Margaret Mead, one of the most well known anthropologists worldwide, and celebrated student of Franz Boas, pioneered motion-picture film making in Samoa, New Guinea, and Bali, where she documented the lives of the indigenous people with an anthropological perspective. Her husband, Gregory Bateson, was also a field collaborator. Together they completed seven ethnographic films. She was much honored in her lifetime, serving as president of major scientific associations. She authored more than twenty important books and coauthored at least an equal number touching on a broad range of anthropological issues. The Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival honors her contribution to ethnographic film.
Learning to Dance in Bali (1978)、Bathing Babies in Three Cultures (1954)、Childhood Rivalry in Bali and New Guinea (1954)、First Days in the Life of a New Guinea Baby (1952)、Karba's First Years (1952)、Trance and Dance in Bali (1952)、A Balinese Family (1951)
Presents a series of scenes in which children of the same age in Bali and New Guinea respond to the mother’s attending another baby, the ear piercing of a younger sibling, and the experimental presentation of a doll. The Balinese mother handles sibling rivalry by theatrical teasing of her own child through conspicuous attention to other babies. The Iatmul mother…
A series of scenes in the life of a Balinese child, It begins with a seventh-month birthday ceremonial, showing Kaba’s relationships to his parents, aunts, and uncles, including the child’s nurse, and other children, as he is suckled, taught to walk and dance, and teased and titillated. The film illustrates that a Balinese child’s responsiveness is muted if the parents…
A performance of the kris dance, a Balinese ceremonial dance drama in which the never-ending struggle between the witch and the dragon – the death-dealing and the life-protecting – as it is given in the village of Pagoetan from 1937-39. The dancers go into violent trance seizures and turn their kris (dagger) against their breats without injury. Consciousness is restored…