I had to keep reminding myself that this was not about documentary film specifically. All I could think about was the Maysles brothers and Grey Gardens and how Nanook of the North would be different if Nanook was the filmmaker.
Early in the chapter, Berg identifies the emic view as the insider’s view and etic view as the outsider’s view. I understand that ethnographic researchers use elements of both in terms of gathering information and then providing interpretations. But this got me thinking about the relationship between the ethnographer and his or her subject. As with the personal voice vs. observational style documentaries, is there an auto-ethnographic research method, or by definition can you not be a personal part of the subject prior to the research?
My favorite parts of the chapter were the discussions on overtly vs. covertly, keeping the neutral position, and the idea of learning more than you want to know. Basically anything dealing with the personal relationships developed during the research, but outside the intended results.
I do feel like I am missing out on the personal voice or the idea of what if you already know these people. That is just one aspect I wish the author had delved into a little deeper. I have seen many personal voice documentaries and am curious how that translates as an ethnographic research paper. I am interested in the positive and negative ideas of doing that.
I really like the inclusion of field notes and especially how Ben did that with quoting himself. It really gives us a close understanding of the subjects. Their personalities show through if we understand the ethnographer. Ben is part of the paper. Knowing him helps, but revealing himself allows us to delineate the “actual” subject from what the author thinks about the subject. Have you ever seen Jesus Camp? I have never learned much about the filmmakers, so I feel like I can’t have an opinion on the film. On the contrary, I feel like I know Michael Moore very well (as a documentary filmmaker) and it makes his films rather translucent. Which I think is good.
2 comments:
I haven't seen Jesus Camp, but it certainly sounds interesting...
I think that with media, especially the kind that you're talking about here, people need to be aware of who they're dealing with before putting 100% faith behind what's presented, whether it's movies, advertisements or news. This touches back on our questions about the ability to be 100% objective. Is it even possible? But even beyond that, in some cases there's absolutely no attempt to be objective, and some of this media makes no apologies for the biases presented. (Michael Moore, anyone?) It's up to us as the audience to decide whether to take it or leave it.
Jeff, I also had to keep reminding myself that this wasn't only about documentary films, but documentaries are certainly often the output of ethnographies.
I haven't seen Jesus Camp, but I have seen Holy Ghost People, which is an observational/ethnographic film if I've ever seen one.
I think you can have auto-ethnographies. I'm not sure. Maybe I'll talk about that tomorrow. Or maybe I won't. We'll see!
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