A film in two parts, but involving some of the same dancers. Although the film is held within the Ananda Coomaraswamy Collection in the NAFC, the quality of both the stock and the shooting seems to be rather better than in the films that Ananda Coomaraswamy shot himself. This suggests that this may be a film that Coomaraswamy bought in, or alternatively, asked a professional cameraperson to shoot.
From Documentation to Representation: recovering the films of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. Visual Anthropology 26(2): 75-108. https://doi.org/10.1080/08949468.2013.751857
This films documents the pwe festival that takes place on the occasion of the dedication of a house or a monastery in Myanmar (formerly Burma). The dancers, who are young girls, are accompanied by musicians playing drums, xylophones and flutes.
Tacked onto the end of the performance in the film, there is another section, preceded by a title simply saying ‘Burma’, which consists of a series of poor quality shots of day-to-day life in Pagan, the old Burmese capital.
This film forms part of the Ananda Coomaraswamy Film Collection, but there is no introductory title specifically indicating that Ananda Coomaraswamy himself shot it, as was the case with a number of other films in the collection. However, there are certain stylistic similarities, not least the lengthy explanatory inter title at the beginning of the film, as well as the highly descriptive wide-angle camera framing. On the other hand, the technical quality of the image is rather better than in many of the earlier Coomaraswamy films.
If Coomaraswamy did make this film, he would have done so on his second Asian tour, so either he had improved his technique by then or perhaps he asked someone more experienced or skilled to shoot it for him.
Female dancer dressed as a male character (as indicated by the raised epaulette) – ‘Les danseuses de S.M. Sisowath, roi de Cambodge’ (1920s) – Anon
6:18 mins., b&w, silent.
Production : ICF (Indochine Cinémas et Film), the French colonial government film production company
Source: this film can be viewed here. It is also held by the NAFC, where the catalogue number is AS-89.2.12
This film shows performances by the Royal Ballet of Cambodia – traditionally composed almost exclusively of female dancers – shot in three different locations: outside in a tropical garden, then on a roof terrace, finally inside what appears to be a palace room with mirrors (one shot shows the camerman reflected in the mirror, busily turning the handle of his camera).
This is a much more substantial corps de ballet than in the Coomaraswamy films, and the dancers are accompanied by a considerable number of musicians with xylophones. The quality of the film production suggests professional involvement: in the latter part of the film, there are many striking close-up shots of hands, feet, costumes, faces. However, while being technically superior to the Coomaraswamy films, this film is in some ways less interesting from an ethnographic point of view since it does not follow the performance of particular legends.
On the YouTube site where this film is available, it is proposed that it was made in the ‘early 1900s’, which may be influenced by the fact that King Sisowath’s Royal Ballet performed at a colonial exhibition in Marseilles in 1901. However, the location is clearly in Cambodia, and is probably the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, while the quality of both the film stock and the shooting suggests a much later date, though certainly before 1927, since Sisowath died in that year.
Although there are no credits, it is possible that the film was shot by Brut and/or Lejards, two skilled Pathé cameramen who were in Phnom Penh around this time while shooting À travers Cochonchine et Cambodge, an extended reportage film released in 1925. This also features a very well executed sequence of the Royal Ballet dancers.
For all these reasons, the 1925 date suggested in the NAFC catalogue seems appropriate.
The Cambodian Royal Ballet corps continued to perform until it was dispersed by the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, and many of the performers perished during the ensuing genocide. But with the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, the corps was recreated and in 2003 the ballet form was added to the UNESCO list of examples of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. For further details see here.
The giant Seng Hum – a character in ‘Cambodian Dramatic Dances: the Story of Prince Chet Chey’ (1920) – dir. Ananda Coomaraswamy
12:14 mins., b&w, silent.
Source : this film can be viewed here. It can also be seen as part of the Ananda Coomaraswamy Film Collection at the NAFC, where it is available as part of the film AS-89.2.1Cambodian Dramatic Dances. This also includes a dance based on the legend of Prea Somut and his elopement with Princess Butsumali, described here.
This film shows a performance by the Royal Cambodian Ballet, apparently in the grounds of the Angkor Wat temple complex, of the legend of Prince Chey Chet and the quarrel between his jealous wives. The performers are from a hereditary cast of dancers and as was customary, they are all prepubescent girls, even those performing the male roles. The troupe is relatively few in number, and there is only one accompanying xylophone player, indicating that this was probably put on specifically for Ananda Coomaraswamy.
The film begins with a lengthy inter title explaining the context of the film with the aid of a series of stills of some of the performers. A seccond, shorter inter title, apparently produced on a typewriter, reveals that ‘the photography’ was by Ananda Coomaraswamy himself. The film then follows the story of the legend with the aid of further inter titles produced on a typewriter. The quality of the cinematography is uneven, with many jump cuts, but the film still manages to capture the grace of the dancers and the general flavour of the story.
This is one of a series of films that Coomaraswamy made in the course of a trip around various Asian countries accompanied by his then lover and later wife, the dancer Stella Bloch, an American of Polish-Jewish heritage.
The Cambodian Royal Ballet corps continued to perform until it was dispersed by the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, and many of the performers perished during the ensuing genocide. But with the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, the corps was recreated and in 2003 the ballet form was added to the UNESCO list of examples of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. For further details see here
Princess Butsumali and Prea Somut resolve to elope – ‘Cambodian Dramatic Dances’ (1920) – dir. Ananda Coomaraswamy
9 mins., b&w, silent.
Source : this film can be viewed on the web here. It can also be seen as part of the Ananda Coomaraswamy Film Collection at the NAFC, where it is available as part of the film AS-89.2.1Cambodian Dramatic Dances, which also includes a dance based on the legend of Prince Chey Chet and the jealousy between his two wives, described here.
This film shows a performance by the Royal Cambodian Ballet – evidently in the grounds of the ancient palace of Angkor Wat – of the legend of the elopement of Prea Somut with the Princess Bustumali. The performers are from a hereditary cast of dancers and as was customary, they are all prepubescent girls, even those performing the male roles. This appears to be an informal performance put on at the request of the filmmaker, Ananda Coomoraswamy : the dancers are relatively few in number and there is only one player of an accompanying xylophone.
The film was shot by Coomaraswamy himself, as the opening titles reveal. Though the resolution of the image is a little murky, the technical quality is reasonable for the period, with a variety of shots. It follows the story of the legend with the aid of inter titles which have clearly been produced on a typewriter.
This is one of a series of films that Coomaraswamy made in the course of a trip around various Asian countries accompanied by his then lover and later wife, the dancer Stella Bloch, an American of Polish-Jewish heritage.
The Cambodian Royal Ballet corps continued to perform until it was dispersed by the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, and many of the performers perished during the ensuing genocide. But with the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, the corps was recreated and in 2003 the ballet form was added to the UNESCO list of examples of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. For further details see here.
Ananda Coomaraswamy in 1916, shortly before he started making his films about Asian dance
Ananda Coomaraswamy’s contribution to the history of ethnographic film consists of a series of films about Asian dance that he shot himself in the 1920s. These films now form part of the Ananda Coomaraswamy Film Collection housed by the NAFC in Washington.
Of mixed Anglo-Tamil descent and brought up in England, Ananda Coomaraswamy trained initially as a geologist at University College, London. But while carrying out doctoral fieldwork in Sri Lanka in 1902-06, he became interested in Sinhalese art and returned to London committed to the idea of educating Western audiences about the art of the Indian sub-continent. This led eventually to his appointment to a curatorial position as Keeper of Indian Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, USA, in 1917. Thereafter he would become an internationally renowned writer, not only on Indian art, but more generally on the philosophy of art, metaphysics and religion.
Stella Bloch in Asian dance costume
Shortly after he arrived in the US, Coomaraswamy came to know Stella Bloch, a dancer of Jewish-Polish ancestry, who was associated with Isadora Duncan’s dance troupe in New York, and who also had a particular interest in Asian dance. They married in 1922.
Even before then, in the autumn of 1920, Coomaraswamy and Bloch travelled extensively through Asia, studying local dance traditions in India, Sri Lanka, Java, Bali, Cambodia, China and Japan. It was probably during this trip that Coomaraswamy began to make his films about Asian dance. They travelled through Asia again in 1924 and it seems that Coomaraswamy shot further films during this second trip.
10 min., b&w, no synch sound, but voice-over commentary in English by Margaret Mead
Source: ?
This is the only one of the seven films that Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead made in Bali and New Guinea in 1936-39 that does not form part of the Character Formation in Different Cultures series. Though shot at the same time, it was released some 25 years later, and had a different editor. Whereas the other films were intensively focused on parent-child relationships, this film is mostly concerned with instruction given by professional dancers, notably by the then-celebrated dancer, Mario.
20 min., b&w., no synch sound, but with English voice-over commentary by Margaret Mead, and English inter titles.
Source : ?
This is one of seven films that Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead shot in Bali and New Guinea during their fieldwork there in the years 1936-39. Together they made up a series entitled Character Formation in Different Cultures, which focused mostly on parent-child relations.
By the time that these films were edited – all but one of them in the early 1950s – Mead and Bateson had gone their separate ways both professionally and personally, and the editing was supervised exclusively by Mead, assisted by the editor Josef Bohmer. However, even though Bateson was not involved in the editing, Mead insisted that his name should appear in the credits, and even be put first in accordance with alphabetical principles.
This film, which was the first in the series, follows parent-child interaction in one particular family, the Karma family, over a three year period.
10 min., b&w, no synch sound, but voice-over commentary in English by Margaret Mead
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