I watched the Kayapo Documentary before I read the associated chapter, so when watching, I had one immediate question: who was the narrator and who was making the film? I didn’t get an answer until the very end of the film – it isn\u2019t until the credits that the viewer learns who the associated anthropologist and videographers are. Terence Turner doesn\u2019t insert himself into the film \u2013 his presence remains unseen and he endeavors not to speak in the videos, instead choosing to narrate over clips or allowing the Kayapo to speak for themselves. He also seems to edit out his questions and prompts, only showing the Kayapo’s responses to those questions.<\/p>\n
In fact, the first time a cameraperson (I\u2019m assuming it\u2019s Turner, although I could be wrong) speaks and inserts himself into the narrative is to ask a question at around the 10:50 mark. (Notably, his other insertion into the film\u2019s narrative is at the end, when the narrator makes an \u2018I\u2019 statement regarding his observations about the Kayapo\u2019s dancing rituals and the likelihood of those rituals being performed after a political victory.)<\/p>\n
Turner, by attempting to remove his presence from the documentary, seemed to me to be attempting to present a more \u2018objective\u2019 view of events. It reminds me of the way Edward Lane disguises himself to \u201cpass\u201d in Egypt. In the same way that Lane tried to make his positionality of European as irrelevant, Turner seems to also attempt to remove his positionality as a Western anthropologist, by removing his questions and by using clips filmed by the Kayapo where possible. This also connects to the preconceived notion we have that a more direct experience (of culture, aka immersion) equals a more real experience.<\/p>\n
But, as we\u2019ve previously considered, objectivity is not necessarily possible \u2013 there is no objective observer, and there is no objective videographer. I think that Turner, by failing or neglecting to inform viewers of his own positionality, removes a valuable angle with which to further analyze the portrayal of the Kayapo and the layers of culture in the film.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I watched the Kayapo Documentary before I read the associated chapter, so when watching, I had one immediate question: who was the narrator and who was making the film? I didn’t get an answer until the very end of the film – it isn\u2019t until the credits that the viewer learns who the associated anthropologist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-post-production"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4310"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4311,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4310\/revisions\/4311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/ant347-f20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}