Through Navajo Eyes: An Exploration in Film Communication and Anthropology

by John Adair, Sol Worth, John Adair

Book Overview

Originally published in 1972, this pioneering book has become a classic in visual anthropology. Worth and Adair set out to answer the question, What would happen if someone from a culture that makes and uses motion pictures taught people who have never made or used motion pictures to do so for the first time? They taught filmmaking and editing to a group of six Navajos in Pine Springs, Arizona. This book explains what happened, what they and the Navajos said and thought about what happened, and how they analyzed the films in a cultural context. The films, still available for rent, are described in detail and illustrated with still photographs, giving the reader an opportunity to see through the eyes of people from a different cultural background. Richard Chalfen, a research assistant on the original project in 1966, has updated the book with a thorough discussion of the importance of the Navajo project and a critical assessment of the reactions to it. He has included a new section of references and an appendix offering answers to the ten most frequently asked questions about the project.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0253360161
• ISBN13: 9780253360168
• Release Date: January 1975
• Publisher: Indiana Univ. Press
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A classic and quietly radical innovation

"Through Navajo Eyes" examines the importance of cutural perspective in ethnographic filmmaking. Sol Worth and John Adair's study of the Navajo made a simple innovation. Previously, filmmakers had usually pointed the camera at others in order to create an audiovisual representation of their world. In essence, Worth and Adair instead handed over the camera to see what would result. The results were fascinating, and elude definitive interpretation to this very day. This "experiment" has been repeated many times, and in many places, which is perhaps the greatest testament to the power and originality of a simple, yet ultimately radical, shift of control over the perspective and re-presentation of reality in film.