Once hailed as a radical breakthrough in documentary and ethnographic filmmaking, observational cinema has been criticized for a supposedly detached camera that objectifies and dehumanizes the subjects of its gaze. Anna Grimshaw and Amanda Ravetz provide the first critical history and in-depth appraisal of this movement, examining key works, filmmakers, and theorists, from André Bazin and the Italian neorealists, to American documentary films of the 1960s, to extended discussions of the ethnographic films of Herb Di Gioia, David Hancock, and David MacDougall. They make a new case for the importance of observational work in an emerging experimental anthropology, arguing that this medium exemplifies a non-textual anthropology that is both analytically rigorous and epistemologically challenging.

Observational Cinema: Anthropology, Film, and the Exploration of Social Life

Humor & Entertainment

Grimshaw, Anna

Ravetz, Amanda

Movies

Indiana University Press

Once hailed as a radical breakthrough in documentary and ethnographic filmmaking, observational cinema has been criticized for a supposedly detached camera that objectifies and dehumanizes the subjects of its gaze. Anna Grimshaw and Amanda Ravetz provide the first critical history and in-depth appraisal of this movement, examining key works, filmmakers, and theorists, from André Bazin and the Italian neorealists, to American documentary films of the 1960s, to extended discussions of the ethnographic films of Herb Di Gioia, David Hancock, and David MacDougall. They make a new case for the importance of observational work in an emerging experimental anthropology, arguing that this medium exemplifies a non-textual anthropology that is both analytically rigorous and epistemologically challenging.

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

The Ethnographer's Eye: Ways of Seeing in Anthropology

Anthropology

Cambridge University Press

Grimshaw sets a new agenda for visual anthropology, attempting to transcend the old division between image and text-based ethnography. She argues for the use of vision as a critical tool with which anthropologists can address issues of knowledge and technique. The first part of the book critically examines anthropology's history, focusing on the work of key individuals--Rivers, Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown--in the context of early modern art and cinema. In the book's second part, Grimshaw considers the anthropological films of Jean Rouch, David and Judith MacDougall and Melissa Llewelyn-Davies.

In his study of Herman Melville, "Mariners, Renegades and Castaways" (1976) C.L.R. James wrote: "My ultimate aim...is to write a study of American Civilization". This project, long in gestation, at last sees the light of day in this posthumous publication of what may be seen as the most wide-ranging expression of James's thought, the link between his mature writings on politics and his semi-autobiographical work, "Beyond a Boundary". In the tradition of de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America", James addresses the fundamental question of the "right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Ranging across American politics, society and culture, C.L.R. James sets out to integrate his analysis of American society in transition with a commentary on the popular arts of cinema and literature.

American Civilization

History

JAMES, C.L.R.

Hart, Keith

Americas

Blackwell Pub.

James, "a Trinidadian black whose life . . . is emblematic of modern existence itself" (Edward Said), addresses the fundamental question of the "right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," incorporating both the abstract and the concrete aspects of American politics, society, and culture.

Servants of the Buddha: Winter in a Himalayan Convent

Parenting & Relationships

Parenting

Pilgrim Pr

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Grimshaw, Anna. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Grimshaw, Anna