Las grietas de la imagen. Una mirada a la trastienda de los primeros documentales etnográfico sobre el pueblo ainu (1897-1936)

Main author: Centeno, Marcos
Format: Journal Article           
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id eprints-20594
recordtype eprints
institution SOAS, University of London
collection SOAS Research Online
language English
language_search English
topic N Visual arts (General)
description This work is a historical study of the representation of the Ainu people through ethnographic documentaries made in Japan before the Pacific War. The corpus has been divided into three sections: first, the Ainu in the first Lumière actualités filmed in Japan. Second, in the actualités of Pathé productions and the reference to the lost documentary of Torii Ryozo. Third,in the travelogues, made in Japan by Frederick Starr and Benjamin Brodsky in the 1910s. When comparing the film analysis to the social reality of the Ainu, in section four, it becomes clear how documentaries tried to project a deceiving ethnicity belonging to a time prior to the moment they were filmed. Thus, filmmakers aimed at causing attraction of the Western audience through the exotic and ahistorical view of a cultural and geographically distant people. The approach to the productional circumstances of the images reveals the mise en scène, the premeditated construction of Ainu identity. All this could cast doubt on the validity of the ethnographic documentary as social testimony.
format Journal Article
author Centeno, Marcos
author_facet Centeno, Marcos
authorStr Centeno, Marcos
author_letter Centeno, Marcos
title Las grietas de la imagen. Una mirada a la trastienda de los primeros documentales etnográfico sobre el pueblo ainu (1897-1936)
publisher Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), Instituto Univeristario de Ciencias de la Educación, Entimema
publishDate 2014
url https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/20594/