The Ax Fight : studying the Yanomamö
Film et Vidéo
- Auteurs : Chagnon Napoleon A (1938-....) ; Asch Timothy (1932-1994) ; Documentary Educational Resources ;
- Editeurs : Watertown Documentary Educational Resources [éd., distrib.] ;
- Date d'édition : 2004
- Sujets : Films documentaires -- Amérique, Films ethnographiques, Yanomami (Indiens), Yanomami (langue), Venezuela
- Langue(s) : Anglais, Indiennes d'Amérique du Sud, autres langues
- Description matérielle : 1 DVD vidéo monoface simple couche zone 0 (30 min), 4/3, coul.
- Pays de publication : États-Unis
- Collection (notice d'ensemble) : Yanomamo series
Notes
Présenté au American Film Festival Red Ribbon ; International Scientific Film Association, Philadelphia, Diploma of Honor ; Film en version originale en anglais et yanomami. Sous-titres anglais ; Guide du film disponible à l'adresse ; Http://der.org/resources/study-guides/the-ax-fight.pdf ; Tourné au Venezuela en 1971
Résumé
The event lasted about half an hour, ten minutes of which were filmed. The film is constructed of four parts. The first consists of an unedited version of what the cameraman saw and the sound technician recorded, including the filmmakers' comments (Chagnon complains at one point 'that's the tenth person today that's asked me for my soap'). The apparent chaos of these first ten minutes is clarified in the second section, in which Chagnon explains the sequence of actions in the fight, the relationships between the actors, and how the filmmakers' initially confused interpretation of the events became coherent. The third section diagrams the lineages in the villages involved to illustrate the fight's relationship to long-standing patterns of conflict and alliance within the village. Finally, in an edited version of the fight, we see how the editors' hands shape the 'reality' we view. We are reminded of the tension between the need to produce a smoothly flowing film and an informative document while maintaining the integrity of the event. The Ax Fight thus operates on several levels. It plunges the viewer into the problems of Yanomamo kinship, alliance, and village fission; of violence and conflict resolution. At the same time it raises questions about how anthropologists and filmmakers translate their experience into meaningful words and coherent, moving images. ; Ce documentaire présente le travail d'observation participante de l'anthropologue Napoléon Chaignon qui vécut trente six mois, sur une période de neuf ans, chez les Indiens Yanomami, dans un village situé au sud du Venezuela. Le film est complémentaire de l'ouvrage de Napoléon Chaignon intitulé 'Studying the Yanomamo'.