CONFERENCE REPORT

ETHNOGRAPHIC FILM FESTIVAL

John van Zyl

Ethnographic

of the Witwatersrand

film.

film has itself been subjected to the most rigorous and discip-

film is part of a culture, but
Other
film - especially when

Ethnographic film provides an essential context within which a society can
measure its awareness of itself.
it is also a particularly visible and concrete expression of a culture.
artifacts of society like the novel, plays, productions of plays, feature
films, fashions, can all be tested against ethnographic
ethnographic
lined processes of exploration,
discovery and recording.
film in South Africa, I decided
After measuring the paucity of ethnographic
Film Festival to try to raise awareness of the possi-
to mount an Ethnographic
So the School of
bilities inherent in the medium amongst local filmmakers.
hosted the first festival
Dramatic Art of the University
from 21 - 27 July 1980.
A fair number of academics from other universities
attended the festival as well as a consistent audience of some 300 members
of the public, filmmakers and students per'film.
It was hoped that local filmmakers and sponsors would be spurred into some
activity by being shown a selection of films that would exemplify the range
and variety of ethnographic
Jay Ruby, the eminent visual anthropologist
from Temple University,
phia, was invited to be the guest speaker and to deliver five keynote lectures.
He assisted by bringing out with him some examples of ethnographic
available locally.
ments of anthropology,
the School itself and the Cape Provincial
On the first day three films were screened.
Asch's Axe Fight and No Lies.
inter-,
film of a possession ceremony in Niger.
vention acting as a catalyst for the cermony is central to the film even though
the apparently
on the
The second film illustrates how much de-
part of the filmmaker/ethnographer.
tailed knowledge is needed to perceive the shape of an action and to answer
Three versions of the axe fight
the question, "What is really going on here?"
amongst the Xanomamo Indians:
expli-
catory version and an edited final version, show
how the viewer can accumu-
The third film is a staged enactment of
late information and understanding.
a rape report by an actress who had studied and memorised
several reports of
rape.
(an obtrusive following
The "authenticity"
camera, her signals of distress, the insensitive male questioner)
all raise
issues about ethnographic

Philadel-
films not
The rest of the films were available from local depart-
Film Library.
They were Rouch's Touri et Bitti,

The Rouch film is a single take, 10-minute
The question of the filmmaker's

"seamless" filming seems to eliminate any manipulation

the rushes, a slow-motion,

freeze-frame

created through convention
truth.

46

of the ostrich dance in its full duration.

contribution
notwithstanding

filmically,
with her middle-aged

kinship are clearly shown.

Bitter Melons, Ar ument about a Marria e and The Hunters.

On the followin~ d~y Rouch's Jaguar.\~as shown, which ra.ised the question of an-
The recreatlon of the trip made to the coast by the
thropologlcal
three young Black fr1ends of Rouch, recalled in the voice-over commentary laid
do~n by t~em severa~ years later calls into question the whole issue of per-
celved un1ty of act10n and real unity of action measured by real time and space.
This was followed by The Nuer by Hilary Harris and Rivers of Sand RY 49hn Gar-
dner.
Both of these films have semi-classic status as examples of salvage
ethnography,
The major flaws in each
cas~ - ~he Wester~ aestheti7ism of Harris and the fairly naive reliance on a
natlve 1nfonnant
1n Gardner s case - were obvious when set beside the other
films.
much tougher-minded
The sensuous and physical impression of the life
of the Nuer and their cattle left out rather too much of the context and
structural
surround.
And the woman informant in Gardner's film on the Hamar
came across as an articulate feminist and as a result the film took her too
1iterally at her word.
A JOkin~ Rela-
On the third day, four of the John Marshall films were shown:
T e films
tionship,
to an understanding of the Bushmen
proved again that Marshal's
Richard Lee's objections to the con-
is unequalled
In the first. Nai. the young. newly married girl is shown in a teasing
tent.
relationship
uncle and the limits of sexual provocation
and admonitory
Bitter Melons is a faultless deple-
tion of the songs and social relations of Ukxone, the blind musician and is
notable
~~-
for the illustration
ment has some fine moments on glances of power and privilege as two fami11es
the rights and wrongs of an adulterous relationship.
discuss
Th~ Hunters has
some problems
in its use of "faking" to depict a giraffe hunt [the use of many
giraffes
to shew the single hunted giraffe) and in its resorting to inner dia-
logue to convey the thoughts of the hunters.
The same problem arose on the next day with Dead Birds, John Gardner's near
classic
The intervention
in structuring motives and rationalising
behaviour
valences
Gei Zantzinger's
the hand-piano of the Shona people of
Zimbabwe.
showed once again that he and Marshall are the only ethnographic filmlakers
working
xylophone
were too late for inclusion in the festival and were shown at a
date.
On the fifth day
Number our oafS. 'and Lets Make a Deal.
retired Jews
ing to hold onto their ~
look at the manufacture
of those that make it and those that participate in it.
Hodern ethnography
Agnes Varda's Daquerreotypes.
workers
in Texas
foods
local folkmusic and song and social rituals to present a humane and
compa~sionate
ethnography
the lives a~d occupations

was further represented by les Blank's ~hulas Fronter~
and
Blank's film. about the life of Mexican • grant
combined. as usual. details of labour, preparation of local
The Varda film, although not strict
sequences could probe
of a community bound by nothing more than a COllOn

fi~m is about a group of
iving out their days in affluence in Ven1ce, C~lifornia and try-
heritage. and the second film 1S a penet~ating
and selling of a television show. plus an exam1nation

with Andrew Tracey. the noted ethnomusicologist,
Zantzinger's films on the fhOPi
ater

film dealing with ritual warfare amongst the Dugum Oani of New Guinea.
in the life of the Dani raises issues of repjudgement and of equi-
in moral evaluation

between Western and other societies.

of the filmmaker

image of a group of people.
provided an insight into how fictionalised

urban ethnography

was represented by Barbara Myerhoff's

films on the~.
made in collaboration

consistently

'in Southern Africa today.

flctlO~.

but are not untouched by romanticism.

Myerhoff's

47

showed the mutation of the
found

1iving space.
On the last day Trobriand Cricket good-humoured1y
into a vital,
genteel, colonial game of cricket introduced by missionarie~
political ritual, which has incorporated most of the rituals originally
calls it.
"The trashing of cricket" as one participant
in tribal warfare.
Local ethnographic
from this university was represen-
filmmaking originating
On Becoming A Sangoma and Holdstock's
ted by Keyan Tomaselli and Len Holdstock's
Indigenous Healers of South Africa - both excellent films on the activities
and influence of tribal healers.
ethnography was illus-
trated by Peter Becker's The Tribal Identity made for South African Television
all the problems associated with the demands made by a
which demonstrated
mass medium in service of the government.
To end off, Fiona Barbour of the Macgregor Museum in Kimberley gave a lecture
on the work of A M Duggan-Cronin,
photographer who
an important ethnographic
worked in South Africa from 1904-1940 and left behind some 4 000 negatives.
and photographic
This lecture reminded the festival how neglected photography
evidence was in South Africa.
both Black
It is to be hoped that the festival will point out to filmmakers,
and White, academic and commercial,
the complexity and richness of this so-
ciety, and at the same time this society's refusal or inability to examine
or record that richness and complexity.

Institutionalised

organization
The

- commercial

institutions

and business

is an international

professional

includes academics and practitioners

and personal,
The UFA publishes the Journal of
which carries articles on film and video
of teaching
on the methodology
and on innovative ways of conducting
film

UNIVERSITY FILM ASSOCIATION
The University Film Organization
of people who produce and teach the arts and sciences of film and video.
membership
media archivists and librarians, educational
concerns, and students of film and video.
the University Film Association
history, criticism,
theory and aesthetics;
film/video study and production;
production enterprises.
The UFA also publishes a Monograph
Mercer,J.
graph No.2,
Fielding, R.
Subject of Film:
72pp.
1979:
Lyons, T. J., Staples, D.E. and Wagner, R.W.
World Cinema Herita e of ~he Education and Trainin
irectors and Communicators.
84pp.
Membership Enquiries:
Charles D Harpole
Dept of Cinema and Photography
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale IL 62901, USA

No.3,
The Influence of the
of Fi
No.4,
Film Association

University Film Association

Enquiries:

Publication
Timothy J Lyons
Dept of Cinema and Photography
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale

IL 62901, USA

of Theses and Dissertations

Glossary of Film Terms.

A Bib1ioQraphy

1916-1979.

University Film Association Mono-

Series which include:

on the

Monograph

Television

Monograph

1979:

92pp.
1979:

University

48