Anthropology is the study of humans, from which their past and present is easy to understand. Anthropology identifies, understands, promotes, defends and preserves the complicated identities and behaviors of people living around the world. It is one of the greatest achievement of humanity as it brings together the global community of social scientist who provide service towards science and society. Visual anthropology is a branch of social anthropology, which uses visual arts, digital pictures, audio and video to capture, store and distribute the knowledge of diversified human behaviors. As Margaret Mead writes how anthropology “came to depend upon words and words and words, during the period that anthropology was maturing as a science”, the
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Films store audio and visual data, which can be viewed by the viewers any time they want. Although some anthropological films were staged during the earlier time of anthropology and some narrators are a little more authoritative than others are, the viewers can always view the materials presented to them on the screen for what it was, rather than what was told. Relating this to the movie Nanook of the North, the viewers can say, although the events that took place in the film were staged, it shows the harsh artic life and some of the survival strategies used by the Intuits. The methods used for making an igloo, fishing and hunting skills, travelling and other survival skills were all well presented in the film. Another example would be the film Four Families, which was produced for the general Canadian public during the 1950s with a commanding narration. The film shows and compares the lives of four families from Canada, France, India and Japan respectively. Although the expert narrator is telling the viewers about the characters, situations and behaviors in the films, the viewers can themselves see and understand the material presented to them visually on screen with respect to their own knowledge and time. A Canadian born and raised viewer might not be able to understand the ways of Japanese, Indian …show more content…
The possibilities of total views are endless. Even a single viewer can view the film as many times as the viewers want, depending on their own intentions of stopping. As John H. Weakland writes, “Films themselves are rich and complex. Any film involves a vast quantity of information, all of which is potentially significant” and because of films durability, it is easy to pass the knowledge and material to the future generation who can further analyze it and provide the public with more information which was not easy to understand in the past (55). For example, the viewers of present generation are able analyze the documents and films of Ishi, with today’s ethicality and mindset than the earlier generations. The viewers of present time can analyze the films with the information available to them, which is in reality collected over time, and add that new piece of information to the past information. This addition of little information every time helps to create a broader picture about different human cultures and behaviors. Film not only captures and stores all the valuable information for multiple generation to use but also gives every generation a chance to interpret the past with their own understanding. Films enable every generation to travel back in history and get a glimpse of the past, which was not possible before the inventions of films. The film Dead Birds by Robert Gardner takes the viewers back to west New Guinea where
Films store audio and visual data, which can be viewed by the viewers any time they want. Although some anthropological films were staged during the earlier time of anthropology and some narrators are a little more authoritative than others are, the viewers can always view the materials presented to them on the screen for what it was, rather than what was told. Relating this to the movie Nanook of the North, the viewers can say, although the events that took place in the film were staged, it shows the harsh artic life and some of the survival strategies used by the Intuits. The methods used for making an igloo, fishing and hunting skills, travelling and other survival skills were all well presented in the film. Another example would be the film Four Families, which was produced for the general Canadian public during the 1950s with a commanding narration. The film shows and compares the lives of four families from Canada, France, India and Japan respectively. Although the expert narrator is telling the viewers about the characters, situations and behaviors in the films, the viewers can themselves see and understand the material presented to them visually on screen with respect to their own knowledge and time. A Canadian born and raised viewer might not be able to understand the ways of Japanese, Indian …show more content…
The possibilities of total views are endless. Even a single viewer can view the film as many times as the viewers want, depending on their own intentions of stopping. As John H. Weakland writes, “Films themselves are rich and complex. Any film involves a vast quantity of information, all of which is potentially significant” and because of films durability, it is easy to pass the knowledge and material to the future generation who can further analyze it and provide the public with more information which was not easy to understand in the past (55). For example, the viewers of present generation are able analyze the documents and films of Ishi, with today’s ethicality and mindset than the earlier generations. The viewers of present time can analyze the films with the information available to them, which is in reality collected over time, and add that new piece of information to the past information. This addition of little information every time helps to create a broader picture about different human cultures and behaviors. Film not only captures and stores all the valuable information for multiple generation to use but also gives every generation a chance to interpret the past with their own understanding. Films enable every generation to travel back in history and get a glimpse of the past, which was not possible before the inventions of films. The film Dead Birds by Robert Gardner takes the viewers back to west New Guinea where