The Cinema of Robert Gardner

Description

The most artistic of ethnographic filmmakers, and the most ethnographic of artistic filmmakers, Robert Gardner is one of the most original, as well as controversial, filmmakers of the last half century. This is the first volume of essays dedicated to his work - a corpus of aesthetically arresting films which includes the classic Dead Birds (1963), a lyric depiction of ritual warfare among the Dugum Dani, in the Highlands of New Guinea; Rivers of Sand (1974), a provocative portrayal of relations between the sexes among the Hamar, in southwestern Ethiopia; and Forest of Bliss (1986), a sublime city symphony about death and life in Benares, India. Eminent anthropologists, philosophers, film theorists, and fellow artists assess the innovations of Gardner's films as well as the controversies they have spawned. Contributors:Ilisa BarbashMarcus BanksStanley CavellRoderick CooverElizabeth EdwardsAnna GrimshawKarl G. HeiderPaul HenleySusan HoweDavid MacDougallDusan MakavejevAkos OEstoerWilliam RothmanSean ScullyLucien TaylorCharles Warren

Ilisa Barbash is Associate Curator of Visual Anthropology at Harvard University. Her film and video works include Made in USA (1990), In and Out of Africa, (1992), and the eight-channel Sheep Rushes (2001-8) (with Lucien Taylor). Her written publications include Cross-Cultural Filmmaking (1997) (also with Taylor). Lucien Taylor teaches Anthropology and Visual & Environmental Studies at Harvard University.

'Gardner transmits the sensation of the deep and literate gaze, and does so with an intensity that passes from the documentary into the visionary.' Seamus Heaney 'Gardner's camera scans with precision and feels with sympathy - the objectivity of an anthropologist, the fraternity of a poet.' Octavio Paz