Reflections on "Race" and Returning Home

First of all, let me apologize for this lengthy diatribe, but I have a bit more time on my hands now.

Just returned (again) to Cambridge, to the news of the arrest of Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. If you haven’t heard yet, he was arrested in his own home by police who were responding to a 911 call of a break-in. After Gates showed ID proving that he lived there the Cambridge City police arrested him for disorderly conduct and said that he was shouting and resisting them. This story has caused people and the media to re-question the injunction shortly after Obama’s election of the ushering in of a new “post-racial” era, and rightfully so.
At the end of Obama’s press conference a few nights ago he was asked what he thought of this arrest, and stated that the Cambridge police “acted stupidly,” citing the long history in our country of the disproportionate arrests of Blacks and Latinos. The dialogue on blogs, radio, TV, etc has proliferated as people take sides with Skip Gates or the police (who were doing their job??!!).

No need for me to explain my own opinion on this matter as you all know me well enough to guess… but it does raise interesting questions that actually relate to the developments of my project(s) over the last 3 weeks.

“Race” in Kerala
My last night in Kerala, was a stark reminder of the “taking sides-ness” of human nature. Jamie, the Catholic foreman of the fishermen we had been filming with (after a bit too much rum) started lashing out against his Muslim co-fishermen; people who, mind you, he is normally friendly with, works with everyday, and was even holding hands with on the way to the bar. As soon as the Muslim members of his fishing team were out of earshot, he started telling Ben and I that they were bad people, that they kill people, and “all they want is money, money, money.” Needless to say we were a bit surprised by his vehemence, and a bit disappointed that our last night, meant to be a farewell, had turned into a match of hurling insults (primarily one way; from Jamie towards the Muslims). Of course none of this was recorded and so now I struggle with how to address this religious tension in my film. The concept of what we call “race” is intricately bound up with ethnic, religious, and caste issues in Kerala; a complex web that I have yet to even begin to understand.

“Race” in Flint
While in MI over the past two weeks, I spoke to friends and family about the Genesee Land Bank, and heard a variety of responses to it. The Genesee County Land Bank, which is a proposal to shrink the city of Flint and raze several wards. Flint is in the process of electing a new Mayor and the Land Bank issue is hotly debated. However, most people I’ve spoken to about this have said that nothing is happening on the ground and its all just talk at the moment. I am really interested in following this story, but I would prefer to find a good subject “on the ground” to follow and film with over the next several years as things develop there. So far, I’ve found many people to talk to about this, but no one who actually lives in the wards likely to be scheduled for demolition. Not sure how to pursue this at this point?
A good friend of mine who grew up in Flint, but left decades ago said that his childhood friends had quite racist comments to the proposal of razing parts of town. Saying things like: “Good riddens” and “who needs those neighborhoods.” My friend found this shocking and racially motivated but also recalled a violent and troublesome childhood in racially segregated wards.

One thing traveling is always good for is a little perspective. Although I find it (probably too) easy to get worked up over racist or sexist comments/treatment abroad, returning to the States has been a bit of a wake-up call in the sense that what we consider ourselves to be is oftentimes a thin patina for more deeply rooted prejudices. If Skip Gates can get arrested in his own home in one of the countries “most liberal” towns, what’s happening in Flint needs attention as its unemployment rates nears 30% and new politicians vie for controlled change, and what happens in Kerala needs to be balanced by a little well-informed perspective as well.

Growing Pains

While Sarah’s been chasing childhood across Southeast Asia, I’ve been chasing children in the same subcontinent. After a week-long translation fest, I’m beginning to see how all these puzzle pieces will fit together to make a film, which now resembles more of a sandwich than a braid. The first half of the film will focus on the kindergarten worlds of Sarita, Rabinda, and Neha (the former two pictured above); the second half will center on two teenaged friends, Shyam and Sumit. When I started to follow these three little girls, I expected a real life Alice in Wonderland, but I’ve found that beneath their angelic smiles, these girls can be just as cruel as they are kind; even the dynamics of nap time can be surprisingly complex. My goal is to flesh out the friend-triangle, capturing them working and playing with one another, against one another, and under the guidance of a guru. Though there may be one or two scenes that include a teacher (a meditation lesson and an outdoor game resembling “duck duck goose”), this section had been shot primarily Peanuts-style—from the perspective of the five-year olds with the teacher “waaa-waaa-waaa”ing somewhere overhead.

Like Adam, there are so many times, especially during personal interactions, that I wish I had a hidden camera rolling, as so much seems to reveal itself only after the camera’s off. During a recent English lesson, for example, one of the boys asked me the American sign for “S-?-E.” He fingerspelled it over and over, but I insisted that “?” wasn’t part of the Latin alphabet. He whipped out his notebook and wrote something resembling: “S )( E”. Again, I told him I didn’t understand the second letter. He tried again, this time producing a legible “SXE.” I informed the exasperated boy that “sxe” was not an English word. With unfailing tenacity, he slammed his notebook shut and boldly fingerspelled, in front of the entire waiting class, “F-U-C-K”. Well! It had never occurred to me that in the deaf community of suburban Nepal (where arranged marriages are still common and dating is not), these guys are every bit as adolescent as their American counterparts. Though the teenaged boys are more calculated in front of the camera than the first-grade girls, I’ve retrospectively found key scenes rife with allusions to pubescent thoughts of girls, male dominance, and competition. The footage culminates in a 400m race between two close friends, Shyam and Sumit, whose desire to win overwhelms their desire to support each other: Shyam wants to win the heart of a girl by winning the race but doesn’t even cross the finish line, and the more confident, competetive Sumit runs his heart out (literally) to bring home the silver. In my most serendipitious moment (and I’ve been relying heavily on serendipity), linking our two cultures and incorporating an unexpected bit of pop culture, Shyam picks up a Nepali newspaper and calls over a few friends to report the death of Michael Jackson. I, of course, had no clue what they were talking about at the time, and didn’t find out myself for another week!

The golden thread is, very broadly, the “emotionality” of childhood and puberty within this deaf community. The peanut butter gluing together these two halves—the critical tent pole—is the school’s only deaf teacher, Sharmila, who will lead us from an outdoor game in the courtyard (an intentional departure from the first grade classroom) to the fifth grade classroom, after which point, the focus will shift primarily to Shyam. The film will be much more of a conventional documentary than originally planned, but it’s not entirely ethnographic, per se.

I’m open to surprises and expecting the unexpected in my final three weeks. I’m now shooting and reshooting the opening scene (the national anthem, signed on sporadic mornings), spending long days observing the girls, and searching for some way to close the film. (I want to return to the deaf school after the race, but what could possibly serve as a good resolution after the climactic race? And should I stick to the Shyam-Sumit thread or find some way to incorporate the whole school again?)

I’m sending you guys lots of positive energy, and wishing you many serendipitious moments over your finals weeks and days. As always, I’m stoked to read your updates and looking forward to finally matching names with faces in a few short weeks!

chasing childhoods across SE asia

Dearest sensory ethnographers...

Finally, I sit down for a moment. It's been wonderful to follow your posts at various internet cafes across SE asia. I absolutely cannot wait to see the final films, as I'll miss out on seeing the footage and the editing process. But it sounds like you've all been on incredible journeys. Just thought I'd say hello and fill you in on what's been happening in my film world.

I went to Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia to complete filming for a film entitled 'Worlds' that myself and my partner have been working on for 3 years... The film involves returning to the places of our childhoods and filming them as they are today. The film is attempting to capture that devastating feeling of falling in love, and never being able to know the past of your lover, forever grasping at blurry images of the stories they tell you. We've been travelling across Southern Africa and SE asia filming landscapes that have changed so much in our lifetimes - two lives which have had utterly different trajectories through history, Jean having grown up as a person of colour under apartheid, and me having grown up the privileged daughter of a diplomat.

We returned to places where I spent much of my childhood, Indonesia in particular. It was haunting to return to the beach resorts which had been simply jungle when I was a child. In the interveneing 20 years, mile-long resorts were built and have become completely derelict. Now, Indonesian tourists still flock there at weekends, but staying in isolated rooms around which other rooms decay. It was incredible to stand on the beach I played on as a child, watching banana boats and jet-skis whizz past, in front of Krakatoa on the horizon. Jakarta, choking even when I lived there, is now an apocalyptic gothem city of mile after mile of skyscrapers and black, oil-slick rivers. We made a friend who worked as a Salsa teacher at the Ritz, and can only hope he's alright after the recent bombings.

Now I'm back in the UK editing another project, about mothers and daughters (of which you saw a hint in one of my pieces) which is completely draining, but going well. In September I will return to Cape Town to edit 'Worlds' with Jean. Editing is always excruciating, those camera jerks, the missed words and funny angles, but all these perceived errors aside, the 'moment' usually finds its way of shining through. Watching hours of footage in the last two weeks, I've realised it's when I stopped trying to control the situation that the most magic moments followed, yet I was focused enough to follow them.

As for 'Blindness', once I'm in South Africa again I'll be applying for money to make it with the national broadcaster - fingers crossed! Good luck to you all in the last stages of filming, and I hope I make it out to the US for the screenings!

lots of love,
Sarah

concerns on visual (mis)representation

Dear ones,

I beseech your advice and food for thought and will try to leave my post as succinct as possible.

I've gotten some 'typical' anthro footage of the girls: doing washing, cooking, their 'lived experience'. But ultimately it doesn't say anything about these girls: They are orphans, their families were murdered in a genocide, and they have little hope for a successful future because of it. There is no one to talk to about their problems, so they carry on as if nothing has happened.

The tourist reaction to Rwanda is "Wow the country has totally rebuilt itself, Rwanda has really healed from the genocide." It frustrates me so much because it suggests that people have low expectations for the country, as if the progress from mud homes to cement homes is good enough. There is proverb here that loosely translates, 'what is the point of a good house with no food inside?" Ultimately, such attitudes about economic and structural growth don't leave room to consider the ripple effects of genocide.

So when I film the girls, you don't see what is really going on "below the surface", beyond visual representation. I was thinking of contrasting voice over from interviews over the 'lived experience' footage I shot, but the interviews are so difficult for them I can't help but feel guilty asking such intrusive questions that have already caused them to break into tears.

I also tried lending them journals, but claudene, the very sensitive one shown in the above picture, is illiterate. So I'm thinking of asking her to draw some things for me, but I don't think it will get around the fundamental moral and cinematic problems here:

The girls' footage and work is conveying the same things as mine: playing with friends, going to school, doing chores. How much can you ask a person to demonstrate and share things if she wants to leave them unspoken?

Hope the filming is going well, I can't wait to see what y'all have done!

Sincerely yours,
Elisa

Golden Hours

Here's hoping everyone is doing well! I have gotten some great footage recently and I have more on the horizon. In short: I got up at 5am the other day to film the sunrise and then follow one of the local characters into the countryside so that he could pick mulberries to make gelato with. He is a very interesting individual. That evening, Elvira (my Sicilian mom, as I like to call her) took me to see how they separate the wheat from the chaff: by throwing the wheat into the air with pitchforks, and letting the wind carry the chaff away while the wheat falls to the ground. The only problem was, there was no wind. So I filmed the local farmers playing briscola (a card game), and Elvira doing somersaults in the hay. She is turning out to be a really outstanding subject. I also went on an excursion to climb Mt. Etna. I got some really interesting shots... of course I somehow managed to turn on the !@#$%ing gain switch at some point, so some of the shots are a bit grainy. Not entirely ruined, fortunately, since I had the gain on quite low. I have since admonished my HVX and told it never to do that again (or in other words, I set it so that the gain never goes above 0dB, no matter what I do with the switch). The Etna footage probably won't be part of my documentary, but I think it has some excellent possibilities for a lyrical piece. On Sunday I have an appointment to film a guy who makes and repairs zampogne, or Sicilian bagpipes! This evening I will probably film Elvira taking care of her elderly mother-in-law, who has Alzheimer's. Elvira has to be one of the best "nurses" in the world.

I'm running out of room on my hard drives... only about 100GB left. I think I need to go out and buy two more, what with a month left to shoot!

It is 97 degrees here today and I can barely bring myself to type. But I stumbled upon (through Lifehacker, one of my favorite blogs) a steadicam design that I think we could really sink our teeth into when we get back. Check it out here!

two (2) questions and one (1) photo

1.) what are your postal addresses? or rather, the addresses of where you'll be in 3-4 weeks from now. i have a little something (a very little something... or very little something...) i'd like to send you! edit: of course, it never occurred to me that you probably shouldn't post your snail mail addresses to the world wide web. if you wouldn't mind e-mailing me, that would be awesome!

2.) can you recommend any reading/watching/listening material of any kind related to filmmaking/ethnography/documentary/anthropology/etc. available for download/upload/e-mail/copy&paste? essays, stories, novels, videos, guides, assigned reading from last semester, assigned reading from next semester, ANYTHING! totally devoid of technological distractions (including electricity, at times), i'm finding myself with quite a bit of free time, and i'd like to put that time towards thinking and rethinking the project. at this point, i'll take anything i can get (which has included buying every 100 Rs documentary on children or disabilities or southeast asia i can get my hands on)!

3.) a friend recently sent me this photograph. so wonderful!

...

Hi all,
So here is a quick recap of where I'm at.

I arrived back in Beirut on June 16th after a festive graduation for George (my partner) and a trip back to MT to see family and my brother's wedding. Not two days after returning back to Lebanon I went on a research trip with a tourist group to Syria for 5 days – was fruitful. After returning back to Beirut and getting settled in I've been getting into shooting...albeit, slowly.

It is hard being back in a place where I know so many people – and feel like I have another life – and then buckling down to do these shoots within these short 8 weeks. Perhaps this is the blessing and the curse. As far as my project I have started shooting in a few gyms but the footage just isn't that interesting so far. I've done lots of sound recording with the Tascam in cinemas and am starting to capture some city scapes and seeing what will inspire me further.

Technically I've been blessed with George's new camera which he just got for commerial work. It turns out that it can shoot HD footage at a much better quality than the DV tapes I brought. (5616x3744 and 21 mp for those that are technically inclined). The camera looks like a normal 35mm – which is the real blessing. There hasn't been much political turmoil this year but Lebanon is still a sensitive place to capture images. I've already been stopped numerous times with the small camera and many public spaces would be out of the question with the larger camera here. Beyond the stealth qualities of the camera I've been enjoying how it producing excellent controls with depth of field and also its ability to capture in lowlight – (which for some “cinema” shooting might payoff). I also cherish the ability to upload the footage to the computer and see exactly what I have – and more than anything, my mistakes and missteps which are foundational in how I then reapproach the next day's shooting. I will post some stills of shots in afew days when I go through and organize everything. Headed up north to the village for some family obligations right now. Oh yeah, the size of the camera also will allow for easy shooting in Syria too. Headed over next week and will play around -- although I don't want to get taken too off track.

I also must apologize as I have responded to few postings thus far. I've gotten them all and read them but haven't had much time to get back to you. It is crazy to think how quickly time is passing.

j