THROUGH NAVAJO EYES: Sol Worth: Chapter08

8/7/2019 THROUGH NAVAJO EYES: Sol Worth: Chapter08

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P A R T T H R E EChapter8

AnalysisUp to this point we have been concerned with describing specificprocedures and events in the field. We presented an outline ofwork already done, and a description of a set of interrelatedproblems in communications and anthropology which led us tothe work described. Now our task is to analyze the data and relatethem to the problems under study. The procedure and events inthe field are critically important, in our opinion. It is not only thefilms that will be analyzed, but the films in relation to the filmingbehavior we observed: patterns of Navajo social and cognitiveactivities as our students related them to their process of makingfilms. We will consider the films conceived, photographed, andedited by Navajos in the light of our field notes which recordedhow we, our students, and the community behaved during theproject. We will also refer to transcribed interviews covering theNavajo students conceptions, difficulties, and achievements dur-ing the filmmaking, as well as their explanations of the way theyedited and completed their films.Our analysis draws upon several disciplines: communication,anthropology, linguistics, and cognitive psychology. Hymes


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Analysis I33(1967, 1970) has recently dwelt on the theoretical problems ofinterdisciplinary research, using linguistics as a conceptual para-digm. He correctly points out that the problem is not one ofcombining a body of theory in anthropology with a body oftheory in another discipline and thus being interdisciplinary.Rather i t is a question of certain problems demanding new theo-ries, which (in our case) are not anthropological alone or com-municational alone. What is needed in our case is what Worthhas called a theory of Codes in Context, or what Hymes (1964)has called the Ethnography of Communication.While our analysis is not presented as part of a formal theoryof codes in context, we did have such a theory in mind as anorganizing principle for our analysis.

Our analysis will be concerned with the following kinds ofquestions: (I) Who, in what culture, with what technology, withwhat instruction, and in what conditions or context, can com-municate by means of motion pictures? ( 2 ) Among those who cancommunicate by means of movies, how do members of somespecific culture organize their communication? Is there a discern-ible pattern or code in the structure of their movies? If so, (3 ) isit present in such a way that others in their own or other culturescan understand or infer meaning from their patterned film pro-ductions? (4) If persons in differing cultures can produce filmproductions that are patterned and allow communication to takeplace between filmers and film viewers, what is the relation be-tween the code and the culture in which films are produced andunderstood?

These are the sort of questions that a theory of codes in contextwould have to elucidate, and we will deal with them in ouranalysis. We have obviously not been able to find definitive an-swers, but our analysis should provide several valuable tools to-ward such answers. First, there is a need to stimulate more workin this area and this report presents the first exposition of amethodology designed to assist the development of a theory ofcodes in context. Second, this report documents a large range of


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I34 I Through Navajo Eyesfindings which make i t possible to begin com parative w ork acrosscultures using a c om parab le methodology. Despite the difficultyof ge neralizin g beyond o ur N avajo experience, eno ugh w ork hasbeen done by us and by our students to make possible someco m pa riso ns between Navajos, black teenagers, wh ite teenagersand o ther groups. In a con cludin g chap ter we will present datafrom o ther c om parable research that makes i t clear that ce rtainaspects of filming and filmma king differ from g ro up to gro up . W ecan see that persons in different cultures approach the fi lmingsitua tion differently an d m ake films that differ on several imp or-tant parameters.

I t is therefo re im po rtan t to recognize that o ur analysis is notmeant to describe only Navajo films and filming, although westick very closely in th is stu dy to observations of th e Navajo. O u rwo rk is intend ed as a paradigm in bo th a theoretical an d a metho-dological sense of how to observe and c om pare the way g roup sgo about communicat ing in the film mode.

It is also im po rtan t to realize th at once a method of teach ingpeople in other cultures to make films is articuiated and peopleof a different cu ltu re prove able to make films amen able to analy-sis, a great variety of complex and controllable possibilities be-come available for research.

A theory of codes in con text such as that un de rlyin g wh at weare do ing w ould suggest testing along homogeneous o r hetero-geneous ling uistic gro up s o r similarly divided cultura l group s tosee if the coding and patterning of f i lms follow broad cultural,performanc e or l inguist ic pat terns, and what their relat ionshipis to each other and to fi lm.

Another broad area of research suggested by our findings isthat of universals in film com mun icat ion. T h a t is, do theNavajo films as a gro up show similar pat terns an d d o they showpa ttern s sim ilar to films m ade in o the r culture s? Conversely,w here do the Navajo films d iffer f rom one o ther , and w here dothey differ as a group from films made in other cultures?T h e Nav ajo learned to pu t discrete records of image events


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Analysis I35into a sequence which they assumed would be meaningful tosomeone who saw their film. It is as if they had an innate sensethat visual events in sequence have meaning, and more, that otherpeople-certainly people like themselves-would understand themeaning they implied when they chose the events they photo-graphed in the way they photographed them and in the way theyorganized them into a film. The fact that they strung these imageevents together in a specific way different from the way wephotograph and sequence events seems to us much less importantthan the fact that they did in fact string them together and as-sumed that someone else would understand. The important uni-versal of film may be that we know that images in sequencehave meaning.

Let us state it another way. If we were to start writing inFinnish, most readers of this manuscript would not understand.They would, however, assume we were writing in another lan-guage. For our part, we too would assume that many would notunderstand us. An unspoken agreement in our concept of verballanguage is that a variety of languages exist and that our abilityto speak and to understand all of them is limited.

On the other hand, if we make a film or a Navajo makes a film,we assume that we all can more or less understand it. Whetheror not it is true, we somehow do assume that everyone can under-stand a movie. A movie is a movie, we seem to imply, and thebabble of tongues doesnt change our intuition. That notion isnow open to testing, using the materials we have gathered. Onecan find out, given the statements by the Navajo about what theymeant to convey, whether in fact others can infer the same mean-ing from the film. One can find out how much was conveyed andmore importantly who, and from what cultures, with what train-ing, can make inferences from a film similar to those implied bythe filmmaker.

Another striking aspect of our research was that, although wefound it comparatively easy to teach people of another culture tomake a movie, they did not necessarily use it in the same way that


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136 Through Navajo Eyeswe did, show the same sort of interest in it, or seem likely tocontinue to use it and find a place in their culture for it. The mostdifficult thing to accept about our Pine Springs experience wasour feeling that when we left Pine Springs, so would all ideasabout the use of movies by the Navajos. It was not, after all, asif we were teaching graduate students, who were seeking knowl-edge and techniques to fit into their plans for a career.

We felt that when we pulled out of Pine Springs after twomonths the innovation would stop. There is good evidence thatwe were right. The social and economic structure of the PineSprings community was not geared to support this innovation.Each of the filmmakers was at a dead end, with no opportunityto do anything more with what he had learned. So, while themotivation and ability were there, we too were there-as a stimu-lant to the innovation process and as an economic resource. In1970Adair interviewed Johnny Nelson to learn what had hap-pened in the community after each student had received the printof his film. T o the best of his knowledge he is the only one whohas shown his films publicly.

Stated in another way, if Johnny Nelson, as a local politicalleader, wanted to make further use of film for the developmentof his community, he would have to seek financial as well aspsychological support from some outside source. Capital for theuse of film at Pine Springs would not be available in that commu-nity. If film is to become a functional part of the life of the Navajothemselves, i t will have to be funded, a t least initially, from someoutside source.

Likewise we, as outsiders, would have to gain economic andpolitical support if we were to attempt to test the feasibility andfunctional use of this innovation to the tribe as a whole. If suchan attempt could be made, it is predicted that this mode of com-munication would be taken up in many parts of the reservation.This estimate is based on (I) the feasibility of teaching Navajosthe technology of filmmaking in a community such as PineSprings; (2) the ongoing interest of the Navajo leadership in mod-


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Analysis ( 37er n modes of comm unica t ion; and (3) the desire of the tribe tocom mu nicate to th e rem ote areas on the reservation those m eth-ods of develop men t that have proved practical a t W indow Rock.

W e can r epo rt that teaching f ilmmaking to th e Navajo and tomembers of other culture groups in our society was easy. TheNavajo seemed to kn ow wh at films were-even those w ho saidthe y never saw one-and they learned to make them quickly andeasily. Th e y learn ed to make films much m ore easily, for exam-ple, th an w e learn ed to speak N avajo. It is clear, after this experi-ence, tha t th e N avajo learned to express themselves m ore fluentlythroug h film af te r one m onth of ins truc t ion tha n mem bers of onelinguist ic com m un ity learn to express themselves in th e verballanguage of another.

It is this th at strik es us as mo re remarkable tha n all the differ-ences that we shall repo rt betw een th e way w e make films andth e way th e Navajo make f ilms. N o t only th e Navajo b ut a l l thepeople-black, Nav ajo, yo un g, old-with w ho m we have wo rkedseem able to learn this m ethod of com mu nication readily. W hyshould people of a culture so different from ou rs or w ith suchdifferent t ra inin g learn a ne w and complex mode of communica-t ion so quickly ? Cou ld i t be th at a conce pt s imilar to the Chom-skian view of an innate deep structure of language operates forth e visual m ode of co m m un ication also? Chomskys view seeks toexplain the almost miraculous ability of children to have mas-tered at two years of age the complex grammar of speech bysugges t ing tha t th e hum an bra in has so evolved o ver th e milleniatha t it is neurologically fun ction al to learn a complex system ofrules re la t ing verbal s igns to each o ther a nd to the outside worldto w hich they refer . T h e theory suggests that this s tructure is thesame fo r all verbal langu age, an d th at specific languag es ar e varia-t ions or t ransformat ions f rom a m ore basic d eep s t ruc ture . I tseems to us no t at all unreasonable to assume that just as child renhave intern alized a com plete an d complex system of rules w hichcan generate original verbal ut terances whose m eaning is sharedwithin a cul ture , so have th e Navajo-or oth ers w ho have never


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138 Through Navajo Eyesmade films and whom we can metaphorically consider as filmchildren-internalized some set of rules which may also be in-nate, which may be based on rules of perception and cognitionthat are neurologically functional, and which make learning toconstruct film utterances possible, easy and natural.

It should be noted here that our use of the word languagereflects not only an academic difficulty-we have hedged and putquotation marks around it throughout-but reflects a bias in ourvery use of symbolic forms in communication of all kinds. Wesimply do not have a good word for the structure inherent inmessages in different modes. We do not have the right words totalk about film, dance, facial expression, body positions, and com-municative patterns or structures that are not verbal or thataccompany verbal communication. Language is the word weuse when we want to say that communication has occurred inany mode. Thus we find that we talk of the language of dance,the language of gesture, the language of art, the language of film,and even the language of poetry. We are only now beginning toseparate speaking from language and to make the kinds ofdistinctions which in many ways the ubiquity of the word lan-guage has prevented our recognizing. It is only recently that aphrase like the language of speaking, referring to the pattern,code, or even grammar of speaking, has become meaningful.

We will continue to use the word language because euphem-isms for i t are not really clear enough, but we would like ourreaders to know that we are concerned with more than the com-monly accepted ideas of verbal grammar. We are interested inmore than the rules of grammatical utterances or in so-calledcorrectness. In fact, a t this point in the development of our un-derstanding of film or in the development of film as a mode ofcommunication, the notion of grammaticality doesnt makemuch sense. We are concerned with patterns of usage in our filmlanguagp, with why a person makes one film cademe ratherthan another or why he makes one particular cademe at one timeand not at another time or in another situation. We are concerned


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Analysis I39with what things he chooses to say-filmically-and with how hesays it, so that we may discover the rules he is unconsciouslyfollowing.

The Way We Intend t o Analyze Our DataIn order to delineate some of the differences we noted, we willneed to describe certain elements of the context (the filmingbehavior) as well as of the code (the film). It is useful, therefore,to think of our work as the report of observations in these twoareas, code and context, and to consider (I) the differences wenoted as reflecting the different contexts in which we and theNavajo make films and (2) the consequences of those differenceson the resultant pattern of film.

The context might be defined as those dimensions which ex-plain some important aspect of the specific situation withinwhich the films were produced. Among them are the following.(I) The learning situation-composed of the students previouslevel of learning as well as what we taught them, and includingthe specific arrangements and methods under which theylearned. This would have to include the way the Navajo con-ceived of learning, its place in their value system in general, howthey placed learning j l m within their general notion of learning,and how they structured their own learning situation in relationto our teaching methods. (2) The choice of students-the waysand reasons that we had for choosing certain students, and theways they devised for controlling our choices. (3) The studentschoice of actors for their films-the kinds of activities and talentsthey felt actors in their films should have, as well as the socialrelations they felt it necessary for them to have with their actors.(4) The choice of film subjects or themes-the kind of subjectmatter they thought appropriate to make a film about, and thekind of event they felt appropriate to photograph to express anidea or theme. Under this aspect of context we would include


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140 Through Navajo Eyestheir awareness of the communitys feelings about appropriate-ness of certain themes or events being described or shown in afilm. ( 5 ) Their method of working, both technical and perceptual-how they handled equipment, what kind they preferred,whether they literally saw comfortably or in the same way we didwhen looking through viewfinders or viewers or a t projectedimages. (6)The interrelation of the filmmaking and the commu-nity. Here we would be concerned with analyzing the socialcontrols and freedoms surrounding filming, filmmaking, andlearning film within this particular culture.The second area of analysis includes those elements whichrelate to the code-the film-itself, its description, and the rulesor patterns that might be applied to generating or producingwhat we or they would call a Navajo film. The areas considereda t this stage of code analysis are: (I) The narrative style of thefilms, related to the mythic and symbolic forms of the culture.Here we would be concerned with how a Navajo feels it neces-sary to tell a film story, and what specific structures he always,or in certain situations, employs. (2) The syntactic organizationand sequencing of events and units of eventing. Here wewould be concerned with how an event, an act, or a part of a storyor theme is divided into units of cademes and edemes. We wouldbe concerned with the rules of sequencing-they way edemes arejoined-which edemes or cademes need something in between,or can go together. We would want to know if certain edemescannot go with others, are optional, or must be preceded or fol-lowed by some other event. (3 ) The cultural, perceptual, andcognitive restriction influencing either semantic or syntactic or-ganization and structure. Here we want to show not how theysee, in a biological sense, but what they feel they ought to see ina cultural sense. Can certain cademes be taken but not used asedemes? Are there cultural restrictions about taking or usingclose-ups, long shots, or medium shots of specific events, in spe-cific situations? (4) The relation between the structure of theirverbal language and the structure of their films. Here we want


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Analysis (241to relate specific properties of the Navajo language-its concernwith motion, for example-to specific ways in which Navajospeakers structure their films.

We have decided to build our analysis around a presentationof the differences between our films and the Navajo films on thelevel of code. Many of the areas delineated above in the first areaof analysis have been discussed in previous chapters and can bestbe further discussed in connection with the specific films or partsof films we will be describing on a coding level. The areas ofcontext (I to 6) and code (I to 4) are in truth necessary intellectualdistinctions which we hope can be kept in mind. The process ofmaking a film, however, is an ongoing one. A specific personliving in a specific way makes a specific film. He doesnt decidethat certain problems are code problems or context problems anymore than a child speaking makes conscious decisions about syn-tax or semantics when he wants to tell daddy about seeing a redfire engine. The process of describing how people make filmsseems in some way similar. Things get mixed up in the describ-ing; more than one level of analysis is necessary to describe whaton another level looks l ike one event.

We will therefore talk about specific films and specific edemesand cademes, how specific students photographed and editedthem. In the process, we will bring to bear our observations onthe context which influenced them. We will not talk about thesimilarities between the way the Navajo make films and the waypeople in other cultures make them. We have already mentionedthat the way so many different groups make films understood byso many others is one of the most significant findings in ourresearch in this area.

We are concerned in this book primarily with two things: topresent a method of teaching people to make films showing ushow they see their world, and to present a way of analyzing thesefilms in their cultural context as a communicative code.

THROUGH NAVAJO EYES: Sol Worth: Chapter08

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