John Marshall
Birth : 1932-11-12, Massachusetts, USA
Death : 2005-04-22
History
John Kennedy Marshall (November 12, 1932 – April 22, 2005) was an American anthropologist and acclaimed documentary filmmaker best known for his work in Namibia recording the lives of the Ju/'hoansi (also called the !Kung Bushmen).
Marshall first traveled to the Kalahari Desert and met the Ju/'hoansi of the Nyae Nyae area in 1949 on a trip initiated by his father. Throughout the 1950s and 1960's members of the Marshall family returned to the Kalahari Desert numerous times to conduct an ethnographic study of the Ju/'hoansi. From 1950-1958 Marshall filmed the hunting and gathering life of the Ju/'hoansi. His first edited film, The Hunters, was released in 1957 and was an almost instant classic of ethnographic film.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Marshall produced many short films about the Ju/'hoansi of Nyae Nyae and pursued other film projects in the United States. He was the cinematographer and co-director for Fred Wiseman's first documentary film, Titicut Follies. In 1968-1969, he shot, edited and directed the ground-breaking Pittsburgh Police series of short films. In 1968, Marshall and Tim Asch founded Documentary Educational Resources, a non-profit organization dedicated to facilitating the use of cross-cultural documentaries in the classroom.
Marshall became involved in grassroots organizing and development in Nyae Nyae in the 1980s, forming a foundation that would become the Nyae Nyae Development Foundation of Namibia and devoting himself to advocating on behalf of the Ju/'hoansi. In 2003, the Society for Visual Anthropology bestowed on Marshall a lifetime achievement award for his work among the hunter gatherer society.
Marshall's documentary footage and edited films and videos of Ju/'hoansi are held at the Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution. Known officially as the John Marshall Ju/'hoan Bushman Film and Video Collection, 1950–2000, the collection was added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Register for documentary heritage of world importance in July 2009.
Director
For thousands of years Ju/'hoansi have lived in the Nyae Nyae region in northeastern Namibia. In the 1950s, most Ju/'hoansi had been exterminated or were dispossessed by white colonists and black farmers, but in Nyae Nyae Ju/'hoansi were still the only permanent inhabitants. Waterless approaches isolated their ancient communal land and protected them from enslavement.
Editor
This film provides a broad overview of Ju/'hoan life, both past and present, and an intimate portrait of N!ai, a Ju/'hoan woman who in 1978 was in her mid-thirties. N!ai tells her own story, and in so doing, the story of Ju/'hoan life over a thirty year period. "Before the white people came we did what we wanted," N!ai recalls, describing the life she remembers as a child: following her mother to pick berries, roots, and nuts as the season changed; the division of giraffe meat; the kinds of rain; her resistance to her marriage to /Gunda at the age of eight; and her changing feelings about her husband when he becomes a healer. As N!ai speaks, the film presents scenes from the 1950's that show her as a young girl and a young wife. The uniqueness of N!ai may lie in its tight integration of ethnography and history. While it portrays the changes in Ju/'hoan society over thirty years, it never loses sight of the individual, N!ai.
Director of Photography
This film provides a broad overview of Ju/'hoan life, both past and present, and an intimate portrait of N!ai, a Ju/'hoan woman who in 1978 was in her mid-thirties. N!ai tells her own story, and in so doing, the story of Ju/'hoan life over a thirty year period. "Before the white people came we did what we wanted," N!ai recalls, describing the life she remembers as a child: following her mother to pick berries, roots, and nuts as the season changed; the division of giraffe meat; the kinds of rain; her resistance to her marriage to /Gunda at the age of eight; and her changing feelings about her husband when he becomes a healer. As N!ai speaks, the film presents scenes from the 1950's that show her as a young girl and a young wife. The uniqueness of N!ai may lie in its tight integration of ethnography and history. While it portrays the changes in Ju/'hoan society over thirty years, it never loses sight of the individual, N!ai.
Director
This film provides a broad overview of Ju/'hoan life, both past and present, and an intimate portrait of N!ai, a Ju/'hoan woman who in 1978 was in her mid-thirties. N!ai tells her own story, and in so doing, the story of Ju/'hoan life over a thirty year period. "Before the white people came we did what we wanted," N!ai recalls, describing the life she remembers as a child: following her mother to pick berries, roots, and nuts as the season changed; the division of giraffe meat; the kinds of rain; her resistance to her marriage to /Gunda at the age of eight; and her changing feelings about her husband when he becomes a healer. As N!ai speaks, the film presents scenes from the 1950's that show her as a young girl and a young wife. The uniqueness of N!ai may lie in its tight integration of ethnography and history. While it portrays the changes in Ju/'hoan society over thirty years, it never loses sight of the individual, N!ai.
Sound Recordist
Jean Rouch filmed this loving and humorous portrait of anthropologist and filmmaker Margaret Mead in September 1977 while he was a guest of the first Margaret Mead Film Festival. As both a friend and colleague, Rouch reveals a glimpse of the legendary Mead in her later years.
Director
The once thriving industrial town of Haverhill, Massachusetts on the Merrimack River now resembles, in the words of one of the film's subjects, "a ghost town where you expect to see tumbleweeds come rolling down Main Street." This film examines a dying industrial town and its politicians' search for votes over such issues as municipal spending, rising taxes, the revitalization of depressed areas, and attracting new industry. The film's central event is the 1976 Mayoral election. Election scenes are intercut with comments from Haverhill residents, members of a local foundation, political scientist Frances Fox Piven, the president of the local union, and the shoe manufacturers themselves. The oral history which surrounds the election footage is a reservoir of information about Haverhill's present condition as well as its past.
Director
In this film, an argument arises between two bands when an antelope killed by a hunter from one band is found and distributed by a man from another band. The film illustrates conflict mediation in traditional Ju/'hoan society and the Ju/'hoan leaders' ability to settle disputes without violence and without formal political organization.
Director
Children and teenagers throw sticks, berries, and leaves at each other from perches in a large baobab tree.
Director
A suburban couple calls the police to intervene after being harassed by a youth.
Director
This film treats the problem of "loitering." In a number of sequences, police warn youths, police administrators discuss enforcement of loitering laws, officers are insulted, and several youths are arrested.
Director
The police, looking for a suspect, question the wrong youth.
Director
This short film shows a family's attempt to resolve a dispute among themselves over a brother's damaged car, after the police have been called to intervene.
Director
In Nyae Nyae, water often remains in open pans. Sometimes if the rains have been heavy, water stays in these pans, like small lakes, all year. In this film five Ju/'hoan men visit Nama pan. /Ti!kay washes the clothes he acquired on his trip to rescue his band's wives from a farm (as shown in An Argument About a Marriage). The other men bathe. The men use the opportunity to exchange sexual jokes with pleasure and hilarity. This film provides an interesting comparison with A Group of Women.
Director
Between 1950 and 1958, John Marshall made four expeditions to film the Ju/'hoansi (a group of !Kung Bushmen) of the Nyae Nyae region of Namibia (then South West Africa). During this time, Marshall shot over 300,000 feet of 16mm film (157 hours). He later produced a total of 23 films exclusively from this footage. In this short film, children tempt fate by playing with scorpions.
Director
In this film, a group of women and children gather sweet, fresh /ole berries and sha roots. The younger women, led by N!ai, bait a nest of wasps. As the day wears on, Debe, N!ai's youngest son, grows restless. Di!ai asks N!ai to take Debe home, but she refuses, and walks off to join the younger women. The film explores the interactions between these women as they engage in their everyday pursuit of food. It is a companion film to Debe's Tantrum.
Director
This film, shot in 1952-53, documents the scarification ceremony called "marking" which was traditionally held for Ju/'hoan boys after they had killed their first large animal. Here, /Ti!kay, a boy of thirteen, shoots his first wildebeest with an arrow. /Ti!kay's father, Kan//a, and Crooked /Qui help the young hunter track, skin, and butcher the animal. After the meat is brought back to the village, a scarification ceremony takes place, symbolizing the importance of hunting and /Ti!kay's passage into social manhood. He is now considered an acceptable son-in-law by the parents of the girl to whom he has long been betrothed.
Director
In this film a five-year-old named Debe refuses to let his mother Di!ai go gathering without him. Di!ai appeals to her daughter N!ai to entertain the child but Debe resists. In the end Di!ai leaves with Debe on her back. This is a companion film to The Wasp Nest which shows Di!ai, Debe, and other women and children on the subsequent gathering expedition.
Director
This film, shot in 1955, focuses on a small band of /Gwi San living in the arid landscape of the central Kalahari Desert in present-day Botswana.
Director
In each scene, police respond to a different domestic abuse calls.
Director
An unemployed woman who has been living in her car is questioned by the police. They offer her advice and finally take her to the Salvation Army.
Director
Pioneering ethnographic filmmaker John Marshall casts an eye on the inner workings of a Pittsburgh police station, capturing law enforcement’s day-to-day handling of domestic disturbances, juvenile delinquency, suspect interrogation, and various cases to arrive at a sociological, vérité examination of civil liberties and the carriage of justice.
Director
An installment in the Pittsburgh Police series. A number of short sequences show some of the events and people in the daily lives of several policemen: their intervention in domestic quarrels, the handling of a hit-and-run case, the approaches taken toward loitering youths, a drunk and disorderly charge being made in Magistrate's Court, and the interrogation of a burglary suspect. Police force candidates are shown being interviewed by members of the police department. They discuss their reasons for wanting to be policemen and their thoughts about themselves and their jobs, placing the film in the context of the community from which the department draws its personnel.
Camera Operator
/Gunda, a young man (who later marries N!ai), pretends to be a lion. He is "hunted" and "killed" by a group of boys.
Director
/Gunda, a young man (who later marries N!ai), pretends to be a lion. He is "hunted" and "killed" by a group of boys.
Director
Women from three separate Ju/'hoan bands have gathered at a mangetti grove at !O to play an intense game in which under-tones of social and personal tensions become apparent.
Director
An Argument About a Marriage raises questions about the impact of European farms on the economic and the social life of the Ju/'hoansi; about the complexities of marriage rules and bride-service in their traditional kinship system; and about the nature of conflict and its mediation among the Ju/'hoansi. Despite the interpersonal anger, we see how oma's skillful intervention prevents this particular conflict from escalating to violence.
Camera Operator
Tchai is the word used by Ju/'hoansi to describe getting together to dance and sing; n/um can be translated as medicine, or supernatural potency. In the 1950's, when this film was shot, Ju/'hoansi gathered for "medicine dances" often, usually at night, and sometimes such dances lasted until dawn.
Director
Tchai is the word used by Ju/'hoansi to describe getting together to dance and sing; n/um can be translated as medicine, or supernatural potency. In the 1950's, when this film was shot, Ju/'hoansi gathered for "medicine dances" often, usually at night, and sometimes such dances lasted until dawn.
Director
Sha//ge, a very young woman about to have her first child, falls ill, probably with malaria. /Ti!kay, a relative and healer, enters a mild trance, without the stimulus of dancing, in an attempt to cure her. Sha//ge lives but the baby is stillborn.
Cinematography
The film is a stark and graphic portrayal of the conditions that existed at the State Prison for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater, Massachusetts. TITICUT FOLLIES documents the various ways the inmates are treated by the guards, social workers and psychiatrists.
Director
This film depicts a moment of flirtation between N!ai, the young wife of /Gunda, and her great-uncle /Ti!kay. The two share a "joking relationship," a Ju/'hoan kin relationship which provides opportunities for casual intimacy, emotional release, and support.
Director
Ju/'hoan women often share an intimate sociability and spend many hours together discussing their lives, enjoying each other's company and children. In this short film, Ju/'hoan women rest, talk and nurse their babies while lying in the shade of a baobab tree. This film is a good illustration of "collective mothering" in which several women support each other and share the nurturing role.
Editor
An ethnographic film that documents the efforts of four !Kung men (also known as Ju/'hoansi or Bushmen) to hunt a giraffe in the Kalahari Desert of Namibia. The footage was shot by John Marshall during a Smithsonian-Harvard Peabody sponsored expedition in 1952–53. In addition to the giraffe hunt, the film shows other aspects of !Kung life at that time, including family relationships, socializing and storytelling, and the hard work of gathering plant foods and hunting for small game.
Director
An ethnographic film that documents the efforts of four !Kung men (also known as Ju/'hoansi or Bushmen) to hunt a giraffe in the Kalahari Desert of Namibia. The footage was shot by John Marshall during a Smithsonian-Harvard Peabody sponsored expedition in 1952–53. In addition to the giraffe hunt, the film shows other aspects of !Kung life at that time, including family relationships, socializing and storytelling, and the hard work of gathering plant foods and hunting for small game.
Cinematography
An ethnographic film that documents the efforts of four !Kung men (also known as Ju/'hoansi or Bushmen) to hunt a giraffe in the Kalahari Desert of Namibia. The footage was shot by John Marshall during a Smithsonian-Harvard Peabody sponsored expedition in 1952–53. In addition to the giraffe hunt, the film shows other aspects of !Kung life at that time, including family relationships, socializing and storytelling, and the hard work of gathering plant foods and hunting for small game.
Narrator
An ethnographic film that documents the efforts of four !Kung men (also known as Ju/'hoansi or Bushmen) to hunt a giraffe in the Kalahari Desert of Namibia. The footage was shot by John Marshall during a Smithsonian-Harvard Peabody sponsored expedition in 1952–53. In addition to the giraffe hunt, the film shows other aspects of !Kung life at that time, including family relationships, socializing and storytelling, and the hard work of gathering plant foods and hunting for small game.
Cinematography
FIRST FILM was edited and narrated by Lorna Marshall and is comprised of footage shot in 1951 on the second Marshall family expedition to the Kalahari Desert. It is intimate in style, very carefully filmed, with a wealth of practical information about the material culture and structure of Ju/'hoan (!Kung Bushmen) hunter-gatherer society. The film allows viewers to see some of John Marshall's earliest film footage and provides an interesting comparison with the more sophisticated shooting found in his later work.
