Wondrous difference : cinema, anthropology & turn-of-the-century visual culture / Alison Griffiths.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Griffiths, Alison, 1963-

Series:

Film and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Motion pictures in ethnology--History.

Motion pictures in ethnology.

Indigenous peoples in motion pictures--History.

Indigenous peoples in motion pictures.

Ethnological museums and collections--History.

Ethnological museums and collections.

History.

Physical Description:

xxxiv, 463 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, [2002]

Summary:

The ethical and ideological implications of cross-cultural image-making continue to stir debate among anthropologists, film scholars, and museum professionals. This innovative book focuses on the contested origins of ethnographic film from the late nineteenth century to the 1920s, vividly depicting the dynamic visual culture of the period as it collided with the emerging discipline of anthropology and the new technology of motion pictures. Featuring more than 100 illustrations, the book examines museums of natural history, worlds fairs, scientific and popular photography, and the early filmmaking efforts of anthropologists and commercial producers to investigate how cinema came to assume the role of mediator of cultural difference at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Contents:

Part I Precinema and Ethnographic Representation

1. Life Groups and the Modern Museum Spectator 3

2. Science and Spectacle: Visualizing the Other at the World's Fair 46

3. Knowledge and Visuality in Nineteenth-Century Anthropology 86

Part II Early Ethnographic Film in Science and Popular Culture

4. The Ethnographic Cinema of Alfred Cort Haddon and Walter Baldwin Spencer 127

5. "The World Within Your Reach": Popular Cinema and Ethnographic Representation 171

Part III First Steps: The Museum and Early Filmmakers

6. Early Ethnographic Film at the American Museum of Natural History 255

7. Finding a Home for Cinema in Ethnography: The First Generation of Anthropologist-Filmmakers in America 283

8. Conclusion: The Legacy of Early Ethnographic Film 312.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 421-450) and index.

Includes filmography: pages 415-419.

ISBN:

0231116969

0231116978

OCLC:

47838215