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have their own merit in bringing knowledge and understanding to social processes,
　　“it is impossible to rank visual and textual representations of ethnography in terms of different degrees of accuracy. Rather they display different kinds of accuracy”. (Hastrup 1992: 14)
　　As an experimental process, Vertov’s work has a place in the canon of ethnographic films, as a strong assertion of his own technique being the correct or truthful one; he stands on more tenuous ground. His commitment to Kino-Pravda, filmed truth, is an important advance in the development of ethnographic filmmaking, but as a singular approach it can alienate its subjects. “Many reflexive texts… present the filmmaker… less as a participant-observer than as an authoring agent.” (Nichols 1991: 58). A postmodern approach may be more constructive, one that accepts “ethnographic knowledge and text can only ever be a subjective construction, a ‘fiction’ that represents only the ethnographer’s version of reality.” (Pink 2001: 19). Inevitably, each person’s version of reality is their own and all knowledge is filtered through a range of perceptions and consciousness, Vertov’s work stands as a social text that records more than he intended. Where some early ethnographic films sought to detail the inhabitants of distant lands in a stereotyped way, Vertov’s style wished to let the camera speak for itself and for people’s lives to be depicted without comment or, he believed, bias. Like Flaherty, he approached his subject in an innovative way, “Vertov was doing sociology without knowing it and… Flaherty… ethnography also without knowing it” (Rouch 1995: 86). Both practitioners had to break new ground and developed their own ways of doing so, Flaherty and Vertov “had to resolve those problems which always present themselves… techniques… were still quite elementary” (ibid: 87).
　　It would seem that issues which troubled early ethnographic film still have some hold today, although sophisticated techniques now exist, the fact remains that representations are problematic. There is always a gap, even in the best films, we are not “usually asked to see from a literal perspective… but rather from a position in fictive space” (MacDougall 1995: 226). This is inevitable as we can only ever partially comprehend another’s thoughts and motives, and film can not easily be claimed as a truth when matters such as editorial decisions, ownership of the images and the reasons for filming in the first place are considered. With the earliest anthropological films, the opportunity to record disappearing cultures for academia and a broader public led to a multiplicity of techniques and methodologies. Vertov experimented with his approach to production and editing to bring a social document which is still challenging and exciting to watch. Similarly Flaherty and Curtis produced films that are still discussed as being part of the range of broadly ethnographic footage worth studying. Makepeace revisited Curtis’s work and to the eyes of some she encountered, his photography held more than novelty or aesthetic value, it evoked a deeper meaning too. Each of these filmmakers has produced work which, once out of their hands has been open to multiple interpretations. The films have provoked many points of view and contributed to an increasingly “complex understanding of a cultural consciousness … construct[ing] a way of looking at the world that is intersubjective and… communal” (MacDougall 19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。