OPPORTUNITIES FOR " DOUBLE-

VOICING " IN ETHNOGRAPHIC FILM

INTRODUCTION1

Between 1978 and 1983, with Timothy Asch, wemade four films about a Balinese healer called JeroTapakan. In 1991, we finished a film about a cremationin Jero's village.2 Throughout these films there arerecorded and subtitled conversations. Two of the fivefilms we have produced on Bali include footage ofpeople watching video tapes of themselves and theirneighbors and discussing what they saw with LindaConnor. 3 Analysis of the contexts in which this videofeedback was produced aroused our interest in the rangeof contexts of speaking in ethnographic films and ofhow the relationship between people influences thespeech situation, particularly the relationship betweenthe subjects of a film and the filmmakers. In this paperwe examine aspects of our films as dialogic encounters.We draw on Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of dialogism—a plurality of subject's voices interacting creatively tonegotiate meaning in everyday life, or in a text. In oneof his early works, Bakhtin wrote: "The single adequateform for verbally expressing authentic human life is theopen-ended dialogue" (cited in Gardiner 1992:31, origi-nal italics). Bakhtin regarded all conversation that in-volved negotiation of meaning as dialogic, but once thisspeech is incorporated into a text, it raises questionsabout the connection between the ideas being repre-sented — those of the speaker and of the author.Conversations within a text take on additional meaningthrough the relationship between the situated voices ofthe speakers and the voice or intentions of the author.Such texts Bakhtin describes as "double-voiced"(1981:324).

Bakhtin's notion of dialogic communication grewout of his studies in literary theory and in particular his

PATSY ASCH

LINDA CONNOR

fascination with the novel as a genre. The novel, lackinga rigid sylistic canon, epitomised the possibilities ofdifferent voices and the diverse "social speech types"they represent (1981:262) to be organized into an artis-tic unity without being subordinated to a single autho-rial voice. The novel was contrasted to "monologic"artistic genres such as epic and poetry (1981:269).Bakhtin referred to the diversity of speech types to befound in the social world as "heteroglossia" He wrote:

Heteroglossia, once incorporated into the novel...isanother's speech in another's language, serving toexpress authorial intentions but in a refracted way.Such speech constitutes a special type of double-voiced discourse. It serves two speakers at the sametime and expresses simultaneously two differentintentions: the direct intention of the character whois speaking, and the refracted intention of theauthor.In such discourse there are two voices, twomeanings and two expressions. All the while thesetwo voices are dialogically interrelated, they — asit were — know about each other (just as twoexchanges in a dialogue know of each other and arestructured in this mutual knowledge of each other);it is as if they actually hold a conversation with eachother. Double-voiced discourse is always inter-nally dialogized (1981:324).

Bakhtin was interested in literature, not film. More-over, he had little to say about the sort of cross-culturalencounters that are the foundation of anthropology. ButBakhtin's ideas can be productively applied to theenterprise of ethnographic film.4 Since the era of por-

Patsy Asch works as a filmmaker in the Department of Anthropology, Australia National University and frequentlyteaches ethnographic filmmaking at the University of Southern California. Linda Connor teaches anthropologyat the University of Newcastle, Australia. She worked in Bali for 18 years, focusing on health and cremation.

14 Volume 10 Number 2 Fall 1994 Visual Anthropology Review

table synchronised sound recording, dialogue has beenan important part of ethnographic films. While ethno-graphic film is not without its canons,5 it bears compari-son with the novel in the efforts made to incorporatedifferent voices into an artistic whole. The fact thatthese voices are usually "foreign" voices from the pointof view of the filmmakers and audience, intensifies thedouble-voiced structure of the filmic text.

We are particularly interested in the connectionbetween double-voicing in ethnographic film and theconcept of alterity. By alterity here we are referring toBahktin s interst in the construction of meaning throughlanguage by means of the self-other relation. In encoun-ters with alien cultures alterity creates critical distancewhich allows creative understanding to emerge. PaulWillemen in quoting from a 1970 newpaper piece byBakhtin, stresses the importance of Bakhtin's link be-tween alterity and the idea of the dialogic:

There exists a very strong, but one-sided and thusuntrustworthy idea that in order better to under-stand a foreign culture, one must enter into it,forgetting one's own, and view the world throughthe eyes of this foreign culture...[But] Creativeunderstanding does not renounce itself, its ownplace and time, its own culture; it forgets nothing....We raise new questions for a foreign culture, onesit did not raise for itself; we seek answers to ourquestions in it; and the foreign culture responds tous by revealing to us its new aspects and semanticdepths. Without one's own questions, one cannotcreatively understand anything other or foreign.(Willemen, in press).

For Willemen, "It is not simply a matter of engaging in'dialogue' with some other culture's products, but ofusing one's understanding of another cultural practiceto perceive and re-think one's own cultural constella-tion." In ethnographic film, the use of video tape toelicit feedback from participants is obviously only one^uch dialogic encounter between people of differentcultures. The use of ethnographic film to challengestudents to reexamine their own cultural assumptions,is intended as another.

Our films contain frequent instances of cross cul-tural encounters. There are times when it seems appar-ent that the people being filmed are unaware or uninter-ested in the filming because they are engaged in matterswhose outcome is critical to their future—such as when

Jero Tapakan, a spirit medium, is "possessed" by apetitioners' dead son, or when people during a crema-tion are trying to decide how to combine the necessaryelements to construct an effigy and whose effigy it willbe.6 The resulting film does contain two sets of voices—the subjects' and the filmmakers' We see and hear theactions of one group of people. However the filmmak-ers' view of the event has determined what to film andhow to film and edit it but the filmmakers presenceapparently had little influence over the peoples' actionsso that in the resulting text there is more a separation ofvoices than the double-voicing we want to examine.

Of more concern for the purposes of our argumenthere are those situations that were clearly influenced byour filming and/or by Linda's conversation with otherparticipants in the footage. These situations seem to fallinto two broad groups: the ones we engineered for ourown purposes, such as bringing a spirit medium to aneighboring town to film her reactions to seeing herselfon film for the first time, and those in which Balinesethemselves used their relationship with Linda, and theirunderstanding of the purposes of our filming, to furtherparticular agendas of their own. In these cases, Bakhtin'sinsights about the relationship between speakers andlisteners, particularly in cross-cultural encounters, areilluminating:

The speaker strives to get a reading on his ownword, and on his own conceptual system that deter-mines this word, within the alien conceptual sys-tem of the understanding receiver; he enters intodialogical relationships with certain apsects of thissystem. The speaker breaks through the alien con-ceptual horizon of the listener, constructs his ownutterance on alien territory, against his, the listener'sapperceptive background. (1981:324)

We will examine several situations of this kind,where the footage itself contains a creative interactionbetween speakers and listeners, a process which Bakhtinreferred to as "internal dialogization"

First we want to contrast two situations in which weused video tape to elicit feedback from participants andthen examine two other films that include conversa-tions between Linda and Balinese.We choose the firsttwo examples to illustrate how the degree of familiaritybetween the speakers is part of the sense of the ex-change. In both cases, Linda is trying to elicit informa-tion that might be used in future films.

Visual Anthropology Review Volume 10 Number 2 Fall 1994 15

EXAMPLE I: JERO ON JERO: A BALINESE TRANCE SEANCE OBSERVED

Two years after we filmed A Balinese TranceSeance, we took Jero to a neighboring town to show herthe film. In Jero on Jero we have intercut shots of Jeroand Linda, sitting side by side and watching the videotape, with shots from the original film. This is the firsttime that Jero has seen videotape of herself. Thisexcerpt begins with footage of Jero during the seance.Jero, possessed by the spirit of a boy who has recentlydied, begins to sob. This original sound track of theseance can be heard softly, below Linda and Jero'sconversation as they watch the video. As Jero chants,we hear Linda say, "Get this Tim." (He only filmed 15minutes during the 30 minute viewing, although wetape recorded about 45 minutes of Jero's reactions.)

Subtitles

Jero: Oh, I'm crying.

The spirit is crying,but it's me you see.

He s crying the wayDouglas showed me.

He s trying to control his tears.They remember the child andthat someone caused his death.

They're not afraidto ask about it here.

They're crying at the back.

Linda: Yes.Wouldn't theybe ashamed to cry elsewhere?

J: It's like this, Linda. Say you dieand you tell about it through a me-dium (balian).

Images

The image cuts to the two women watching. Jero moves forward on herchair and smiles. Linda has an expression of intense concentration onher face. She watches the screen.

Jero turns to Linda to explain. Linda nods her head in agreement, says,"Yes, yes," and points at the TV screen, Cut to screen. Petitioner iswiping his eyes. Cut to a close-up shot of Jero. She is still smiling.

She uses both hands to mimic Douglas gestures of wiping away tears.Douglas refers to Douglas Miles, Linda's PhD supervisor, who visitedLinda in the Bali. The camera pulls back.

Jero's face turns from amusement to apparent sorrow. She shakes herhead several times and looks down, away from the screen.

Jero leans forward, smiles again and then looks at Linda. The camerazooms back to include Linda.

Linda turns toward Jero, speaks and turns back to the TV

Jero taps her hand on the arm of Linda's chair and then gestures in frontof Linda's face for emphasis. Linda nods but continues to watch the TV

16 Volume 10 Number 2 Fall 1994 Visual Anthropology Review

Relatives are reminded of the causeof your illness.

You talk as if still alive: :"Mother, give me money—""Mother, give me rice—" You asklike that. You ask like thathere."Mother, give me rice, giveme rice.

Mother, give me money, giveme money." They recall when thespirit was alive. So they cry.

Jero Turns toward Linda and continues to gesturewith her hands. Linda says,"Ummm" several times.Her fingers are held together at the tips and shesplays them back and forth, while Jero talks in anincreasingly animated voice.

At the word "cry," Linda gestures slightly towardthe TV, again trying to encourage Jero to watch.

Linda went to central Bali to study healing and wasintroduced to Jero, who is both a spirit medium and amasseuse. Jero became one of Linda's primary instruc-tors. By the time these films were shot, Linda and Jerohad known one another closely for fouryears.Throughout this film, it seems apparent that thetwo women know one another well and have talkedabout these kinds of topics many times before. Theymove freely between explanations about what is hap-pening and affective responses—both to what they areseeing and to one another. But there is tension as well,reflecting their different conceptions of time and differ-ent agendas.

Linda knows the film will only last 30 minutes andthat we have very limited footage to record Jero'sreactions. There are many topics she wants to cover inthat time. Linda directs her gaze primarily at the TV andindicates she wants Jero to look at specific bits and torespond to certain questions. But Jero ignores many ofLinda's gestural and facial clues. She has never seen thefilm before, doesn't know how long it will last, and isnot used to working within specified time periods. Shedoesn't seem as influenced by the presence of the videoscreen, and looks away for increasingly long periods oftime. Once a topic is raised for discussion, either byLinda or by Jero, Jero seems willing to talk at length.

Jero is eager to provide explanations to help usunderstand the seance, but it becomes more evidentlater in the film that she also is using the filmingsituation to negate any possibility that she be consid-ered arrogant or be accused of claiming power thatrightfully resides with the deities and spirits: "Whenpeople come, they don't think I'm a commoner. Theypay their respects. 'Excuse me,' I say, 'I'm a medium,

just an ignorant commoner. God directs me.'" Linda,too, seems concerned about her image and is trying toact like a responsible filmmaker and get specific re-sponses. In the footage that follows the screening of thevideotape, Linda is suddenly much more relaxed andanimated. Jero appears relaxed throughout, althoughthere is evidence that she felt self-conscious at thebeginning of the filming; she labels her house shabby,notes that she has callouses on her legs from sittingcross-legged, comments on the contrast between herdark face and Linda's light face, (although they are"sitting like sisters") and then asks if she is the onlyhealer filmed, even though she knows that she is.

The verbal exchanges can be transcribed, and theydo exemplify a reciprocal engagement of each speakerwith the conceptual horizon of the listener. The mediumof film adds a visual dimension to this dialogic encoun-ter. The way the women relate to one another in space,their tone of voice, facial expressions and gestures,provide evidence for affective dimensions of the rela-tionship between the speakers that contributes to thecreative understandings that emerge between them.

Although Jero is not in control of the way she isrepresented on film, there is ample evidence that she ispresenting her concerns to an imagined future audi-ence. For example, she introduces many of the topicsdiscussed. Jero and Linda have worked out a relation-ship of mutual benefit that depends on a negotiatedunderstanding of their quite different backgrounds andagendas. This film excerpt shows how they both partici-pated as active agents in this process.

Visual Anthropology Review Volume 10 Number 2 Fall 1994 17

EXAMPLE II: Releasing the Spirits: A Village Cremation in Bali.

This film focuses on a group cremation in Jero'svillage and on different ways participants talkedabout the cremation as they watched themselves andtheir neighbors on video tape two years later. Our ownvoices are set against one another as well to show thatthe filmmakers did not share uniform knowledgeabout or memories of what had occurred. The crema-tion was held for villagers who had died over the past

fifteen years. Rather than try to find each buried corpse,effigies were cremated in place of the physical remains.The film moves back and forth between aspects of thecremation, and the things people had to say about it twoyears later. At the beginning of the scene describedbelow, an unidentified, strident, female voice domi-nates the hubbub of voices of the dozens of people at theburial ground.

SubtitlesYou haven't madeenough offerings.

I'm being treated like a dog.Oh. aduh aduh. aduh..

ImagesPeople are preparing offerings and effigies for burning. The camerapans across this activity and comes to rest on Men Muli, just visiblebetween the people clustered around the sarcophagi.

Narration (Patsy Asch)Men Muli suddenly fell to the Then the film cuts to a close up of Men Muli's face, as she lies on theground. She spoke as Balinese do ground and repeats, "Aduh, aduh" several times.when possessed.

A Middle-distance shot follows, again of Men Muli lying on theMen Muli: What am I to do? ground.

I'm suffering!You're all stupid.

You're all stupid.

Narration (Patsy)Linda asked Men Muli and herhusband what was happeningwhen she was possessed.

L. How did you feel?MM: I wasn't aware of any-

thing?

L: You weren 't remembering ?Did you feel angry?

MM: Yes. Angry—

People keep walking between the camera and Men Muli, so thecamera is moved around in a semi-circle; Tim is searching for aclearer view. Some people glance at the camera but most are watch-ing Men Muli.

The film dissolves to a side view of a group of people watching TV,including Men Muli. Then it cuts to a close-up of Men Muli, still watchingTV

Cut to a longer shot of a group of about 30 people looking just to the leftof the camera (apparently at the TV screen). Linda is sitting in the middlewith Men Muli slightly in front and to her left, with several childrenbetween them.

Men Muli paused before answering each question.

She continued to look toward the TV, as though she were not going toanswer. When Men Muli didn't finish her sentence, Jero's brother, a manstanding at the back of the group, suggested a comparison.

18 Volume 10 Number 2 Fall 1994 Visual Anthropology Review

(Jero's Brother:)Like you were asleep?

L: Who was it who"entered' you?

MM: I wonder who itwas. I wasn't remembering.

Cut to a video shot of Men Muli on the ground, the close-up seen in thefilm. Throughout we can year Men Muli's voice coming from the TV,repeating the words of the possessing deity. The volume is too low toallow us to record conversation.

As she answers, Men Muli looks up to the right at Jero, who is notvisible in the film

We specifically showed Men Muli this segment ofour footage in order to film her reaction to seeingherself while possessed. An encounter like this onethis seems to be a thinly disguised form of fishing fora personal narrative. Linda wants to get Men Muli toanswer questions for a future audience that is incom-prehensible to Men Muli because she has met fewforeigners and has not been exposured to foreign filmsor books. We chose to film Men Muli to provideinformation but al so to get footage that would heightenan audience's emotional responses to the material. Thescene was included in the final film for both thesereasons, but also because it provides an example ofhow the desire to "capture" something on film encour-ages filmmakers to try to manipulate people for thefilm, rather than remaining sensitive to what is appro-priate in a given social context. When she watches thescene of Men Muli, Linda feels very uncomfortableabout the image of herself as an anthropologist. Sheasked leading questions, which she would have avoidedin a less pressured situation. The context in which theconversation occurred was not a suitable one to askabout personal experiences of possession because itwas a public setting and because Men Muli wasabsorbed in watching herself on film for the first time.

Linda's relationship with Men Muli is very dif-ferent from her relationship with Jero. Men Muli livesnear Jero, so Linda had met her many times, but theyhad rarely spoken at length and did not have anintimate knowledge of one another's lives. Jero wasconsecrated as a healer and had treated patients fortwenty years. She is gregarious and loves to shareideas. Men Muli has no particular expertise in reli-gious matters, nor extensive experience with posses-sion. Whereas Jero often provided more informationthan perhaps Linda wanted, Men Muli gave minimalanswers and seemed reluctant even to complete herown sentences. Whether Men Muli is inarticulate,more interested in watching the video tape than talk-ing or whether she felt it was inappropriate for her todiscuss her experience, i s unclear from the film. Whatwe can see is an awkward situation—the kind rarelyincluded in films—a situation in which the ethnogra-pher is attempting to get information that is notforthcoming. Sometimes ethnographer's questionsfall flat and it is only in retrospective analysis ofcommunication failures that new insights are revealed.

Our reactions to the finished films, particularlyLinda s, is affected by how we felt about being in thesituation at the time of filming. In contrasting the two

Visual Anthropology Review Volume 10 Number 2 Fall 1994 19

examples above, it is clear that the situations differed inthe degree of intimacy of the situation, and in theemotional involvement the various participants had inthe exchange. Both examples show how the filmmakersinfluenced the circumstances being filmed in order toachieve predetermined filmmaking goals. In Bakhtin'sterms, the encounter with Jero Tapakan wascharacterised by a "common evaluative orientation(Gardiner, 1993:113) which was lacking in the MenMuli case. The feedback exercise implied a frameworkof intertextuali ty that was grasped in one case but not inthe other. What is at issue here is not just linguisticcompetency in a particular social speech type, butshared knowledge and mutual commitment to the projectof communication. These are characteristics of therelationships anthropologists most often form with

EXAMPLE III: The Medium is the masseuse: A Balinese Massage

their 'key informants' but may be lacking in otherinteractions, as the Men Muli example shows. MenMuli could not, or chose not, to orient herself to the"word" of her interlocuter or the audience that Lindarepresented.7 Men Muli's failure to respond, thisbreach in "creative understanding" succeeds, perhapsbetter than anywhere else in our films, in raising thequestion of who is responsible for which ideas, ie, ofdouble-voicing, within these film texts. This is par-ticularly obvious when juxtaposed with Jero's andLinda's mutual orientation toward each other as listen-ers, in which their "social languages come to interactwith one another."(Bahktin 1981. 282)

This film follows Jero's treatment of Ida Bagus, apatient who came to her for a massage and traditionalmedicine, as part of ongoing treatment for what hadbeen diagnosed as epilepsy by doctors and blockage ofhis connecting channels by Jero. She sought the rootcause of his illness in sorcery and in her patient'srelationship to his ancestors. After Jero arranges herofferings, chats with clients and prays, she preparesmedicines for Ida Bagus, while talking with Linda

about his symptoms. As she treats Ida Bagus, they bothtalk with Linda. Ida Bagus is lying on a bed on Jero'sporch, which is in the middle of her courtyard. Otherpatients and members of Jero's family often join theconversation or stop to listen. In the brief example thatfollows, Linda is standing beside Tim and recordingsound on the far side of a counter at the head of the bed.

20 Volume 10 Number 2 Fall 1994 Visual Anthropology Re view

Subtitles Images

LINDA What's the Balinesediagnosis for Ida Bagus?

JERO: What did you say?IB + LINDA The Balinese

diagnosis?

JERO: In my opinion—well, I don't know anything,

but according to my guardiandeity,

the Balinese diagnosis of IdaBagus

is called "babai"[a type of sorcery].

That's what it's called. But Idon't know. It's not visible.

Ida Bagus, since you've beencoming here for treatment,

have you had an attack?Yes

Can you remember it?

Just before the attack,I'm aware of it starting here,

in my left hand.

When you start to dash about,how do you feel?

I'm not aware.

You, Jero, tell me thatwhen I start to run,if

I'm restrainedI get violent.

Priest: Well, How do youfeel?

Side view of Jero massaging Ida Bagus' stomach, slowly anddeeply. He is lying on his back.

Other patients are visible behind Jero, waiting their turn. IdBagus's face is just visible on the edge of the screen.

Jero looks at Linda, off camera.

She revolves her hand sideways several times and drops it toher lap.

Jero looks into the courtyard and points.

Cut to Ida Bagus' face, from behind Jero, whose arm is visiblecontinuing to massage his stomach and chest.

Ida Bagus looks out into the courtyard.

Cut to Jero's face, while she is speaking. Two people arevisible behind her.

Jero stops massaging with both hands, and massages onlywith her left hand.

Jero looks at Ida Bagus.

Jero resumes massaging with both hands.

Village priest is visible listening behind Jero.

He is waiting for a massage.

Visual Anthropology Review Volume 10 Number 2 Fall 1994 21

We are fairly confident that Jero knew the answers tomost of the questions Linda asked. She seemed toassume Linda's role as interlocutor and to quiz IdaBagus on Linda's behalf. It seems as though Jero hasallied herself with Linda and taken on responsibility tohelp us get what she thinks we want. This strategy ofJero's has developed over time as a process of "creativeunderstanding" between Jero and the filmmakers. Shehas progressively learned to structure her words in thedirection of our answering word (Bakhtin, 1981:280).By contrast, the first time we filmed Jero—two yearspreviously, also of a massage—her conception of thefilm's finished form seemed to be more influenced bythe conventions of Balinese performance than by thecanons of ethnographic filmmaking. For example, indiscussing filming strategies with us, Jero suggestedshe begin by opening the curtains between her bedroomand the massage area and then stepping forth (the waya masked drama would begin). At the time, Jero hadseen few films or television. During this initial mas-sage, Jero did not self-consciously assume the role ofinterlocutor for Linda. Two years later, when we filmedIda Bagus's massage, Jero had not only seen our filmsof her, including the first massage, and the cremation,but had seen more television: the government had justplaced a set in each community in Bali, so people couldwatch nationally televised programs each evening.

There is an easy relationship between Jero andLinda built on their long association in which Jero has

acted as Linda s mentor. In other contexts, Jero alsorepresented the filmmakers by explaining the purposeof our filming. For example, prior to the filming of theseance, it was Jero who spoke with the clients, introduc-ing Linda and Tim and our project. And it was Jero whoasked permission for us to film, even though neitherJero nor Linda had met the clients before they arrivedfor the seance. Linda has become fluent in Balinese,lived in a Balinese village and learned a great deal aboutJero, but Jero has also learned about Linda. She knowswhat interests Linda and how to explain things in sucha way that Linda will understand. She, more than any ofthe other villagers, knows the extent of Linda's knowl-edge about Bali and what might confuse her. Sheusually recognizes when Linda is asking for an expla-nation for the film—often native exegesie that Jeroknew Linda had already heard—and when she is askingabout something because she is genuinely curious. Jeroalso knows how to involve Linda in her affairs andLinda's interest in Jero has contributed to Jero's pres-tige within her hamlet. There has been a joint construc-tion of a domain of common knowledge about oneanother s work and interests. Our last example con-cerns a situation of familiarity and apparent intimacybetween Jero and Linda which, however, does notreveal the mutual orientation to each other that isevident in the previous example.

E X A M P L E III : JERO TAPAKAN: STORIES FROM THE LIFE OF A BALINESE HEALER

In this film Jero chronicles her poverty and herexperiences of "blessed madness" (buduh kadewan-dewan) that led to her consecration as a healer 24years ago. Jero and Linda are sitting on the divan usedfor massaging patients. Jero has her legs bent and issitting on her feet. Linda is recording sound. They arefacing one another. The bed is on the porch of Jero'ssleeping house. Behind her is the door to her shrinehouse. Earlier in the film, the camera pans around hercourtyard, showing Jero's grandchildren playing andher son sitting nearby and talking with another man.In this excerpt, Jero is describing experiences she hadwandering in a forest after she left home in despair.

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Subtitles Images

Seven dogs came out—"dog"

"Let's go back," I said.

"We'll be assaulted.

our money will be seized." I wasscared we'd die there.

Suppose we were thrown down aravine. Who'd ever find us?

I was afraid for the child. I didn'tcare about myself.

"Let's turn back, " I said.

"But Aunty, I'm scared of the pig."

"I'm scared of that house", I replied.

"Let's just stop here." So we setdown our goods.

We just sat there.

Then seven big yellow dogs ap-peared. (Repeats gading, gading.)

"Ooooo, Ooooo"

(Makes a howling sound.)

They rose up howling.

Oooo, Ooooo.:

I crouched down shielding the child.Like that.

They moved closer.Oooo,Oooo" (Howling).

Like that.

Silently, I prayed,

'Sacred Earth Goddess, I am one ofThy humble servants

from the Holy Spring.

Jero raises her right arm to the side and shoulder height with her fingersspread apart and shakes her hand sideways several times. (She hadlearned the English word for dog from Linda.)

Cut to close up of Linda, nodding.

Close up of just Jero's face.

Looks toward Linda.

Looks away.

Looks back at Linda.

Tips head up and then down to the left.

Frowns, pauses. Linda says, "Oh." Jero looks at her.

Looks away.

Bends forward, out of the frame. We can hear her hit the bed hard twice.Camera zooms out to a head and shoulder shot.

Again raises hand to the right, this time above the shoulder, and bringsit forward in an up and down motion reminiscent of the entrances ofshadow puppets.

She raises her hands above her head, the palms facing each other andnearly touching. Her mouth is shaped in a round circle.

Looks up, again raises hands up, apparently to emphasize their risingup.

Bends over, pats the pillow to her right and then pats her lap and crossesher hands and arms in her lap, as though shielding the child.

Sits up. Hands above head, fingers splayed wide apart, mouth in acircle and again howls. Pulls her arms down until her hands touch thetop of her head. Appears to be transformed from the dogs into.herself.Closes her eyes, scrunches up her face, contracts whole body, and pullshands, now cupped, across her face until they cross over her chest.

Sits up. Looks at Linda and points to herself.

Lowers hands until they touch the seat.

Right hand raised to shoulder height. The fourth and fifth fingers arecupped with the others extended. She shakes her hand twice.

Looks at Linda and then down. Looks back at Linda.

Visual Anthropology Review Volume 10 Number 2 Fall 1994 23

If I have sinned,

end my life now.

If I'm innocent,

If my thoughts are pure,

I beg your protection."

Points to herself. Rocks her whole body sideways. Raises right handto shoulder height and drops it.

Looks down then glances at Linda. Raises her hand, as though toscratch her face.Drops hands into lap with fingers spread apartRests hands on knees.

Jero is telling Linda about her personal life.Thisseems to be a particularly intimate situation in whichLinda's presence might exert a strong influence overthe conversation. But this did not appear to happen.Jero's words and gestures seem less influenced byLinda's presence or the presence of the camera than inour other recordings. Jero is telling a story that she hastold many times before. It is a story that justifies herconsecration as a spirit medium and places responsibil-ity for this decision with the deities, who chose her. Hadshe not agreed, she would have continued to be plaguedby "blessed madness." It is an important story becauseJero, like all Balinese healers, is always in danger ofbeing accused of misusing spiritual power. The narra-tive has acquired a mythic, canonical form. Many of herhand gestures are similar to the movement of shadowpuppets across a screen. The structure of the central partof the story follows the form of episodes in traditionalchronicles (babads). As such, the episodes are a charterfor Jero's practice as a healer and thus have an integritythat is less amenable to creative reconstruction throughthe interaction between Jero and Linda, For example, attimes Jero seemed irritated when Linda interrupted toask for clarification, whereas this was the kind ofinterruption she welcomed in other situations.

Another difficulty we had was that we wanted ashortened version that would suite a Western audiencebut Jero seemed incapable of shortening the variousparts. She could start anywhere and skip episodes, butonce launched on a particular passage, would repeat italmost exactly as she had told it before. (Linda hadheard parts of the story many times, sometimes over-heard told to Balinese, sometimes to Linda herself.)When we began filming Jero, we had a Western concep-tion of autobiography that is flexible, with form, con-tent and length strongly influenced by the context in

which it is produced. We were unprepared for theresilience of Jero's narrative charter.8

DISSCUSSION

Speech, like all human action, is situated not onlyin time and space but also within a social and historicalcontext. As Bakhtin notes, all speech involves a rela-tionship between self and other. Speech is addressed tosomeone with whom one has at least a momentaryrelationship and frequently a long shared history. Otherpeople may be listening. We usually speak because wechoose to, although what we say may well reveal moreor less than we intended. Our way of speaking, as wellas what we say, conveys feelings and attitudes, infor-mation, thoughts, opinions, hearsay, ideology. Affect isdiscernible both in gesture and voice, as well as in thechoice of words, themselves.

Conversation between the ethnographer and thepeople she is studying is contextualized by who isspeaking and who listening, by the degree of intimacybetween the speakers and their gender, by the weather,location, health of the speakers, and so forth, i.e. by thesame circumstances that influence all conversation.Ethnographers and the people with whom they interact,try to bridge their linguistic and cultural differences andto form relationships that feel satisfying. Much can beunderstood, even if you don' t listen to or understand thewords. Visual evidence of the circumstances surround-ing a given utterance tends to undermine its dogmaticstatus as truth and to suggest that the speaker wasmotivated to speak as she did because of her particularrelationship to the subject matter, for example, personalhistory or because of whom she is addressing and whois listening. We become aware that the person speakingwants something, if only to say what she is saying.

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When such speech is incorporated into a film, we alsomay become aware that the filmmakers have their ownperspective and that they are not neutral recorders.

For example, one of the reasons we made Jero onJero was to allow Jero to respond indirectly to thoseWestern students who characterized her as a charlatanwhen they saw A Balinese Trance Seance. After seeingJero on Jero, students aren't converted to a Balineseconception of what is 'true', they don't believe Jero ispossessed by deitites and spirits, but they no longernecessarily assume Jero is tricking her clients. Jerobecomes another human being seeking to understandlife and to present herself in a reasonable way. Ques-tions about 'absolute truth' or 'reality are replaced byother questions. Possession and altered states of con-sciousness are revealed as complex phenomena. Someviewers may view Jero negatively, but they are morelikely to do so by listening carefully to what Jero saysand watching what she does than by judging her merelyaccording to their own preconceptions. By situatingfilmed conversations in a social milieu, they becomejust that—conversations with all the possibilities fordeceit, exaggeration, disagreement, confusion, andemotion that we each experience in our own conversa-tions.

Many ethnographic films depend on some form ofdirect address, either through a narrator or through oneor more subjects who speak directly to some unspeci-fied point in space, as though they are speaking sponta-neously to a generic person—in Bakhtin's terms,undialogized language.9 Whether narration or "talkingheads", direct address tends to obscure the circum-stances of its production: statements appear as "natu-ral" or as "truth" rather than representative of a givenperspective. Only occasionally is there a suggestion ofuncertainty, exchange of ideas or contested interpreta-tion. Usually this is done when one speaker seems tochallenge what the other has said, but this appearance iscreated in editing by juxtaposing comments recorded atdifferent times and in different places. The voices of thefilmmakers appear to be absent, as though they wereneutral conduits but in fact they have constructed aconversation that never occurred. It is often hard torecognize the deft manipulation of the filmmakers.Direct address is rarely used to make audiences awareof the filmmaking process and of the way the film hasbeen constructed.10

When audiences watch Linda eliciting informationwith video tape, it is not clear whether she is primarilyconcerned with eliciting information to use in the filmor if her primary motivation is to maintain or create arelationship with the person she is addressing or withsomeone else; perhaps she is trying to please Tim by"doing her job" and showing audiences that she is aneffective ethnographer. Are people's answers to Linda'squestions intended for Linda and for those sitting aroundor are they aware that they may be speaking to futureaudiences? Sometimes the footage suggests answers tothese kinds of questions. At other times, we are re-minded that conversations are messy, complex kinds ofinteractions and what is said is not all there is to it. Theexamples discussed demonstrate an oscillation betweena number of poles: shared feelings versus distancebetween participants and filmmakers; mutual under-standing versus incomprehension of the situation; aninstrumental approach or an unobtrusive approach; arelatively constructed situation or a relatively naturalis-tic one. In "double-voiced" texts the story being toldbecomes polysemic, perhaps destabilizing. It is harderto privilege one voice over another, even theethnographer's or the shaman"s or the politician's.Such a visual dialogic becomes more like life—not inthe sense of a representation of reality—but in theabsence of clear sign posts. One of the criticisms we arepleased to hear about our most recent film on the villagecremation is that the filmmakers did not seem to knowwhat was going on a lot of the time. This is true. Neitherdid the Balinese participants. Sometimes audiencesresist this sort of complexity.

Of course editors are quick to jump in and try tocreate simplicity and clarity by selecting only those bitsof conversation or of "talking heads" that togethercreate a classic narrative. "Multivocality", as Trinh T.Minh-ha says:

...is not necessarily a solution to the problem ofcentralized and hierarchical knowledge if practicedaccumulatively—by juxtaposing voices that con-tinue to speak within identicalboundaries....multivocality here could also lead tothe bland "melting pot" type of attitude, in which"multi" means "no"—no voice—or is used only tobetter mark The Voice—that very place from wheremeaning is put together (cited in Chen, 1992: 85).

Visual Anthropology Review Volume 10 Number 2 Fall 1994 25

Other authorial impuses work against the decen-tralizing potential of ethnographic film. It is temptingfor filmmakers to use stylistic conventions of documen-tary and other genres to render their unfamiliar subjectmatter more acceptable to audiences. Authoritativenarration is the most obvious device. More subtly,footage may be restructured to conform to an audience'snotions of chronological time. Some events are judgedtoo boring, or too complex, to hold an audience'sattention, for example speeches or pavilions full ofofferings. These may be just the things that engage theattention of indigenous videomakers and audiences.Translation itself is a tyrannical process of linquisticcentralization, more so when it is accompanied by theimperatives of subtitles—a maximum of 32 charactersto a line, requiring three seconds screen time.

The dilemma of how to make an ethnographic filmis not solved by adopting cinema verite or observationalcinema, reflexivity or provocative filming, post mod-ern cinema or surrealism, or to substitute conversationfor direct address. We need to consider the conse-quences of any approach and whether it suits ourparticular subjects and the way we want audiences tofeel about the subject, as well as think about it; theimposition of a single research style will only yielddocuments that represent a single ideological perspec-tive. But filmmaking is never a neutral process ofrepresentation; like ethnographic research, it is an inter-active process. The result is affected by the back-grounds and personalities of those who engage in this"dialogic imagination". For Bakhtin, the novel "refusesto acknowledge its own language as the whole verbaland semantic center of the ideological world." (1981.366) Not infrequently ethnographic film has failed to doso.

For several generations, 'ethnographic films' havebeen made by filmmakers with roughly the same back-grounds. If we accept the value of a dialogic approachto cross-cultural representation, diversifying access toequipment, funding, training, and distribution is theeasiest way to create an ethnographic film record that isnot just a reflection of "centralized, hierarchical knowl-edge" and the particular objectification of other cul-tures that this implies.As Monica Feitosa has recentlyargued, ethnographic film should "establish a genuine'dialogue' with the Other, a dialgue which not onlygives them a 'voice' but also the medium for its repre-sentation" (Feitosa, 1991:49). While we believe the

development of indigenous media is a high priority, itis also important to continue to make all kinds of filmsand videotapes that, in their double-voicing, speakacross difference. As Bakhtin noted, "it is immenselyimportant to be outside the object of creative under-standing in time, space and culture (Willemen in press)."Access must broaden to include people that have beendenied access by virtue of colonialism, patriarchy orracism precisely because the position from which theyspeak is "outside" dominant modes of representation.

Here Bakhtin's vision fails us. Even his most sym-pathetic critics (e.g. Gardiner, 1992) acknowledge thathe inadequately theorized the institutional constraintson the political efficacy of heteroglossic discourses.Recently anthropologists, such as Feitosa and TerenceTurner (1991) with the Kayapo and Timothy Asch(1991) with the Yanomamo, have become involved infacilitating indigenous video documentation as a formof political praxis. As in some of the prior publicationsof Eric Michaels (1986), their commentaries on theprocess bear testimony to the "intra-communal politicsand inter-personal relations" (Turner, 1991:76) thatconstrain the expression of heteroglossic diversity butalso to the empowerment that has taken place.

Discussion of these concerns would lead into an-other paper. Here we have used B akhtin s work to arguefor a greater awareness of the significance of languagein ethnographic film. A dialogic approach, which at-tempts to represent conversations as situationally spe-cific events involving persons with particular purposesat the time, allows diverse voices to be heard. This helpsaudiences to recognize the people filmed as agents andto consider the negotiation of meaning between sub-jects, filmmakers and audiences. Through a diversity ofvoices we may move towards the more radicaldecentering of the verbal -ideological world which isposited by Bakhtin and which is a major concern ofcontemporary anthropology.

NOTES

1. A shorter version of this paper was published in Flaesand Harper, 1993. In this version we apply Bakhtin'snotion of dialogism and double-voicing in greater de-tail. Support for the research and filmmaking on whichthis paper is based was provided by an AustralianCommonwealth Postgraduate Research Award; TheWenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Re-

26 Volume 10 Number 2 Fall 1994 Visual Anthropology Review

search; Department of Anthropology, Research Schoolof Pacific Studies, The Australian National University;the Department of Anthropology, University of Sydney,the Center for Visual Anthropology, University ofSouthern California; and the Research ManagementCommittee, University of Newcastle, Australia. We aregrateful for critical comments on earlier drafts fromHildred Geertz and Nancy Lutkehaus2. A Balinese Trance Seance (1979) Jew on Jew :

A Balinese Trance Seance Observed (1981); The Me-dium is the Masseuse: A Balinese Massage (1983); andJew Tapakan: Stories from the Life of a BalineseHealer (1983); Releasing the Spirits: A Village Crema-tion in Bali (1991). Documentary Educational Re-sources, in Watertown, Massachusetts. VHS copies, inPAL, are available from the Instructional ResourcesUnit at the Australian National University, Canberra.3. For a more detailed discussion of the evolution ofthese films and our decision to use video feedback, seeConnor, Asch and Asch, 1986.4. Mark Hobart (1991) has applied Bakhtin s ideas toBalinese theater in an interesting analysis.5. These canons may be manifest more in the breach

than the execution. Witness, for example, the debatesover the Robert Gardiner film Forest of Bliss which waswidely criticised for departhing from acceptable ethno-graphic filmmaking practice.See Society for Visual Anthropology Newsletter 4:21988 and 5:1 1989.6. Awareness of being filmed can intrude on people's

consciousness at any time, for example, in A BalineseTrance Seance a petitioner, who appears totally in-volved in the exchange with the deities and spirits,suddenly looks first at his watch and then directly intothe camera lens.7. 'The word in living conversation is directly, bla-

tantly, oriented toward a future answer-word: it pro-vokes an answer, anticipates it and structures itself inthe answer's direction. (Bahktin: 280)8. When we edited this film, we felt we either had to

choose just a few of the stories (as we did) or make avery long film. Neither seemed satisfactory, but select-ing excerpts from many of the stories obviously vio-lated the integrity of each story—something we regretwe did toward the end of the narrative when our footagewas technically weakest.9. For an interesting discussion of the use of directaddress, see Nichols, 1991.

10. Of course, there are many political films, such asDennis O'Rourke's Half Life, that deliberately under-mine a particular speaker by providing contradictoryevidence And there are excellent films, such as RobinAnderson's and Bob Connoly's New Guinea trilogythat use forms of direct address in a way that suggeststhe context in which the speech was recorded.

REFERENCES

Asch, T., J. Cardozo, H. Cabellero and J. Bortoli1991 'The Story We Now Want to Hear is Not Ours to

Tell—Relinquishing Control Over Representa-tion: Toward Sharing Visual Communication Skillswith the Yanomamo." Visual Anthropology Re-view 7(2) pp 102-106.

Bakhtin, M. M.1981 The Dialogic Imagination , translated by Caryl

Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: Univer-sity of Texas Press.

Chen, Nancy N.1992 '"Speaking Nearby': A Conversation with Trinh

T. Minh-ha." in Visual Anthropology Review 8( 1)pp 82-91.

Connor,Linda Patsy Asch and Timothy Asch1986 Jew Tapakan: Balinese Healer. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.In press Jew Tapakan: Balinese Healer (Second

Edition). Los Angeles: Ethnographies Press, De-partment of Anthropology, University of South-ern California.

Feitosa, Monica1991 "The Other's Visions: From the Ivory Tower to

the Barricade." Visual Anthropology Review 7(2)pp 48-49.

Flaes, Robert Boonzajer and Douglas Harper1993 Eyes Across the Water, Two. Amsterdam: Het

Spinhuis.Gardiner, Michael1992 The Dialogics of Critique: M. M. Bakhtin and the

Theory of Ideology. London: Routledge.Hobart, Mark1991 "Criticizing Genres: Bakhtin and Bali." Bulletin

of the John Ry lands University Library ofManches-ter 73(3) pp 195-216.

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Michaels, Eric1986 Aboriginal Invention of Television: Central Aus-

tralia 1982-86. Canberra: Australian Institute ofAboriginal Studies.

Nichols, Bill1991. Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in

Documentary, Bloomington, Indiana UniversityPress.

Turner, Terence1991 "The Social Dynamics of Video Media in an

Indigenous Society: The Cultural Meaning and thePersonal Politics of Video-Making in KayapoCommunities. Visual Anthropology Review 7(2) pp68-76.

Willemen, PaulIn press "The National" in Alternate Visions, in Leslie

Devereaux and Roger Hillman (eds.) Berkeley:University of California Press.

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