Questioning filmic constructions of reality

Abstract

This thesis attempts to denaturalize realist filming techniques in order to highlight how these techniques shaped and continue to shape racial and political power imbalances. Through examining how racism pervaded the foundations of the study of anthropology and anthropological filmmaking, I attempt to show how filming techniques produced meanings of race that were nurtured by white male centered ideas of the world. This thesis also demonstrates how realist filming techniques work to challenge racism by analyzing anti-war films about the Vietnam War. The anti-war films present powerful criticism against U.S. centered patriotic views of the Vietnam War and racism against the Vietnamese. While underlining these unique ideological interventions by realist filming techniques, this thesis attempts to suggest that the realist filmmaking techniques employed in these anti-war films function to perpetuate power imbalanced relationships between American and Vietnamese people even as they challenge racism against the Vietnamese. Lastly, this thesis examines some of the experimental films that attempt to disrupt the realist filming techniques that continue to perpetuate racial power imbalances. As a conclusion, this thesis emphasizes the fluidity of meanings created through filmmaking techniques. Even though white male centered ideas of race persists in realist filming techniques, this study shows that there are powerful visual and historical proofs that realist filmmaking techniques do in fact challenge dominant racial ideology. In sum, this thesis aims to unravel the ideological tendency behind realist filming techniques.