Gestörte Totenruhe. Dr. Pöchs Umtriebe in Südafrika und Österreichs moralische Verpflichtung zur Repatriierung. Indaba 58: 20-23.
Pöch, Rudolf (1907b)
Travels in German, British, and Dutch New Guinea. The Geographical Journal 30(6): 609-616.
Pöch, Rudolf (1907a)
Reisen in Neu-Guinea in den Jahren 1904-1906. Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 39: 382-400.
Szilvássy, Johann, Paul Spindler and Herbert Kritscher (1980)
Rudolf Pöch – Arzt, Anthropologe und Ethnograph. Annalen des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien 83: 743-762
Fuhrmann, Wolfgang (2010)
The aesthetic of prison war camp film in early cinema. In R. Johler, C. Marchetti and M. Scheer (eds.), Doing Anthropology in Wartime and War Zones. World War I and the Cultural Sciences in Europe, pp.337-351. Bielefeld: Transcript.
Fuhrmann, Wolfgang (2007)
First Contact: the beginning of ethnographic filmmaking in Germany, 1900-1930. History of Anthropology Newsletter 34(1): 3-9.
Russian prisoners-of-war footage (1915) – Rudolf Pöch
13:05 mins., b&w, silent.
Source : Filmarchiv Austria. This footage is viewable here
In 1915, unable to travel abroad on account of First World War, Rudolf Pöch started a programme of research in various Austrian and German prisoner-of-war camps. The primary focus of this research was biological, as he sought to gain further data to establish his raciological theories. However, in the early phase of this research, he also made a number of films of a more ethnographic character about Russian prisoners-of-war, at least some of whom were Muslims from Central Asia (see above). In total, there are 11 different ethnographic sequences, totalling just over 13 minutes of footage.
As with Pöch’s previous films in New Guinea (1905-06) and in southern Africa (1908), the primary subject matter of these films is dancing and technical processes, mostly, in this case, the construction of artefacts of various kinds (ranging from straw sandals to children’s toys, even a balaika). In the background in many shots, one can see the camp fences and prowling prison-camp guards with rifles over their shoulders.
From a technical point of view, these are the most accomplished films that Pöch made. In one of the sequences, showing a man making a bone pendant, there is a cut from a wide to a close shot, an unprecedented device in Pöch’s film work. But the most ambitious sequence shows a moment in a pantomime about a peasant wedding, which also involves dancing. This ends with a remarkably long, 180-degree pan over the audience, who are all soldiers sporting a variety of headgear, suggesting their diverse ethnic origins. This pan is unique in Pöch’s film work and would only have been possible due to his acquisition of a tripod with a panning head, a relatively recent technical development.
The quality of the film stock itself is also apparently much higher than in his earlier films, though this may be due to the conditions for the development of the negative and subsequent storage: even in a prison camp, these would have undoubtedly been better than in New Guinea or Botswana at that time.
These rushes also include a further three-minute sequence showing two of Pöch’s assistants, bizarrely dressed in masks and aprons, making a plaster cast of the head of a (living) camp guard.
Texts : Fuhrmann 2010, Lange 2013
Bushmen in the Kalahari {Buschmänner in der Kalahari} (1907-1909) rushes – Rudolf Pöch *
30 mins., b&w, silent
Source : Filmarchiv Austria
These are the rushes from Rudolf Pöch‘s expedition to southern Africa. Notwithstanding the formal title in the archive catalogue, they appear all to have been shot in 1908, in what is now Namibia and northern Botswana. They include not only more extended versions of the circular dance and technical process sequences extracted by Paul Spindler for his 1959 film of the same name, but also the original silent footage that appears in Buschmann spricht in den Phonographen post-synchronised in 1984.
These rushes also include some additional sequences that Spindler seemingly thought did not merit inclusion in his edited film. These include a shot of one of his subjects looking directly into the camera, smiling, laughing and apparently speaking to Pöch, perhaps the most intimate shot in all of his fieldwork (see above).
There are also two interesting shots of a boy running into the bush and back up to the camera, and finally, several shots of Pöch’s assistants wrangling the oxen that pulled his supply cart, which although of limited ethnographicness are the most cinematically striking shots in the rushes.
It seems likely that Spindler would have excluded these shots because they were all in some sense reflexive, and therefore in conflict with 1950s ideas about the need for ethnographic film to be ‘scientific’ and ‘objective’.
Text : Spindler 1974
Buschmänner in der Kalahari, 1907-1909 [Bushmen in the Kalahari, 1907-1909] (1959) – dir. Paul Spindler *
6:22 mins., b&w, silent
Production : SHB films
Source : Filmarchiv Austria
A series of sequences, edited by Paul Spindler, taken from the original rushes shot by Rudolf Pöch during his 1907-09 expedition to southern Africa. Apart from an initial sequence of a dance (above),this edited version consists of a series of single shot sequences of technical processes.
The original rushes contain a number of sequences which Spindler excluded possibly because they conflicted with 1950s ideas of what an ethnographic film should contain.
Text : Spindler 1974
Spindler, Paul (1922-?)*
Paul Spindler was a curator at the Natural History Museum who, in the 1950s, was primarily responsible for rescuing from oblivion the footage shot by Rudolf Pöch in New Guinea and southern Africa in 1905-06 and 1908 respectively.
Spindler himself made a short 16mm film about Pöch’s expedition to New Guinea, incorporating some of Pöch’s original 35mm footage. Although it is clear from Pöch’s own account of this expedition that he shot further footage in New Guinea, the sequences copied into Spindler’s film appear to be the only ones to have survived.
Texts : Pöch 1907a, Pöch 1907b, Spindler 1974.
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