The interplay of the concepts of perspective, reality, authorship and collaboration is at the core of ethnographic filmmaking. Pink emphasizes that “the ethnographicness of video footage is contextual” (Pink, 2013: 105); for example, a school play video has a different impact to the actors and their families than to an outsider, someone from a different culture or different era. Powrie suggests that “the real can be apprehended only through subjectivity” (2011: 68), pointing at the fact that there is no one reality apart from the subjective one, whether it is experienced individually or collectively. In this essay, I will discuss the significance of subjective experience and contextuality in ethnographic films, made possible by the use of digital camera. The key characteristics of ethnographic films will be analysed referencing two films: Village Tales (Sue Sudbury, 2015) and The Gleaners and I (Agnes Varda, 2000). Both films present insight to cultural and social practices, make use of equipment and methodologies that allow freedom of movement to the filmmakers (digital cameras, radio microphones, no tripods, no lights), demonstrate the notion of shared anthropology, and ensure transparency of authorship.

Village Tales is a documentary based on participatory filmmaking, where 11 women from rural India collaborate with a British documentarist to talk about their experience from their participation in a community video project (Sudbury, 2016: 213). It focuses on the stories of 4 of the women, whose lives changed after they were trained in filmmaking and reporting in 2005. They talk about the confidence their work with film production has armed them with, their collaboration with the other women in the project, their struggle as child marriage victims, and their everyday lives. We are introduced to Vinodha, Indira, Latha and Parvati, via a hybrid format of video diary interviews and observational documentary techniques, recorded by themselves, the other native filmmakers of the project, and Sudbury herself. The subjects of gender discrimination, domestic violence, and alcoholism in Village Tales undoubtedly bring “critical or revealing arguments to general publics or to groups in authority or with power to make change” (Pink, 2013: 117).

Sudbury, after a pre-production process of communicating with the project manager and the native filmmakers, spent 3 weeks filming and interacting with the women in 2009, resulting in 23 hours of footage. After close collaboration with the translators and the native filmmakers, the film was completed in 2015. A detailed analysis of the entire process is described in two academic articles (Sudbury, 2016, 2018), as well as Sudbury’s doctoral thesis (2015). This prolonged collaborative process is crucial in ethnographic filmmaking, in order to ensure a balanced input in the final outcome, offer opportunity to different voices, and most of all promote the practice of Jean Rouch’ shared anthropology.

The use of digital camera allowed “the “native informants” to speak directly to the audience” (Sudbury, 2015: 15), and interview and film their family members more freely, since the presence of Sudbury as an outsider made them feel more nervous. As a result, the discovery of different realities and perspectives is evidenced in Village Tales by the footage from different camera operators, and ultimately, by Sudbury’s editing process, which she calls “the third voice” (2016). 

If in Village Tales authorship – although transparent – is in a way blurred among filmmakers, Varda undoubtedly leaves her authorial stamp on The Gleaners and I, a poetic self-reflexive observational documentary about the practice of gleaning in rural France. Varda expands the idea of traditional gleaning (gathering the produce left behind after the harvest) to scavaging and dumpster diving. She spent 7 months searching for people who go through leftovers and waste, for survival purposes, ethical convictions, or artistic expression, implicitly criticising large-scale production and consumerism (Conway, 2014: 112). After enthusiastic email from some of the participants in the film, Varda revisited them and produced a follow-up: The Gleaners and I: two years later (2002) (Callenbach, 2002: 46), refuting what Pink describes as: “very little remains once ethnographers leave their field sites, apart from … things that did not fit into a suitcase” (Pink, 2013a: 65).   

Varda, in contrast to Sudbury’s absence from the frame, is extensively present in The Gleaners and I. Heider mentions that “ethnographic presence is part of the behaviour of being filmed” (Heider, 2006: 69), and Varda is not only the author of the film, but a performer, narrator, rapper, artist, and most of all, a gleaner herself; gleaner of stories, portraits and art. Throughout the film, Varda’s poetic narration enforces subjectivity, and with shots like her aging hands, white hair, personal space, and her dancing lens cap “Varda’s journey is as much a journey of self-discovery as one of discovering the hidden underbelly of France” (Powrie, 2011: 79).

The practice of reflexivity in The Gleaners and I is an act of empathy for the gleaners and scavagers. Taking it a step further, Varda uses self-reflexivity and reinforces the idea of shared anthropology. She not only demonstrates with her “harvest” what she learned from her “teachers”, but she also accepts criticism; as evidenced in the follow-up film two years later, she includes the remarks of the marathon runner/market gleaner, who disapproves her strong and narcissistic presence in the film.

The video-essay format on the particular subjects of self-representation, empowerment and authorship mentioned above, offers further exposure of underrepresented groups, such the cases of women in rural India and lower socio-economic groups in France. In addition, digital camera, a marginalized medium in the multibillion film industry, deserves recognition as a humble but powerful storyteller, providing low-cost, easy and intimate filmmaking. Juxtaposing via the video-essay format the different applications and exploitations of the advantages of digital camera, such as video diaries and poetic references, magnifies the impact that these tiny apparatuses may have on ethnographic filmmaking.

 Village Tales’ collaborative filmmaking and Varda’s poetic self-reflexive cinema render extra dimensions to ethnographic storytelling. Participatory filmmaking has been used in visual ethnography since the 60s, yet it still remains significant, especially with the current technological advances of high quality smartphone cameras. The flexibility and accessibility of modern cameras enhance the prospect of practicing shared anthropology within the context of ethnographic filmmaking, whether the camera is used to discover or expose cultural and social practices, or to transform an ethnographic story through one’s personal perspective. And as much anthropologists and humanity together are persistently hunting for the absolute truth, the pursuit seems in vain, since every ethnographic film is to some extend a self-portrait of its creator.

Filmography

Sudbury, Sue, Village Tales, 2015. Film. UK: Sequoia Films

Varda, Agnes, The Gleaners and I, 2000. Film. France: Ciné-Tamaris

Varda, Agnes, The Gleaners and I: two years later, 2002. Film. France: Ciné-Tamaris

Bibliography

Callenbach, E. (2002) ‘The Gleaners and I (Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse)’, Film Quarterly, 56(2), pp. 46–49.

Conway, K. (2014) ‘Responding to Globalization: The Evolution of Agnès Varda’, SubStance, 43(1), pp. 109–122.

Heider, K.G. (2006) ‘The Attributes of Ethnographic Film; Reflexivity: The Ethnographer’s Practice’, in Ethnographic Film. Austin: University of Texas Press, pp. 50–109.

Henley, P. (2020) ‘Jean Rouch: Sharing Anthropology’, in Ginsburg, F. et al. (eds) Beyond observation: A History of Authorship in Ethnographic Film. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, pp. 225–255.

MacDougall, D. (1998) ‘Visual Anthropology and the Ways of Knowing’, in Taylor, L. (ed.) Transcultural Cinema. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, pp. 61–92.

Pink, S. (2013a) ‘Planning and Practising Visual Ethnography’, in Seaman, J. (ed.) Doing Visual Ethnography. 3rd edn. Los Angeles, London, New Delhi: SAGE PublicationsSage UK: London, England, pp. 49–69.

Pink, S. (2013b) ‘Video in Ethnographic Research’, in Seaman, J. (ed.) Doing Visual Ethnography. 3rd edn. Los Angeles, London, New Delhi: SAGE PublicationsSage UK: London, England, pp. 103–121.

Powrie, P. (2011) ‘Heterotopic Spaces and Nomadic Gazes in Varda: From “Cléo de 5 à 7” to “Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse”’, L’Esprit Créateur, 51(1), pp. 68–82.

Sudbury, S. (2015) Village Tales: An Exploration of the Potential of Participatory Documentary Filmmaking in Rural India. Bournemouth University.

Sudbury, S. (2016) ‘Locating a “third voice”: participatory filmmaking and the everyday in rural India’, Journal of Media Practice, 17(2–3), pp. 213–231.

Sudbury, S. (2018) ‘Visualizing the Everyday: Participatory Filmmaking in Rural India’, Visual Ethnography, 7(2), pp. 6–23.