The Cinema of Robert Gardner

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 MakavejevÁkos ÖstörWilliam RothmanSean ScullyLucien TaylorCharles Warren

Table of Contents:
INTRODUCTION Resounding Images, Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Taylor, both Harvard University PART I: OVERVIEWS 1. The Music of Robert Gardner, Charles Warren, Boston University 2. Beyond the Burden of the Real: Anthropological Reflections on the Technique of a Master Cutter, Paul Henley, University of Manchester 3. The Burden of Symbols: Film and Representation in India, Marcus Banks, University of Oxford 4. Gardner's First Shots: Vectored Landscapes, Karl G. Heider, University of South Carolina 5. Out of Words: A Conversation with Robert Gardner, Ilisa Barbash, Harvard University PART II: THE FILMS AND PHOTOGRAPHS 6. The Camera in the Studio: Robert Gardner's Passenger, Anna Grimshaw, Emory University 7. Dancing with Gardner, William Rothman, University of Miami 8. Gardner's Bliss, David MacDougall, Australian National University 10. Gardens of War: Materiality and the Photographic Narrative, Elizabeth Edwards, University of the Arts London 9. Interactive Media and the Construction(s) of Memory in Nonfiction Film: The Case of Dead Birds, Roderick Coover, Temple University PART III: REMINISCENCES 11. Anecdote of a Season, Stanley Cavell, Harvard University 12. The Ethnographer's (Visual) Knowledge: Fieldwork with Camera and Notebook in Vishnupur, 1982 and 1983, Ákos Östör, Wesleyan University 13. The Rock of Gibraltar, Dusan Makavejev, Independent Filmmaker 14. Bob Gardner and Me, Sean Scully, Artist 15. 58 Highland Street, Susan Howe, State University of New York at Buffalo

About the Author :
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.

Review :
'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