The gaze of early travel films: From measurement to attraction

Transcription

1 The gaze of early travel films: From measurement to attraction Rianne Siebenga The gaze in colonial and early travel films has been an important aspect of analysis in the last 15 years. As Paula Amad has argued in her 2013 article, Visual Riposte: Looking back at the return of the gaze as Postcolonial theories gift to Film Studies, the gaze of the filmed person into the camera is no longer considered a signal of submission, but rather a moment in which the fiction of full colonial dominance can be questioned. 1 Although this is a significant development which has allowed for a more dynamic interpretation of early films, the return gaze is not the focus of this presentation. Instead I want to discuss the metaphorical gaze of European photographers and filmmakers on non-western cultures. The article will focus on what the change from a still to a moving medium brought to the gaze, visually, but also in the descriptions accompanying these images. To fully understand how the gaze of film changed the way non-europeans were looked at, it is necessary to turn back to early photography and its dissemination in popular mass media such as magic lanterns and stereographs. This presentation takes its examples from the representation of British Indians in these media, as this region was one of the most popular in both lantern lectures and early non-fiction film. With the advent of photography scientists believed to have found the way to represent everything accurately and truthfully, as there was great faith in the exactitude of the camera. 2 Therefore photography became enmeshed with the science of measuring. One of the academic fields that grew alongside the development of photography was anthropology. During the nineteenth century, anthropologists generally believed in the idea of different 1 Paula Amad, Visual Riposte: Looking Back at the Return of the Gaze as Postcolonial Theories Gift to Film Studies, Cinema Journal, vol. 52:3 (2013), James Ryan, Picturing Empire: Photography and the Visualization of the British Empire (London: Reaktion Books, 1997),

2 human races which could be ranked on a scale of civilization. The white European male was invariably at the top of this scale. One way of measuring these diverse races was through photographic images of bodies. These could be clothed bodies, but also entirely or almost entirely naked. These latter were placed against a grid, in order to establish exactly the length and width of their different parts. I call this the anthropological gaze. It saw human beings solely as types representing a group, whose typical aspects could be measured and defined. The British anthropologist E.B. Tylor argued for example that the general likeness of build and features [of members of a tribe] is very close [ ] The consequence is that the traveller among a rude people, if he has something of the artists faculty of judging form, may select groups for photography which will fairly represent the type of the whole tribe or nation. 3 Through photographing, measuring and describing a definition of a specific group and its characteristics was made possible. From this a conclusion could be drawn as to what extent the group still appeared to lack civilization. Context was literally, in the case of the anthropological measurements, irrelevant. In popular media this attention for types combined with the possibilities of photography led to the creation of stereotypical images of certain groups. These images endlessly reiterated certain aspects of these groups, with only minor varieties. Background was often absent, creating a sense that people were living outside a specific space and time, onto which the European measuring gaze could confer all it believed to be true about these groups. 4 The idea of living outside space and time also indicated that these groups had been stagnant and 3 Quoted in Ryan, Picturing empire, Elizabeth Edwards, 'Photographic Types : The Pursuit of Method', Visual Anthropology vol.3:2-3 (1990), ,

3 therefore had not developed as far as the Europeans, who believed that they were constantly moving forward. To explain how this functioned, I will use the example of magic lantern slides. For stereographs the argument is similar; in some instances producers used the same images and texts for both. Although they had already existed since the seventeenth century, magic lantern presentations had become very popular from the 1870s onwards. Photography and technological developments which made the lanterns smaller and easier to use, enabled this rise. Slides could be bought or rented for a whole series or as individually. The images were usually based on photographs and often hand-coloured. Travel lectures were among the most popular lanterns shows, and their aim was to educate the public about the world, while showing interesting images. 5 India was, certainly in Britain, a topic which scored highly. Generally with a series of slides a lecture was provided, providing an introduction and giving descriptions of the individual images with the aim of educating the public. The magic lantern lectures are very instructive as they demonstrate how the entire lecture generally aimed at proving Britain s supposedly superior civilization and India s lack of it. Even if India s ancient civilization is admired, in the last few slides the superiority of Britain is subtly or less subtly emphasized, demonstrating that India needs Britain to become more civilized. 6 Most slides show monuments or landscapes and descriptions. Images of people form a minority, which are frequently used to highlight India s problems. The descriptions discuss the group to which the person(s) in the images belong in terms that are depreciating, emphasising a lack of modernity. 5 Jens Ruchatz, 'Travelling by Slide. How the Art of Projection Met the World of Travel', in Crangle, Heard, Van Dooren, Realms of Light, Uses and Perceptions of the Magic Lantern from the 17 th to the 21 st Century (London: The Magic Lantern Society, 2005), Rianne Siebenga, Indians in View: The Representation of Indians in Magic Lantern Presentations, Films and on Postcards, Unpublished PhD-thesis, Utrecht University,

4 What is however significant is that the images often do not reflect these descriptions, because a purely educational approach would not have attracted a public. Therefore the images were evidently used to make the lecture attractive; but as I will demonstrate this is an attraction within boundaries. This is very clear in the descriptions of fakirs or ascetics, men who held a particular fascination for Europeans. 7 In general the lectures describe them as representing all that was problematic about Hinduism, India s main religion, for the Europeans: worshippers of idols, fanatics and filthy. Beyond that, they seem to enjoy describing in horrific terms the consequences of the various poses in which fakirs sometimes held their bodies for long periods of time. The photographic images never portray any of these, but only show ascetics sitting or standing. These images follow anthropological standards and depict the ascetics isolated and without much background. Nevertheless, their gazes into the camera frequently undermine any idea that these ascetics might need help, but show them as self-contained. However, in combination with the written and spoken texts as well as the general presence of a belief in colonial ideologies among the public, the anthropological gaze was generally dominant over the return-gaze. Lantern presentations were a source of inspiration for early travel films or travelogues, as they were part of what was a shared screen culture. 8 These were among the most popular nonfiction films in the early period, Initially the films were very short, showing only one scene. Several films could be combined by the exhibitioner into a longer programme. By 1906 the films had become longer and contained more than one scene. Intertitles also made their first appearance. Descriptions of these films in journals and catalogues were initially used by lecturers to accompany the films. 7 Rianne Siebenga, 'Colonial India's Fanatical Fakirs and their Popular Representations', History and Anthropology 23:4 (2012), Charles Musser, The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990). 4

5 What is immediately apparent if we compare these early travelogues with magic lantern presentations is the focus on attraction and movement. Consequently, people become more central, as they can be shown moving, unlike buildings. Clearly, Tom Gunning s assessment that early film was about attraction rather than narrativity, or in the case of travelogues, about the view rather than a discourse, is confirmed. 9 However, as these travelogues owe so much to the magic lantern presentation, the question does present itself why this occurred and what the consequences were. Because what it meant is that the gaze of the European went from being anthropological and judgemental to focused on attraction. A partial answer lies certainly in the close connection film producers had with the entertainment world in Europe. Colonial subjects had participated in this world or had been represented there by Europeans for some time. These men, furthermore, had generally not lived in India, nor had they been involved in the civilizing mission in the form of missionary or governmental activities. Magic lantern lectures in contrast were often written by people who had lived in India either in a missionary or governmental capacity. Consequently, they had generally been involved in structures that were based on the idea that India needed British influence to become more civilized. The results of these differences can be seen most clearly in the portrayal of fakirs and dancing girls. Fakirs or ascetics were not only a source of derision, but also of fun, as they were equally known as magicians. In Europe Indian magicians were even very famous. This depiction takes prevalence in film, with many more films depicting fakirs as conjurers or acrobats instead of ascetics. 10 Descriptions highlight the tricks performed and frequently emphasise the films were made in close-up, emphasising they were about magic. Dancing girls in magic lantern presentation were mostly presented as proof of India s lack of sexual 9 Gunning, 'Before Documentary: Early Nonfiction Films and the 'View' Aesthetic', in Hertogs, De Klerk, Uncharted territory, Essays on Early Nonfiction Film (Amsterdam: Stichting Nederlands Filmmuseum, 1997, See for example Scenes in Ceylon, Hepworth 1909, 5

6 decorum. However, in film it is precisely this perceived connotation with sexuality that becomes the attraction. 11 This reflects popular European theatre in which Indian dancing girls regularly made their appearance as well as reflecting general ideas about danseuses. Like lantern lectures, travelogues began to try to create a larger narrative in which the individual scenes functioned, through montage and the addition of intertitles. Even in films that in this way emphasised India s apparent lack of civilization, attraction takes precedence over judgement in the intertitles and in the filming. During the early years of films, the intertitles were either descriptive or took recourse to humour, which could nevertheless be quite derogative. The gaze with which the Indians were approached in film is therefore different. It is no longer a gaze that aims to measure, quantify and qualify, but one that searches for attractions. In doing so it does not suddenly entirely change discourse and promote equality of races. However, it does allow the camera to engage with the gaze of the Indians, with their movements and activities, in a less judgemental manner. These moving, smiling, watching people are living beings, like the European spectators who watched them. It is striking that in a number of films where the spectators could almost feel that they became part of the scene, the descriptions in the review journals try to create distance between the spectator and the scene, by emphasizing for example that we are watching the Old East, with its strange manners and customs, even while praising the film highly precisely for its closeness to reality. 12 Coming too close to Indian people in the film as fellow humans was not meant to be a possibility and had to be prevented. Therefore the gaze that focused on the attraction of movement also showed other humans as living beings. It is this closeness provided by travelogues that enabled Flaherty ultimately 11 See for example Dans l état du Cachemire, Pathé 1914, 12 Moving Picture World, 7 May 1910, vol.6:19,

7 to make Nanook of the North, with which he aimed to bring spectators close to the real Inuit, even as he railed against those very films. 7