Robert Lemelson
According to Ruby’s book, film can be used a research tool. Visually experiencing something gives us a greater understanding of it, rather than just reading or hearing about it. Ruby expresses the idea that film makers looking to make a visual ethnography have a lot of responsibility to the culture they are sharing so as to give them fair and accurate representation, free from artistic molding or outside influences. They should not highlight the differences in culture, but merely document it in true form. We have studied many people that have made contributions to ethnography such as Robert Flaherty, Timothy Asch and Jean Rouch. An anthropologist that is currently still making major a contribution to this field is Robert Lemelson.
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Lemelson starts off this film by explaining why he is there and the local religion and things such as karma. The subject, Kerata, explains that he has visions of what according to him is Rangda. According to Balinese mythology, Rangda is a child-eating demon queen. Another explanation for this is just as his brother had stated, that these visions had started after having had consumed contaminated (with pesticides) eels from the rice fields. According to local doctors, the fact that Kerata ate contaminated eels may have affected his wife’s pregnancy. His wife had a miscarriage. Kerata goes to visit a traditional healer. Kerata and his wife state that they don’t believe in this form of medicine and that western medicine is more effective. What’s odd about this is that despite not believing, the husband states that he felt a bit of burning sensation, to which his wife replies “well he was worse that I thought.” Later on in the film a third reason as to how this mental illness was caused is presented years later. Kerata feels attached to a military uniform. He states that he feels comfortable and safe but then talks about some war that had occurred and how he believes he may have been there because he is so interested in that
Beyond the Lights, is a romantic drama film Directed by Gina Prince-Blythewood. The film premiered in September 2014 at an international film festival held in Toronto, and this followed by its release on November 14th, 2014 in the United States. The film is one of the strangest music industry romance based films, alternating between the entertainment business, wisdom and heartfelt flourishes. Yet, Gina Prince-Blythewood manages to show all the elements of her play into an irrefutably entertaining package.
In effect all the techniques mentioned above portray a society of individuals who are weary of the world they live in. They are rejects who lead a pitiful existence in a wasteland called earth because they are not fit enough to go the out-world colonies. Suppressing their own natural instincts for the sake of physically surviving they really the walking dead. Scientific progress conducted not for the best interests of humanity but for the best interests of business has effectively brought about the progressive degradation of society. By exploiting and destroying the natural world human can no more find solace or beauty so as to recuperate their weary minds and rekindle their dying spirits. In summary the techniques that are unique to film such as camera, lighting, costuming, colour and location works in conjunction with common literary techniques such as visual symbolism, irony and characterisation to effectively convey the relationship between humanity and nature.
The movie I was assigned was, In the Heat of the Night starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger. This film took place during the late 1960’s in Mississippi, where Virgil Tibbs, a black Philadelphia homicide detective, is traveling. Upon his travel, he unintentionally gets involved in a murder investigation of a business man. He was first accused of committing this murder when a police officer became suspicious of him. After they determined his innocence’s, he was then asked to help solve the case because of his vast knowledge and experience dealing with homicide crimes. He eventually agreed to help because he knew it was the right thing to do. The process for finding the killer was determined to be difficult, but even more so when Tibbs’s efforts
“The documentary tradition as a continually developing “record” that is made in so many ways, with different voices and vision, intents and concerns, and with each contributor, finally, needing to meet a personal text” (Coles 218). Coles writes “The Tradition: Fact and Fiction” and describes the process of documenting, and what it is to be a documentarian. He clearly explains through many examples and across disciplines that there is no “fact or fiction” but it is intertwined, all in the eye of the maker. The documentarian shows human actuality; they each design their own work to their own standards based on personal opinion, values, interest and whom they want the art to appeal to. Coles uses famous, well-known photographers such as Dorthea Lange and Walker Evans, who show the political angle in their documentations and the method of cropping in the process of making the photo capture exactly what the photographer wants the audience to view. In this paper I will use outside sources that support and expand on Coles ideas with focus on human actuality, the interiority of a photograph, and the emotional impact of cropping.
" The main and essential thing is : the sensory exploration of the world through film. We therefore take as a point of departure the use of the camera as a keno-eye, more perfect than the human eye, for the exploration of the chaos of visual phenomena that fills space."
Additionally not only knowing the historical, social, and political background of a film and how the ideas in this film were form,but also how this film affected the society and the point of view of individuals,because after all film is not only affected by the context in which it is created ,but the film also affects individuals are catalyst for change in societies and cultures.
According to Michelle Raheja, visual sovereignty is “the creative self-representation of Native American visual artists” (Raheja 9). In other words, it is the way that Native American films are able to relay a story with actual information and support from Indigenous people. The main goal of visual sovereignty is to get rid of all stereotypes by using methods that portray real life stories and scenarios in Indigenous people’s lives. One main aspect of visual sovereignty is the usage of oral history from important tribes that help give a background to telling the tale. It is promoted on two critical registers that appeal to the mass; one is to inform the audience about key issues that Native Americans have had to face in their history and current
Banning, L. (Producer), Milos, F. (Director) (1996). Research Methods for the Social Sciences. [Film]. (Available from Horizon Film and Video, Austin, TX)
This Hispanic film titled "Under The Same Moon” makes a connection about the difficulties the Latino community must undergo without losing their values and traditions in order to provide for their families that were left behind. In addition, this film reproduces some of the complications my ancestors went through when they made the most difficult decision to migrate to the United State in a quest for a better life. It is not easy to decide to abandon your home country, customs and, most importantly, your family in a pursuit of a more stable daily pay rate. All this work hard to provide for the loved ones who stay behind waiting for their return. Despite the challenging, they faced they decide to cross the border until they reached the destination
This film absolutely deserves to be recognised as it has a positive impact on both the indigenous and white community and how we can gain
During this course, I had the opportunity to watch several documentaries that enlightened men on different perspectives of cultural diversity. These documentaries contained a variety of different methods used to examine several cultural diversity issues within America. Racism, sexism, ageism, and social class were the main topics that were examined in these videos and documentaries. As part of the process, researchers creatively designed experiments that uncovered how people instinctively respond when it is not apparent that they are being watched. Reports such as these must be carefully crafted and presented in an objective manner. If critical steps are overlooked, this kind of research tactic can easily been interpreted as intrusive, dishonest, bias, or unethical. That might ultimately defeat the purpose and distract the viewer from understanding, and that may become counter-productive to the message the researcher is attempting to convey. All documentaries presented were necessary for us to gain a true consideration of the cultural diversity issues this country faces. Some documentaries contained the element of surprise by using hidden camera tactics. It is no secret that cameras have a tendency to change individuals’ attitudes, if they are conscious of the fact that they are being filmed. Though all of the video and documentaries were impactful, the two documentaries that had the most impact on my learning were:
The motion picture Belly explores the ghetto and the characters that live in this dark and obscure world of violence and criminal behavior. Tommy or "Bunz", and Sincere, who both live in New York, have differing views of criminal life. Bunz lives a mixed up, drug-run lifestyle, while Sincere aspires to be a law-abiding family man. To help the audience get the full effect of evilness portrayed by the character, the scenes are very dark and gloomy. There are, however, lighter scenes in which the good heart of one man is represented. The lighting in Belly helps with the characterization within the movie. One character is shown as a dark figure, and one as an almost holy figure, plus disillusionment is brought out nicely through lighting effects.
Visual anthropology is generally used with another form of data collection, but is significant on its own. Hints any documentary you have ever watched on China, Tibet, or Africa (those only being some of many.) Images can capture moments in time that cannot be described perfectly. Being that a picture is worth a thousand words, what would a 30-minute film reveal? Images are good to pick up and highlight things that the anthropologist may have missed, or something that is tough to accurately describe. Auditory and visual perception can really make a person relate or have empathy towards something. This is a very good way to get your research out to the not so highly educated or the ADHD youth. Visual anthropology can really describe the “visual aspects of human culture, such as art, tools and other artifacts, body movement, facial expression, dance, or public ritual” (Strong) no matter how beautifully you can describe something, the reader will never see what you see. That is exactly where visual aids come in. The greatest thing about visual work is the ability to temporarily render your veiwers hypnotized. If you can execute it right, you can really expand a viewers mind without forcing them to read a fifty page research paper. Millennials will love
2. Nichols, Bill. ‘Documentary Modes of Representation (The Observational Mode).’ Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Bloomington & Indianapolis; Indiana University Press. 1991. 38-44
‘Then came the films’; writes the German cultural theorist Walter Benjamin, evoking the arrival of a powerful new art form at the end of 19th century. By this statement, he tried to explain that films were not just another visual medium, but it has a clear differentiation from all previous mediums of visual culture.