The Colliding Worlds of Anthropology and Film-Ethnography

Abstract

The article explores three consecutive periods in which the disciplines of anthropology and film ethnography collide. The first moment examines the common practice of Bronislaw Malinowski and Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North. I argue that Flaherty’s film illustrates the general fieldwork schema proposed by Malinowski to document the world of the Other-native. The second period connects the writings of Marcel Mauss and his influence in Jean Rouch’s cinéma-vérité. I state that Mauss’ radical sense of doubt about scientific pretentions of objectivity sustained Rouch’s cinematography with the general principle that reality is accessible only in partial form. Finally, the third period compares the anthropology of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro with the Sensory Ethnographic Lab’s film Leviathan. I argue that it is in both cases where bodily practices are being supported to account for more sensorial perceptions of the environment.