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bserves that the arguments about Curtis’s staging of some photographs were of more concern in academic circles than with those whose ancestors appear in Curtis’s portraits. “In general, the people who criticize Curtis are not Indians; they're people in academia who need to make a point” (N.Y. Times 2001). Arguments about validity perhaps best lie with those who are being recorded rather than with academics who may regard the filming of disappearing cultures as an intellectual exercise more than one of memory and identity. In this instance, the work of Edward Curtis has been reinstated by Makepeace as an archive of value to the North American Indians and a reminder to the wider American community about who existed first on the land. “When we make ethnographic films, we utilise the most powerfully pervasive memory-making device in the history of human culture.” (Kuehnast 1992: 191). In a country where the Native Americans have suffered from their lands being taken and their culture diluted, this sense of history and roots provides a valuable community identity. It is possible that for this group, Mead’s assertions are correct, “department after department… fail[s] to include filming… while the behaviour that film could have caught… for the joy of the descendants… disappears” (Mead 1995: 4).
　　Such records, however, can only ever be fragmentary, a partial representation of one version of reality, in the case of Makepeace’s film, they were part of a jigsaw alongside oral traditions and still surviving memories, particularly as some of the children Curtis photographed are still alive today. Makepeace’s film and her own painstaking recreation of Curtis’s struggles and the resulting photographs gave the subjects’ descendants valuable support in more fully establishing their identity in the face of a wider community that did not share their history. “Because these are disappearing types of behaviour, we need to preserve them in forms that will permit the descendants to repossess their cultural heritage.” (Mead 1995: 8). If indeed it is correct that “America may be considered one of the visual imperialists of the world” (Kuehnast 1992: 184), projecting and enjoying a near world-wide reach of its own selective images, then Curtis’s work, revitalised and framed through Makepeace’s film stands as an antidote, her work and persistence in bringing Curtis’s photographs to prominence have given a people back their sense of self. As an act of ethnography, this serves as a re-writing of a people into a new and deepened meaning of what it means to participate in and experience their culture. Although some purists may see the Native Americans’ re-adoption of some practices as a pastiche, for the individuals themselves, it would appear they have recognised Curtis’s work as a valuable document and have been more than able to interpret it for themselves in a way that sits well with their own values and sense of tradition. Ultimately, the ethnographic film can claim few rights as to the ownership of the images, or their subsequent interpretation. Criticisms ranged against ethnographic films have regarded them as “extending anthropology’s indecent appropriation of the voice of colonised peoples” (MacDougall 1995: 220). Makepeace’s film has been instrumental in reengaging people with their ancestry and their interpretation of Curtis’s work has been an act of relative autonomy, giving them the right to take the film and the images the film portrayed and re本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。