This talk is an exploration of the utility of feature film for teaching visual anthropology. I argue that the film, Krippendorf's Tribe, which was reviewed in the AAA Newsletter as "Bad Anthro Theater" has definete uses for generating discussion within the classroom. My argument is based on Sol Worth's belief that film is both a record of culture and a record about culture.
This is a brief summary of Krippendorf's Tribe, provided as part of the press kit from Buena Vista Pictures:
In this engaging comedy, Academy Award-winner Richard Dreyfuss plays the title role of anthropologist James Krippendorf, a single dad trying to raise three kids. And he's having a tough time of it. For the past two years, he's been living off a Proxmire Foundation grant to study an "undiscovered" tribe in New Guinea. Word comes that his lecture is due. But he's not ready. There is no tribe. And he's spent all the money rearing his dysfunctional children. As he bluffs his way through his presentation, he's shocked when informed that his grant requires documentation--16mm movies of these unknown natives he claims he's discovered. Out of desperation, Krippendorf uses the most primitive group he knows as a model--his own family---and calls them the Shelmikedmu, named after his kids: Shelly, Mickey and Edmund. Desperately, he begs his children for help in concocting a scheme involving this fictional tribe. Now his dysfunctional family becomes a working family by becoming primitive-- Krippendorf's Tribe.
It is the filmic evidence, or the production of it, that provides the scenario for much of the comedy in this film. Importantly, the "evidence" is in the form of 16mm film. Krippendorf uses a CP 16, a sync-sound camera that was a staple among journalists. The film takes place in the present, when video and digital technology and editing could have been used, instead of the 16mm film and a flatbed editor in the Krippendorf's basement on which they edit the footage. This was a conscious choice by the director, since in the book upon which this movie is based the anthropologist is using still photography. It is my argument that 16mm was used because it fits neatly within the realm of "science" and the "traditional" view of anthropology. The video camera is still the tool of the tourist, or Krippendorf's son when he is in the backyard videotaping the burial of his hamster. Real research requires reel film. When I asked the director why he chose 16mm film as the medium for Krippendorf's visual presentation of his research he stated that "Film has a kind of romance to it that is lacking in video. I mean, there is a tactile nature to editing film, cutting and splicing film is more emotionally appealing to me personally, and I hoped that it would generate an emotional response in the audience to the process of filmmaking. What's the alternative, to have them staring at a compter or some edit bay? I just felt that film was a more legimate medium, what a professional anthropologist or filmmaker uses". This idea that a professional filmmaker or anthropologist would use film is intertwined with the idea that anthropologists produce "ethnographic films". When I asked the director if he had viewed "ethnographic films", such as Dead Birds as part of the research for the film, he stated that he indeed had seen parts of it.
In the film the character portrayed by Jenna Elfman is trying to introduce Prof. Krippendorf to a television producer who wishes to bring anthropology to the "public". The television producer is starting a new cable station devoted to anthropology called PRIMAL TIME. Most anthropologists are aware of the discipline's need to better disseminate information to the general public. The way in which they popularize anthropology in the movie is anathema to what we try to do in the discipline (we intend to de-exoticize the other) but it proved to be a useful tool for generating discussion in the classroom regarding these ideas when I screened the film to an undergraduate class.
Another example where one can address anthropological issues is when Prof. Krippendorf seduces his assistant. He films this seduction (all done in full body paint with burning torches around) in order to attain footage which he will claim is documentation of "primitive mating rituals". He has been forced into this situation when the television station producer says that he needs something more exciting than "a sweet potato ritual" for sweeps week. When asked by his assistant if he filmed "mating rituals, the cornerstone of any field research" (I always thought it was kinship) he responds affirmatively, and then proceeds to get her drunk in order to create the footage. We finally get to see the "mating ritual" when we are shopping with the assistant and she happens upon a wall of TVs in a store. The producer and show's host begins by saying that "tonight we are airing a very special and perhaps controversial aspect of Prof. Krippendorf's unique tribe, the mating rituals of the Shelmikedmu. I feel obliged to clarify for the viewer that the material presented tonight, offensive as it may be for some and inappropriate as it may be for children, is offered as scientific research. And now, sit back and enjoy". The discussion generated by undergraduate students in my class addressed issues of ethics, context, and fi and how "scientific research" can be presented visually.
There is also the desire for "authenticity" or "reality" which the filmmakers tried to achieve or copy. Both the director and the costume designer expressrd the need for the "look of the tribe" to be based in reality. This "basis of reality" is most often derived from still photographs which were used as data in researching how "New Guinea tribes" look. Indeed, as the producer of the film states, "The costumes, the colors, and the makeup that Krippendorf uses in the creation of his tribe was not just pulled out of thin air with complete fancy... ...[the]...designers did extensive research, viewing footage of real New Guinean tribes" and that the makeup artist "studied the face and body painting of real tribes and used it as the inspiration and derivation of his designs. So even if Richard Dreyfuss looks silly in costume, it is much more authentic than you might, at first, believe". Yet, not only is "authenticity" required of the costuming, but also of the linguistic aspects of "New Guinea Tribe culture". Again, the producer assures us by stating that "We also had a technical consultant, Lesley Martin, with us on set. She grew up in New Guinea. The words that might sound silly coming from Krippendorf are words that she would give us on set and are actually part of a practical New Guinean pidgin English". When I questioned the director about Leslie Martin, he stated that she grew up in New Guinea, and is now is an importer of New Guinea products and objects in Los Angeles. After what the director called several attempts of trying to involve a non-responsive anthropology department at UCLA, Ms. Martin was hired as technical consultant.
To return to the costume design and its' aspects of "authenticity", the costume designer, Isis Mussenden, has stated that she did research at "New York City's Museum of Natural History, and with Margaret Mead archival video tapes, National Geographic magazines and various books on primitive tribes". This is not surprising, since the popular notion of anthropology is focused on studying "primitive tribes", and the most popular and well-known anthropologist of the Twentieth-century was (and is still) Margaret Mead. The movie takes place in the 1990s, with the research footage taken in the movie by Krippendorf and his wife supposedly had been shot two years earlier. The idea that looking at "Margaret Mead archival video tapes", and using them as the basis for a modern-day interpretation of "New Guinea life-styles" never seems to be problematic for the production team. The idea of the "unchanging primitive" is exemplified in the anthropological literature that employed the use of the "ethnographic present" to describe the cultures of various groups. Similarly, the time gap between the Mead representations and the representations in this film is collapsed. The result is a classical primitive savage "untouched by civilization".
Ironically, this confusion of time continues. In an interview on Entertainment TV in February of 1998, the costume designer says that the "chief's costume" worn in the film by Richard Dreyfuss had to meet certain requirements. First, she says that they "...had to make it comfortable, number one, so that he could actually do what he needed to do." Secondly, they "...had to make it look and feel, a bit, like a tribal thing. Plus, we had to gather the materials to make his costume from contemporary .. ..the world". In order to depict a "modern day New Guinean" (albeit a tribal one) it is necessary to make the costume out of contemporary materials. The problem inherent to this issue is time. One can only gather that either "modern day New Guineans" have saved materials from long ago to continue making their "daily clothing", or they no longer dress this way. The costume designer, in an amazing parallel to the action in the movie, says that "Richard's costume is a combination of things we found at Cost Plus, Stats, and Pier 1, mixed with bits and pieces of real New Guinean garb...items we imagine that Krippendorf could have picked up along the way". Somehow, the past and present have been collapsed into an odd hybrid that accomplishes the goal of basing these representations in reality. In the behind the scenes special, the costume designer is shown flipping through a series of pictures that show the inspiration for the costumes, and comments on the "Huli wig man". In the press packet she states that "his [Richard Dreyfuss] hat is a documented Huli wig hat , based on a society in New Guinea where the elder men and younger men spend two years in the countryside. They cut their hair and make hats that are decorated in a way that is special to them. The Huli wigs are usually black and brown, like their hair. However, we made Richard's red, not only for comedic purposes but also because he's from a tribe that never existed. It's rooted in reality but just goes that one step further". Apparently there would be some problem with representing the "fake" tribe in the costume of an "actual" New Guinea people.
Another point of discussion that can be addressed within the construction of the film is the classic trope of the "search for the lost tribe". The idea is a hold-over from Nineteenth and early Twentieth-century anthropology. Although this "search" was still attempted at late as the 1950s within the discipline of anthropology, the idea of an "undiscovered tribe" has long since being dismissed. Still, soem believe that this is what anthropologists do, since its what they have done in the past. The idea that there could not be an "untouched tribe" in the world today is never addressed in the film. Show the "footage" and one has the necessary proof. The most interesting aspect of the film however, is its conclusion. The natives are shown with satellite dishes, talking on cellular phones, and joking about never donning a penis sheath again. This contradicts the "savages untouched by civilization" idea that underpins the entire film. Paradoxically, it is the dilemma that Krippendorf also faces in trying to portray an "untouched tribe", the basis for the plot of the film.
In conclusion, it is hoped that by investigating the tropes used by the filmmakers of Krippendorf's Tribe, I will gain a better understanding of the popular notions of anthropology and anthropologists. I, as well several of my colleagues, intend to continue using Krippendorf's Tribe within the classroom. Hopefully it may be possilble to generate an approach of how to best use this film. Importantly, part of this pedagogical experiment would require some type of reception study. My concern is that the students understand the historical depth of the way anthropology and anthropologists are represented in the film. Perhaps this may lead to new ways of addressing the issue that anthropologists no longer search for lost tribes.
At the outset of this paper, I had hoped to include discussions about the film that occurred on various anthropology listservs. Unfortunately, very little discussion was generated on either anthro-l or on ASAOnet. I imagine this was due to the fact that few people saw the film at all. I asked the director why he thought the film did not succeed and he stated that with a test audience of 3000, it did extremely well. Of this test audience, approximately 30% were african-american who were asked if the movie was racist or offensive, and the response was a resounding no. However, between the time of the test audience and the opening of the film, the issue of race was injected. Quoting the director, "I don't know what happened, maybe it was the trailer, or other advertising, but it definetely came to be seen as racist. I think it was both the Village Voice, and Variety, I'm not sure, said in their reviews Todd Holland comes dangerously close to reinventing blackface minstrelsy, and that was totally not my intention. It really seemed that people did not want to be associated with the movie, that they didn't want to be seen going to see it, because nobody went". This can easily be used to generate discussion on cross-cultural representation, as well as issues of race.
The overall aim of my presentation has been to argue that Krippendorf's Tribe has a multitude of classroom uses, and that we, as anthropologists, particluarly visual anthropologists, must address popular representations of the discipline directly. While I may agree with the review in the Anthropology Newsletter that the film depicts "bad anthropology" we cannot simply dismiss it or ignore it. We need to directly engage the film in the classroom because it is presenting anthropology in a way that is anathema to the discipline. Only by addressing popular representations such as this, can we begin to communicate what anthropologists do today, and break-down the notion that we are still "searching for lost tribes".