentary media conference.
See Daan Hertogs & Nico De Klerk, eds., Nonfiction From the Teens, The 1994
Amsterdam Workshop, (Amsterdam: Stichtung Nederlands Filmmuseum, 1994),
60ff.
See for instance Onthullingen nit het land der brandende zon (Revelations from the land of
the burning sun/Mysteries of the Dark Continent), the Dutch language version of the
French film Les mysteres du continent noir, a French film of 1926 on the Dai of Africa,
held in the Filmmuseum Nederlands Archive and included in their Eye of the
Beholder conference and film series, which has a similar animated map.
Melville Herskovits, "The Cattle Complex in East Africa /'American Anthropologist
vol. 28 (1926): 230-272,361-388,494-528, 633-657.
ibid., 657:
We may then come to the conclusion that a culture-area is an empirical
grouping of tribes which manifest similar culture; that, being descriptive, it
is a picture which does not necessarily include time-depth; that its
boundaries are not fixed, but that there is a shading from the culture of one
area to that of the next, geographical conditions permitting; that the
complex of traits which compose the culture of an area are distributed, in
the main, throughout that area, and that the area comprises the region in
which they are to be found in similar cultural settings; that the elements of
these complexes are not invariably fixed, but may have individual
distributions; and th a t, finally, the significance of the traits in the complex
of an area are the same to the inhabitants of that area.
"Memorandum of Work Done During Summer of 1928 Showing Educational
Moving Pictures at Various Summer Schools" [unsigned, apparently written by a
Mr. Hulse, probably a graduate student] p. 2, E.A. Hooton Collection, (995-1;
Correspondence—Box 21 Folder Title "Pathe from 1929") Peabody Museum of
Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University.
Tom Gunning, "Before Documentary: Early Nonfiction Films and the 'View'
Aesthetic," in Uncharted Territory: Essays on Early Nonfiction Film, ed. Daan Hertogs
& Nico De Klerk (Amsterdam: Stichtung Nederlands Filmmuseum, 1997), 9-24.
ibid., 14:
With this term...I mean to highlight the way early actuality films were
structured around presenting something visually, capturing and preserving
a look or vantage point. In this respect the 'view' clearly forms part of what
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52
I have called the 'cinema of attractions', the emphasis found in early cinema
upon the act of display and the and the satisfying of visual curiousity. As
an actuality a 'view' makes a greater claim to recording an event of natural
or social history, while attractions include artificially arranged scenes
enacted precisely to arouse and sate the spectator's curiousity. However, a
differentiation between the arranged and the simply recorded is so difficult
to maintain or demonstrate that I do not wish to draw this line too firmly.
'Views' tend to carry the claim that the subject filmed either pre-existed the
act of filming (a landscape, a social custom, a method of work) or would
have taken place even if the camera had not been there (a sporting event, a
funeral, a coronation), thus claiming to capture a view of something that
maintains a large degree of independence and borderline cases that blur
such distinctions.
ibid.
See discussion on this topic in Session Five of the conference proceedings of the Eye
of the Beholder Conference sponsored by the Nederlands Filmmuseum in 1998.
These can be accessed at their website at
.
Gunning, ibid., 18:
As Grierson indicated, the primary mode of these early films [nonfiction
films from roughly 1906 to the Great War] was descriptive. While dearly
they cannot claim to present an untouched raw reality (however mythical
such a concept might be), their ’ interference' with reality, the means by
which they shape it, centre on the act of looking and describing. Actions and
people may be arranged so that the camera can get a better look at them, but
this arrangement is for the most part fully evident in the manner in which
people acknowledge the camera or display their talents, costumes or
physical characteristics to it. I believe that Grierson was right in declaring
that this style of filmmaking was quite different from the creative shaping of
the material which he felt defined the documentary film.
As complex ideologically as these process and place films may be,
rehearsing as well as shaped by narratives of colonialism and consumer
culture, nonetheless they remain rooted in the 'view' aesthetic. The ultimate
act of consumption in these films is the audience’ s act of viewing; and
everything — people, places, and things — is offered to our view. Recurringly
this is marked by the returned look of people within the film, the gaze
directed out at camera and viewer which transfixes the act of looking as
central to the descriptive mode, the act of display as the primary act of the
filmmaker.
For instance see Marc Vemet, "The Look at the Camera," Cinema Journal, v28n2
(Winter, 1989): 48-63; while Laura Mulvey's widely anthologized "Visual Pleasure
and Narrative Cinema" in Film Theory and Criticism, Fifth Edition, ed. Leo Braudy
and Marshall Cohen (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), is an important
starting point in any such research; though the differing genre strategies and
concerns of the nonfiction film do complicate matters somewhat.
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53
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Allen, Robert C. "The Movies in Vaudeville." In The American Film Industry,
edited by Agonino Balio, 57-82. Madison: Wisconsin University
Press, 1985 [1976].
Banta, Melissa, and Curtis Hinsley. From Site to Sight: Anthropology,
Photography, and the Power of Imagery. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press; 1986.
Bamouw, Erik. Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film. Revised
edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.
Bell, Reginald, Leo F. Cain and Lillian Lamoreaux. "Motion Pictures in a
Modern Curriculum: A Report on the Use of Films in the Santa
Barbara Schools." American Council on Education Studies Series II—
Motion Pictures in Education. Vol. 5, No. 6 (May 1941).
Bowser, Eileen. The Transformation of Cinema, 1907-1915. NY: Charles
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Brady, Mary Beattie. "A Young People's Church With Motion Pictures." The
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Convents, Guido. "Film and German Colonial Propaganda for the Black
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1920. Paolo Cherchi Usai and Lorenzo Codelli, eds., Pordenone: Le
Giornate del Cinema Muto and Edizioni Biblioteca delFImmagine
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de Brigard, Emilie. "The History of Ethnographic Film." In Principles of
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Mouton Publishers, 1975.
Dorris, Anna Verona. Visual Instruction in the Public Schools, New York: Ginn
and Company, 1928.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
54
Edwards, Elizabeth, ed. Anthropology & Photography, New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1992.
Fielding, Raymond. The American Newsreel, 1911-1967. Norm an, OK:
Oklahoma University Press, 1972.
Greene, Nelson, et al., eds. "1000 and One": The Blue Book of Non-Theatrical
Films. (Thirteenth Edition) Chicago: The Educational Screen, 1937.
Griffiths, Alison. "To 'disappoint the ravages of time': precinematic
ethnography at the American Museum of Natural History." In Le
cinema au tornant du siecle/Cinema at the turn of the century, edited by
Claire Dupre La Tour, Andre Gaudreault, Roberta Pearson. Lausanne:
Editions Payot/Quebec: Nuit Blanche, 1997.
Gruenberg, Benjamin C. "Sensory and Motor Aids." The Educational Screen
13/12 (December 1934): 260.
Gunning, Tom. "Before Documentary: Early Nonfiction Films and the
'View' Aesthetic." In Uncharted Territory: Essays on Early Nonfiction
Film, edited by Daan Hertogs & Nico De Klerk, 9-24. Amsterdam:
Stichtung Nederlands Filmmuseum, 1997.
Haraway, Donna. Primate Visions: Gender, Race and Nature in the World of
Modern Science, New York: Routledge, 1989.
Heider, Karl. Ethnographic Film. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978.
Hendricks, Gordon. "The Kinetoscope: Fall Motion Picture Production." In
Film Before Griffith, edited by John L. Fell, 13-21. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1983.
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Creator
Arnwine, Clark
(author)
Core Title
Early educational films and anthropology
School
Graduate School
Degree
Master of Arts
Degree Program
Anthropology
Degree Conferral Date
2003-12
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
anthropology, cultural,cinema,OAI-PMH Harvest
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English
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Moore, Alexander (
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), James, David (
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), Simic, Andrei (
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anthropology, cultural
cinema