Francis Jupurrurla Makes TV at Yuendumu

Similar to Turner's article, in Eric Michaels' text, the Warlpiri people integrate their own cultural values into their movies- a modern, western form of expression. The Warlpiri people's "Law" involves the "metaphoric and metonymic relationship of kin and land" (Michaels 106.7). Just like kinship passes down land, oral stories pass down history and myths. Oral history is a large part of Warlpiri culture and they incorporate it into their movies. By incorporating oral stories and following the "Law" in his films, Jupurrurla creates a mixture of the contradicting cultures of the west/European and the other/Aborigine.

The Battle of Algiers

The most interesting element of this movie, The Battle of Algiers (1966), is the documentary-style way in which it is shot. Gillo Pontecorvo, the director, shoots the movie from both sides of the war- the native Algerian and the French- showing the reasons why each side feels they are right and showing the autrocities of both sides.
This documentary-style of filming creates a realistic feel to the movie. There are no romantic relationships that are side-stories, or personal emotional stories or dilemnas depicted- we are on the outside and watching the events take place. The movie does not side with either point of view- it is up to the viewer to decide which side they are on. The movie tells the straight facts of the war and revolt.
The entire movie, I kept thinking of the Jewish concentration camps during WWII. The French confine the Algerians to the Casbah and they seal them in. They monitor everyone and make strict rules for the Algerians to follow. This, to me, is very reminiscent of the Jewish genocide in eastern Europe during Hitler's reign. The Algerians, however, started the attacks because they were revolting and they continued to fight.

Jackson is a native anthropologist himself and in his essay, "An Ethnographic Filmflam", he describes the differences of native and nonnative anthopology, and how the development of film helped fuel those differences. Jackson uses Sylvia Woods' restaurant, Sylvia's, as an example of how nonnative Harlemites come in and visually record the native Harlemites. Tourists spill into the famous Sylvia's restaurant and take photos video footage with her to prove they were there with her and to have the "Harlem experience".
Jackson explains how the development of visual anthropology fueled the development of native anthropology. People always believe that it is impossible for someone to do an anthropological study of their own culture, however, it can be almost better. Take, for instance, Zora Neale Hurston's book, Mules and Men, she went back to her home town in southern Florida and recorded the cultural rituals of the people she had known all of her life. Because she had known these people already and grown up in the culture, there was no problem infiltrating herself into the culture. Jackson explains that the hard thing about native anthropology is having to be both on the inside and the outside.
Once film started to be used as an anthropological tool, the tables started turning because the natives started using the video cameras. From this developed something called a "parallax effect", which is when both the indigenous films and the ethnographic films are used as complementary films and are seen as a holistic ethnographic study because they show both sides.
Jackson says that visual native anthropology will "reinvent ethnography in the 21st century". This is true, it is the modern anthropology- technologically advanced and culturally open.