Research Report 3- Research

In my research I viewed a lot of anthropological films and work depicting western culture as a tribe:

·         In the Beach we find disillusioned westerners escaping the daily grind and forming their own hidden tribe. We see the utopia Richard finds gradually descend into dystopian mess, as his concepts of paradise are lost. The tribes that are portrayed in anthropological films often live hard physically but have a fairly peaceful existence amongst each other which is apparent initially but then disintegrates.

·         Another example of western culture as a tribe is the Lord of the Flies. What might a bunch of westernized people be like if found in a tribal context The Novel is largely allegorical towards the worst in human nature, written in a time when the cold war was in full swing (1954) and shows the tribe of western children being dysfunctional from the start. The book displays allot of immorality of the biys. This is stark contrast to the hard but fairly idealist life of many tribes.

·         Then i analyzed the cinematic conventions of Jean Rouch, Marc Huraux’s film "Le Miel N'est Jamais bon dans une saule Bouche" Bruce Parry’s Tribe and the American version of Tribe “World’s Lost Tribe” for discovery channel. In these i found that many of the cinematic conventions were similar but there were also allot of stark differences in how they approached the tribe, often a portrayal of the times they were made in.

·         I also looked at colonial attitudes towards anthropology. This is very interesting as only with the advent of de-colonization in the 1960’s did attitudes towards anthropology change. In particular i looked at Herge’s early portrayals of ethnicity in Tintin.

To mould the film further i will look at more anthropological films and look more into student culture.