Recreating First Contact

It was during the interwar years that both still photography and film production became integral parts of anthropological, exploratory, and adventure travel expeditions. Anthropologists Bell (curator of globalization, anthropology dept., National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Inst.), Alison K. Brown (anthropology, Univ. of Aberdeen), and Robert J. Gordon (anthropology, Univ. of the Free State, South Africa) have compiled a collection of insightful scholarly essays that more or less chronologically document some important expeditions of those years, the films they produced, and the influence those films had on popular thought about what were then considered remote and exotic cultures. Many of the essays describe the interaction between expedition members and their native subjects. The documentary films produced by these expeditions sometimes reflected the anthropologists’ or explorers’ biases and quite often reinforced popular stereotypical ideas among viewers. The essays, each with copious notes and bibliographies, are fascinating and perceptive. They illuminate the growing importance of the production of visual images and films in anthropological research as the 20th century progressed. VERDICT A scholarly work that will be useful for anthropology and documentary film studies scholars and graduate students.—Elizabeth Salt, Otterbein Univ. Lib., Westerville, OH

CHOICE

This highly readable collection of relatively short chapters focuses on a fascinating and under-appreciated subject: anthropological filmmaking of the 1920s and 1930s. Thanks to technological innovations in both travel and filmmaking equipment, this period had an efflorescence of expeditions into previously un-filmed (if not exactly unknown) parts of the world, with the goal of improving the knowledge and understanding of human diversity. Contributors cover expeditions into several parts of the world (including Australia and New Guinea, several parts of Africa, and Siberia), draw connections from this work to both the “salvage anthropology” of earlier periods and the ethnographic tourism of today, and explore questions of authenticity while developing the specific details of their examples. Illustrations include film stills and other photographs (including some of the equipment used). Relevant not only for anthropology and film collections but also those focused on tourism and travel, the history of the interwar period, and visual and popular culture, this volume would make a nice pairing with studies of Hollywood historical films, such as Mark Carnes’s Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies (CH, Apr’96, 33-4398). Summing Up: Highly Recommended. All levels/libraries — F. W. Gleach, Cornell University

ANTHROPOS

The editors of this very interesting and animating book are looking at expeditions taking place mainly between the two world wars and their visual and material outcome. A complex array of questions about knowledge, colonialism, popular culture, and visual economies are put forward. The role of transport and recording technologies, salvage ethnography and first contact situations, collecting materials in the name of science, and producing images for the public at home are reviewed in the context of the formation of the first scientific societies and the building of international networks among explorers. … The book thus has much more to say than what one fancies when reading the title only. The reader is taken on an expedition him/herself.