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| Through Navaho Eyes | ||
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| Films: Projet Navajo | ||
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By 1965, based upon earlier research in New York, I had fully developed the research plan of teaching Navajo Indians--a people with very little exposure to or experience with film or picture-making--to use motion picture cameras and to analyze the relationship between their language and culture and the way they structured their world through film. That work, which I started in 1966--working with the anthropologist John Adair--was supported by the National Science Foundation in a series of grants starting in 1966 and continuing through 1971. This research resulted in six films, conceived, photographed, and edited by the Navajo students, several journal publications, many invited lectures here and abroad, and the book Through Navajo Eyes, analyzing the films and the process by which they were made. These films have been shown at Lincoln Center, the Edinburgh Film Festival, the Festival de Popoli in Florence, the Museum of Natural History, several television programs, and are currently being distributed by the Museum of Modern Art in the United States and the British Film Institute in Europe. Susami Hani, one of Japan's leading filmmakers, has called one of these films the Amencan film most influential upon his own work.
extrait de Preface (Larry Gross) to Studying Visual Communication
Although I believe that in this remark he was primarily attempting to distance himself from an overly subjective approach which centers on individual viewers' reactions, Worth also was clearly advocating the priority of the "study of the image-event" itself.
The extent of this bias is shown by the perfunctory way in which Worth and Adair assessed the reactions of other Navajo to the films made by their fellows. The account which they give of the films' world premiere on the reservation (attended by sixty Navajo) is the shortest chapter in their book, but it is most revealing (1972:128-31).
They make clear the fact that the idea of holding the screening at all originated with the filmmakers, not the researchers. More important, the account reveals how unprepared they were for this crucial opportunity to investigate the interpretations and responses of the Navajo viewers. Only nine viewers were questioned, and the questions failed fully to explore their reactions.
Two of the Navajo reported that they did not understand certain of the films. These were films judged by Worth and Adair to be "somewhat outside the framework of Navajo cognition," in either form or subject matter (ibid.:130). The way in which these viewers expressed their lack of understanding was to say that they could not grasp the meaning because the films "were in English." This is a most intriguing response, considering that none of the films had any sound at all. However, Worth and Adair continue, "since these interviews were conducted in Navajo, we didn't see the translated tapes until we left the reservation and have not been able to question our informants further along these lines" (ibid.:131).
By the early 1970s, in contrast, Worth was clearly insisting on the need to include the perspectives of both the interpreter and the imagemaker within the scope of investigation. In part, as I have indicated, this insistence was influenced by Hymes's advocacy of an "ethnography of communication" (Note 8). However, in order to fully describe the development of Worth's work at this time, I have to discuss my own involvement with it.
In 1966 Sol Worth and John Adair received a National Science Foundation grant that enabled Worth
to instruct the Navajo Indians in the art of filmmaking as part of a study of cross-cultural communication. This research, which was probably his most famous, eventually led to the publishing of a book in 1972, co-authored with Adair, entitled, Through Navajo Eyes: An Exploration in Film Communication and Anthropology.
Additionally, in 1967, Worth received the Wenner-Gren Foundation award for outstanding research in communication and anthropology. As the author of over two dozen scholarly papers, he was well recognized in the fields of anthropology and communications, as well in the field of visual communication.
Oeuvres de Sol Worth
Biographie de Sol Worth
Autres textes disponibles ici : voir les liens de la bibliographie.
Sol Worth
home page (Temple Univ.)
ADAIR, John, & WORTH, Sol, 1967, The Navajo as filmmaker: A brief report of research in the cross-cultural aspects of film communication. -in: -"American Anthropologist", Vol. 69, No.1. pp.76-78.
COLLIER, John , Films series: Navajos film themselves. Reviewed in: "American Anthropologist", 76:481-486, 1974.
FARIS, James C., 1992, Photography and the Navajo: Some preliminary comments on classic inscriptions. -in: "Exposure", 29(1):34-43.
LEAHY, James, 1977a, Notes on the Navajo films. -in: "Film Form", 1.2, pp.76-100.
LEAHY, James, 1977b, Some notes on Navaho Films. -in: "Cambridge Anthropology", Numéro spécial: "Film ethnographique", pp.1-21.
MEAD, Margaret, 1975, Through Navajo Eye. (Review and discussion). -in: "Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication". Vol.2 (2):122-124.
STOKROCKI, Mary,1994, Through Navajo Children's Eyes: Cultural Influences on Representational Abilities. -in: "Visual Anthropology", Vol.7, No.1. pp.42-67.
WORTH, Sol,1972, Toward the development of a semiotic of ethnographic film. -in: "PIEF (Program in Ethnographic Film) Newsletter". Spring 72. Vol.3(3):8-12.
WORTH, Sol, 1977, Toward an Ethnographic Semiotic , Présenté à la Conférence: "Utilisation de l'ethnologie par le cinéma / Utilisation du cinéma par l'ethnologie", Paris. Unpublished.
WORTH, Sol, 1980, Margaret Mead and the shift from «Visual Anthropology» to the «Anthropology of Visual Communication». -in: "Studies in Visual Communication". Vol.6 (1):15-22.
WORTH, Sol, (ed.), 1981, Studying Visual Communication. University of Pennsylvania Press. Philadelphia. 216p.
WORTH, Sol, & ADAIR, John, ±1970a, The Navajo makes movies: The people depict themselves. Holt, Rinehart & Winston. New-York. ...p.
WORTH, Sol, & ADAIR, John, 1970b, Navajo filmmakers. -in: "American Anthropologist", 72 No.1. pp.9-34.
WORTH, Sol, & ADAIR, John, 1972, Throught Navajo Eyes: An exploration in film communication and anthropology. Indiana University Press. Bloomington. 286p.
Six Navaho bilinguals and one mono-lingual, all of whom had previously been differentially exposed to film, were taught to conceive, photograph, and edit 16mm silent film under the instruction of Sol Worth (Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania) and John Adair (San Francisco State College). The purpose of the project was to see if motion picture film, conceived, photographed, and manipulated by a people such as the Navaho, would reveal aspects of cognition and values that may be inhibited, not observable or analyzable when the means of investigation is dependent on verbal exchange and particularly when it is done in the language of the investigator.
Susie Benally: A
Navajo Weaver, 20 min. Susie Benally, a young Navaho,
depicts her mother weaving at the loom and includes all of the
necessary steps prior to the actual weaving.
One
of the most complex films and least understood by the other Navaho,
it has been called by Margaret Mead "one of the finest examples
of animism shown on film. " Contrary to the other films,
this film deals with subjective rather than objective aspects
of Navaho life. In the film Al Clah attempts to reconcile the
western notion of God with his traditional Navaho notion of gods.
Clah was a very acculturated outsider in the community, influenced
by French films. Clah wanted to express basic ideas of Navaho
oppositions: energy-calm; sun-shadow; direct gaze-averted gaze,
and the danger of the spider web. The film searches for peace
in the circle. Clah wanted audience to feel at first tense and
grotesque, finally relaxed and calm. It is about an intrusion
which threatens the calm of the world. Needs to be used with
the book by Worth et Adair. Focusing questions: What
do the shadows do? Why the Yeibechai mask? What happens with
the spider web?
John Adair &
Richard Chalfen sur le terrain.
Commentaires étudiants sur les cinéastes Navajo
NAVAJO Research, Richard Chalfen
John Adair - Biographie
Sol Worth - Biographie
Sol Worth's Home Page (Temple University)
Tuning in to Navajo: Role of Radio in Native Language Maintenance (Leighton C.Peterson)
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