Open AccessJean Rouch: The semiotics of ethnographic film
Author(s) -
Irene Portis-Winner
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
sign systems studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.17
H-Index - 7
eISSN - 1736-7409
pISSN - 1406-4243
DOI - 10.12697/sss.2013.41.2-3.06
Subject(s) - filmmaking , ethnography , film director , semiotics , ethnic group , visual anthropology , art , anthropology , sociology , art history , aesthetics , movie theater , philosophy , epistemology
Jean Rouch (1917–2004) is considered to be the greatest ethnographic filmmaker in the world. His films, which focus primarily on the Songhay of the Upper Niger in Africa, have fundamentally changed the spirit, goals, and methods of ethnographic filmmaking. I ask how Rouch established contact with those he filmed, how his invented semio-ethnic terms and his understanding of twoness and the other informed his practice, and in what sense his films were “shared anthropology” (his term).