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In the late nineteenth century, the parallel emergence of cinema and the study of anthropology inspired filmmakers to capture ethnographic cultures on camera, a particular obsession that became a crucial basis for documentary filmmaking. In early documentaries, most filmmakers romanticized the engagement with exotic cultures, as are the case with Robert Flaherty’s re- enactment of Eskimo lifestyle in Nanook of the North (1922) and his fascination with Irish peasantry in Man of Aran (1934). These pioneers influenced documentary representations of societies unfamiliar to the West. Contemporary ethnographic films frequently feature remote anthropological locations, such as Papua New Guinea. Trobriand Cricket: An Ingenious Response to Colonialism (1976) interrogates the colonial transformation and cultural adaptation of cricket, while First Contact (1983) illustrates the discovery of native villages in uninhabited high-lands, while offering a self-reflexive critique of both the colonial and ethnographic impulse. Because ethnographic films, regardless of self-reflexive flourish and critique, deal with real people and situations, interactions between the filmmaker, subjects and audience pose significant ethical dilemmas. In Cannibal Tours (1987) Denis O’Rourke attempts to address the ethical challenges of filming ethnocentric tourists among neo-colonized locals in Papua New Guinea by using techniques such as archival

The Cannibalism of Modernity: Ethnocentric Tourists and Neo-colonized Natives in Cannibal Tours

By Trevor (Guoxuan) Wang

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photographs and a probing handheld camera technique to interrogate the two cultures and draw attention to the political implications of photographing and filming the Other. O’Rourke not only criticizes capitalist tourism, but also demonstrates how the indigenous people’s encounter with the cannibalism of modernity affects and consumes them.

In documentary filmmaking, directors develop strong relation-ships with social actors. According to Bill Nichols, documentary ethics participates in axiographics, “the study of values” that address the methods by which values are perceived or “experienced in relation to space” (Representing Reality 77). In documentary filmmaking, a director’s ethical standpoint is significant in order to reconcile his/her potential conflicts with subjects. For O’Rourke, ethical considerations were key in the pre-production period because trust and cooperation were necessary to conduct the interviews; thus his approach to communication fostered friendly relationships with both native leaders and Western tourists During the pre-production period O’Rourke established his ethical stance of openness by negotiating with leaders of Papua New Guinean villages and Western tourists for consensus to film. O’Rourke speaks Melanesian Pidgin as a result of his previous involvement in the Sepik region, making it easier for him to conduct discussions with various village leaders at community meetings. One village refused to cooperate because the famous American anthropologist Margaret Mead had researched there; using the village as her primary research, she had profited from the encounter, but didn’t bother to donate copies of her books to the villagers (O’Rourke “On the Making” 6). To redress this slight, O’Rourke gave them copies of his early films about Papua New Guinea and promised to distribute copies of the current film to the villagers following its completion. This gesture helped

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to gain trust and cooperation from the subjects for the making of Cannibal Tours. O’Rourke also employed the principle of ‘informed consent’ (Nichols Introduction to Documentary 53). He also conversed with his Western tourist subjects about the filming of the documentary and its purpose. After they watched some of his films on the cruise ship and agreed to participate, O’Rourke could proceed and shoot the actual film.

In Cannibal Tours, O’Rourke addresses the ethical constructions of documentary by complicating the film’s content. Instead of presenting a concrete authorial argument endemic to mainstream documentary filmmaking, O’Rourke edits the footage to foster a space for reflection, inspiring the viewer to understand the vicissitudes of modern tourism. Cannibal Tours strategically inserts archival colonial photographs between interviews with different subjects. Inclusion of these stills help to illustrate historical relationships between the colonizers and the colonized in Papua New Guinea. For example, a German tourist talks about German colonization of the region while his voice-over runs parallel with still images that portray acts of colonialism. It is peculiarly ironic when he claims that the natives had good times with the Germans, while the photographs depicted in the fore- ground show the German colonizers in superior central positions surrounded by subjugated Papua New Guineans. One photograph reveals three well- dressed Germans sitting at the dining table; a naked local child stands beside them. While the photographs suggest the past, the German tourist’s comments alienate the audience, enabling them to critically review the content. Bill Nichols argues that the “image is [not only] the referent projected onto a screen, [but also a medium that constitutes] the ideologies that determine our own subjectivity” (Representing Reality 9–10, 25). Therefore, projected images function as historical referents

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for documentary that can be interpreted differently depending on the viewer’s ideological background. For this German descendent of the colonizers, the colonial pictures demonstrate a harmonious relationship between the two cultures. While the colonized subjects regard the images as capturing their ancestors with photography, the audience can recognize the power relationships embedded in the photographs. Hence, the subjective imagery and the complexity of content provoke the audience towards ethical contemplation in an effort to reconcile the relationship between the filmmaker and his subjects.

O’Rourke’s use of a handheld camera also helps to show each group in a spontaneous and unstaged way that underscores the relative values of each. Some tourists traveled from Europe and America to the Sepik River valley in order to experience the exotic culture and to have contact with authentic ‘primitives,’ as they term the locals. Handheld camera cinematography vividly presents the contrast between the tourists and the locals, and situates them in their respective positions. As an illustration, O’Rourke pans from right to left first to reveal the Melanesians canoeing, and then juxtaposes the native boats in the foreground with the gigantic tourist vessel in the background. Depth of field is used to foreground differences between the two subject groups. At the same time, the social actors behave in the same way with or without the camera; thus, their value lies in the fact that their daily life and personality satisfy the filmmaker’s needs to present them (Nichols, Introduction to Documentary 46). In this scene, the natives row canoes on the river while the tourists travel on motorized ships and yachts. Neither group changes the way it behaves with the presence of the camera, so the captured footage appears realistic.

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O’Rourke also attempts to reduce the tensions between the con-flicting social actor groups, those of the tourists and the locals. In a later scene, handheld cinematography blends the two groups together as they play with balloons. When some tourists blow up balloons on the tourist boat, some Papua New Guinean children also participate to enjoy some entertaining time together. For tourists, travel is for leisure and pleasure pursuits that connect them to innocent children who also like to play for fun. The Western tourists’ urge to recapture the primitive is evocative of a nostalgic yearning for modernity’s childhood (MacCannell). They attempt to offset modernity’s loss of innocence by immersing themselves among the “barbaric” locals, bestowing particular attention on the children.

In addition, O’Rourke explores the concept of authenticity in various forms in Cannibal Tours, attempting to portray subjectivity ethically. Depicting authenticity becomes an ethical articulation to negotiate the opposite views of the two subject groups. Ethnographic films usually reveal specific characteristics of cultural authenticity either in an ‘untouched’ state [or] acculturation’ (Nichols Representing Reality, 219). Here the tourists and the locals perform authenticity in opposite ways. The natives dress in stereotypical costumes and perform dances to create imagined representations of authentic culture. At the same time, the tourists seek authentic encounters with cannibalism by staging photographs at the killing stone, for example. The German tourist asks a local man to be part of the picture with him to authenticate the content. Both subject groups perform scenes of imagined authenticity to satisfy the touristic quest. The notion of tourism as an interac-tion between cultures is a myth, since “an economic and cultural disparity [exists] between the protagonists so that all human encounter is inevitably distorted” (O’Rourke “Beyond Cannibal

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Tours” 40). Indeed, the power discrepancy situates the locals as submissive participants to act in the ‘authentic’ manner that the Western tourists demand.

On the one hand, German tourists believe that the Sepik River people are primitive because their infrastructure is not modernized. They perceive the Melanesians as different because capitalist modernity is absent in the area. For the tourists, the local people seem to live in harmony with nature and enjoy their simple way of life. One tourist wonders if the indigenous people’s life in nature is better than theirs (capitalist). Hence, he assumes that the Sepik River people are more than satisfied; they are, in fact, delighted by this simplicity. On the other hand, the latter have been confronting foreign intruders from the colonial era until the present. One elder native relates that the tourists are their dead ancestors who have returned and acquired new faces. Due to colonization, the local people have not preserved their original way of life. Yet, Europeans have intervened and have thus forced them to participate in a capitalist exchange in the form of tourism. The conflict resides between the tourists’ search for primitive- ness and the locals’ effort to camouflage themselves as natives. The former desperately seek authentic culture, while the latter pretend to be authentic for their economic survival.

Moreover, O’Rourke utilizes photography as means to reflect on the ethics of filmmaking. The emphasis on the photographic process encourages a conscious awareness of self and acknowledges the Other as a source of fascination. The film consistently captures tourists taking pictures of the Papua New Guineans and their environment. Thus, voyeurism and photography define these people as tourists. These travelers travel to Papua New Guinea to encounter the Other. They fantasize about native differences,

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using their cameras to record their memories. However, the act of photography seems to make them unconscious of their motives and behaviour. They obsess about ‘the Other,’ a preoccupation that reflects both the fascination in Western society with primitivism and the nostalgic pursuit of innocence. For instance, when an American encounters two local naked children, she insists on having her picture taken with them because they are adorable. She urges the cameraman to photograph the children, who become touristic “objects of representation [of a seemingly] endangered species” (Palmer and Lester 98). The film presents the tourists as curious adventurers exploring a different culture. As they engage in photography and enjoy their roles, they lose their self-aware-ness. This is the transformation to which O’Rourke draws the audience’s attention in order to emphasize the perils of modern tourism. Their nostalgia about the era of colonialism takes them on a journey to recover authentic representations.

Yet the tourists do not seem to recognize the power differen-tials that attend while photographing their subjects. During O’Rourke’s interview with a native man about his understanding of tourism, a tourist appears in the background and furtively takes pictures of the man from behind so that she need not pay him for the photos. This scene is both self-reflexive and ironic. It is self-reflexive of conscious photographic acts within the frame of documentary filming, but it is also ironic because it shows how some tourists are surreptitiously avoiding payment. Conse-quently, this scene highlights O’Rourke’s emphasis on intrusive photography in neo-colonial tourism. However, he distinguishes himself from the travelers because his concentration on touristic photography shows that he is conscious of the implications of his documentary behaviour. In this sense, his ethical awareness encourages the viewer to consider the issues surrounding modern

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tourism. From a viewer’s perspective, audiences “are typically separated from both the act of representation and the subject of representation” (Nichols Introduction to Documentary 62). This separation may facilitate self-consciousness about the Other and Self, serving to criticize ethnocentrism. Viewers are thus engaged in representation in the film: they recognize a particular per-spective, either the filmmaker’s or the subject’s, through careful orchestration on the director’s part.

O’Rourke establishes his ethical viewpoint to highlight the views of ethnocentric tourists and neo-colonized natives. Yet the focus of Cannibal Tours remains on ethnocentric Western travelers who tour sites of former practices of cannibalism in Papua New Guinea. One German tourist says that they (Westerners) need to stimulate the natives and educate them by means of new customs, such as the way they dress. More importantly, he adds, he was “born into a more evolved society with good fortune” (O’Rourke Cannibal Tours). Some of the tourists believe that capitalist modernity is better and more advanced than the natives’ culture. From the indigenous perspective, tourism is a burden brought on by neo-colonialism. One elder thinks that the motivation for the tourists to visit their villages is that the descendants of colonizers come back to observe if the natives have changed. The result of colonialism has forced developing countries into participating in capital exchange, as evinced in postcards treated as photographed memories of exotic cultures for capital trade. The same elder says that he has received a postcard picture of his village from a child who purchased it in a store. In this case, touristic photography has captured images of the native villages, but also has commer-cialized them as an idealized primitive culture. Tourism is one result of neo-colonialism that causes contradictions for both sides. The tourists seek authentic primitive culture, but they also

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provoke change and modernity for the indigenous people. The natives, by turn, want to escape the capitalist trap—but they also need to make a living by having tourists purchase their native carvings. O’Rourke places the tourists and natives in Cannibal Tours into dialogue via his editing in order to draw attention to the ethical conflicts at stake. This conversation between the two subject groups allows the viewer to reflect upon the power differentials in a nuanced manner.

Lastly, O’Rourke elaborates on the concept of cannibalism, both literal and symbolic, to raise ethical issues in Cannibal Tours. Cannibalism was a cultural practice that natives performed in Papua New Guinea in the past. Tourists arrive with the know-ledge that European colonialism has led Papua New Guinea to an evolutionary change. Thus, the Westerners regard anthropophagy as a symbolic gesture, as merely a cultural practice, an archaic behaviour that disappeared under colonial influence, rather than a necessity for biological survival. By contrast, natives view the tourists as social and cultural intruders whose ancestors not only came to take all of their valuables, but also destroyed sacred and powerful symbols. Western tourists continue to travel to their villages, involving the locals in trade by selling carvings and presenting “authentic” native dance and costumes for monetary gain. One major impact of neo-colonialism on Papua New Guinea is that the locals become metaphorical commodities for the tourists to consume. One local woman complains the tourists do not buy their products and always bargain for a lower price, which is nothing compared to the cost of the tour. O’Rourke encourages his audience to think critically and question implicitly who the cannibals are: “the Melanesians who formerly practiced anthropophagy or the tourists who travel to New Guinea to consume them” (King 106). Indeed, the tourists’ ongoing

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preoccupation with illicitly photographing the locals and con-sistent bargaining for a second or third price are dehumanizing practices that literally consumes income that these locals depend upon for their livelihood. In the final scenes of the film, Iatmul village men paint the tourists’ faces with designs traditionally used to decorate their deceased ancestors. Painted like cannibals, the tourists are seen dancing in slow motion on the deck of the ship, with Mozart’s music playing in the background (Lutkehaus 428). This ironic ending suggests a few characteristics of modern tourism. First, Western travelers search for a utopian past in foreign lands, accompanied by Mozart’s music. Second, tourists seek evidence of authenticity that they can preserve through acts of photography. Third, they are so obsessed with ‘the Other’ that they become unaware of their own behaviours. In a review of Cannibal Tours, Dean MacCannell makes explicit what O’Rourke left unsaid: “we are cannibals, and contemporary capitalism is neocannibalism” (King 108). Indeed, most Westerners are not conscious of problems with modern tourism.

In conclusion, Dennis O’Rourke establishes his ethical standpoint in various ways. He not only uses archival images, but also employs a handheld camera and a consistent self-reflexive technique. Most importantly, via editing he creates a conversation that negotiates between the ethnocentric tourists and the neo- colonized natives in order to inspire the spectator to think critically about the conditions of modern tourism. Cannibal Tours highlights the ethical issues underpinning anthropological assumptions and depictions of unfamiliar exotic cultures. It worries a capitalist perception of the Other as primitive and thus frames the touristic quest for authenticity as preserving an imagined cannibal community.

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Works Cited

King, C. Richard. “The (Mis) uses of Cannibalism in Contempo- rary Cultural Critique.” Diacritics 30.1(2000): 106–123. Print.

Lutkehaus, Nancy Christine. ‘“Excuse Me, Everything is not all right”: On Ethnography, Film, and Representation: An Interview with Filmmaker Dennis O’Rourke.’ Cultural Anthropology 4.4(1989):422–437. Print.

MacCannell, D. Empty Meeting Grounds: The Tourist Papers. London: Routledge, 1992. Print.

Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary. 2nd ed. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2010. Print.

Nichols, Bill. Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991. Print.

Cannibal Tours. Dir. O’Rourke, Dennis. Direct Cinema, 1987. DVD.

O’Rourke, Dennis. ‘Beyond Cannibal Tours: Tourists, Modernity and “The Other”.’ Tourism and Cultural Development in Asia and Oceania. Ed. Shinji Yamashita et al. Bangi: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 1997. Print.

O’Rourke, Dennis. ‘On the Making of “Cannibal Tours.”’ Retrieved from <http://www.cameraworklimited.com/articles.html/>

Palmer, Catherine and Jo-Anne Lester. “Stalking the Cannibals: Photographic behaviour on the Sepik River.” Tourist Studies 7.1(2007):83–1067. Print.

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Illustration for Racial Masks and Stereotypes in Imitation of

Life and Bamboozled by Beth MacDonald