15:50 mins, b&w, sound: English voice-over commentary, extra-diegetic music and effects
Source : Penn Museum film archive.
Background – This film was edited from footage shot during the course of the expedition that gave rise to the feature travelogue, Matto Grosso, the Great Brazilian Wilderness, released in 1932. It was one of a pair of shorter films cut from this material, the other film being about the Bororo.
The film material produced by this expedition is of particular historical interest because it represents one of the earliest cases of synchronous speech being recorded outside a studio, let alone in such a remote location as the interior of Mato Grosso. The system employed was the RCA Victor Photophone.
However, the travelogue was made for a popular audience and used the ethnographic footage in a very misleading fashion. The two shorter films carry a common title that will trouble modern audiences, but they present this ethnographic material in a manner that is much more respectful of its integrity, albeit in the language of 1930s ethnology.
During the course of the original expedition, while some of the expeditionaries went to a Bororo community on the São Lourenço river, the anthropologist Vincenzo Petrullo went overland to the upper Xingu river region, where he was later joined by the assistant cameraman Arthur Rossi. They spent about three weeks in various Xinguano villages, but appear to have spent most time with the Yawalapiti and the Naravute.
Both shorter films were produced by Ted Nemeth, a film-maker who in the 1950s would become a leading figure in US experimental cinema. He had not been on the original expedition but worked with commentary scripts drafted by Petrullo at some point before he left Penn Museum in 1935. The circumstances of this departure were acrimonious and perhaps for this reason, Petrullo’s name does not appear on the credits, nor is he named when he appears in person in the film. The commentary was performed by the then well-known broadcaster Lowell Thomas.
Whereas the Bororo short film consists mainly of footage that had already featured in Matto Grosso, in the case of this film, a considerable amount of footage that had not appeared in the travelogue was added. However, Petrullo and Rossi were not equipped with the sophisticated sound equipment brought by the main expedition, so there is therefore no diegetic sound.
Film content – The first four minutes of the film are given over to standard arrival devices : maps, shots of an amphibious plane taking off, followed by aerial shots of the rainforest, and finally by the arrival of “the ethnologist” – unnamed, but in fact, Vincenzo Petrullo – by bark canoe, which, it is explained, is being paddled by his two Bakairi guides. This last shot is taken from a camera on the riverbank clearly indicating that it has been set up. The commentary claims that this is the first time the region has been visited by a “white man” though is entirely spurious since a considerable number of expeditions had passed through the upper Xingu since the 1880s.
The main body of the film then offers a very straightforward ethnology lesson, with almost all the action clearly being performed for the camera. The women stand in a line looking awkard, the men a little less so. There are well-executed sequences of house-building, the processing and making of manioc bread in characteristic Xinguano fashion, involving mats rather than tipitis, and basket-weaving. There is a particularly interesting sequence of pequi fruits being stored underwater in the river in great bark cylinders. We also see men demonstrating their archery skills, which are praised in the commentary here, whereas in Matto Grosso they are derided.
Perhaps the most interesting sequence of all, but one not included in Matto Grosso, shows a pubescent girl currently in seclusion, with white skin, hair over her face, and ligatures on her legs. It is explained that these ligatures along with the scraping of the skin that she routinely has to carry out, are all intended to encourage strong physical growth and fertility.
There is then a final dance before “the ethnologist” departs again in the bark canoe, again shot from the riverbank. This dance is very low key, and is accompanied only by a single extra-diegetic rattle (probably a rattle brought back to Penn Museum by the expedition ). The commentary promises that the dance will become “much more violent” later, but this is not shown.
The last four minutes of the film consist of a montage of the artefacts brought back by the expedition as they are prepared for display in the museum.
Texts : Petrullo 1932, King 1993, Petrullo 1993, Pourshariati 2013, Pezzati 2018, Caiuby, Cunha and Henley, in press.
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