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Steven Feld:
Jamie S.-Berthe: How would you introduce the oeuvre of Jean Rouch to someone who was completely unaware of his work?
Steven Feld: Rouch's work challenges our notions of boundaries between documentary, fiction, reality, hyperreality, surrealism, dreams. His films combine a distinct poetic vision and a passion for the power of everyday life.
JSB: What impressed you most when, in 1972, you saw your first Rouch film?
SF: His ability to combine anthropological and cinematic theory and practice, his willingness to take chances, his way of being deeply playful and deeply serious at the same time.
JSB: What can the written works of Rouch teach us about his films?
SF: They teach us how passionate Rouch was as an ethnographer, how reflective he was about the history of both anthropology and film, how deeply he believed in the importance of ethnography , and, of course, how he was also a wonderful storyteller in the written medium. Rouch wrote essays in the 70s that were very far ahead of their time in terms of today's "postmodern anthropology."
JSB: Do you believe that Rouch's films can be evaluated independently of his written works? Why or why not?
SF: Yes, the films have a deep synergy with his written work, and the written work of others (like Griaule and Dieterlen, for example). But they very much stand on their own as well.
JSB: Can you tell us a bit about the use of surrealism in Rouch's films?
SF: Rouch was interested in both capacities of film - realism and nonrealism. And his ethnographic surrealism was a way to make films like dreams and dreams like film.
JSB: In your opinion, what role does friendship play in the ethnography of Jean Rouch?
SF:Friendship, intimacy, contact, borders, boundaries, engagement are all key qualities in Rouch's work.
JSB: Although Rouch is not within your field of specialty - the anthropology of sound and voice - he seems to have had a deep impact on your career, can you please explain his influence?
SF: Rouch's ideas of "ethnographic film in the first person" and of feedback (le contredon audiovisuel) influenced my thoughts on dialogue, reciprocity, feedback, and particularly the possibility of what I have called "dialogic editing" - negotiating power and representation in the way I write, film, and record.
JSB: Having met and worked with Rouch, can you please describe him as a person?
SF: Incredibly passionate about anthropology and film; playful and critical in equal measure.
JSB: Is there someone within the field of anthropology who you consider to be continuing the work of Jean Rouch? If so, who and how?
SF: Rouch's work has influenced ethnographers, filmmakers, photographers, artists in different ways, some more direct, some more diffuse. As the work becomes more well known, and particularly as his films become more widely available, his influence willl no doubt grow.
Steven Feld is Professor of Anthropology and Music at the University of New Mexico. His research principally concerns the anthropology of sound and voice in the rainforests of Papua New Guinea. He has more recently researched the sound world of Greek Macedonia and Romani ("Gypsy") instrumentalists, and is currently involved in a multi-CD project on the history and culture ofbells, with initial fieldwork in France, Finland, Greece, and Italy.He is founder of VoxLox, a documentary sound art label whose CDs advocate for human rights and acoustic ecology.
BOOKS :
Sound and Sentiment (1982/1990, U. Pennsylvania Press; J.I. Staley Prize,1991)
Music Grooves (with Charles Keil, 1994, U. Chicago Press; Chicago Folklore Prize, 1995)
Senses of Place (edited with Keith Basso, 1996, SAR Press)
Bosavi-English-Tok Pisin Dictionary (with Bambi Schieffelin, 1998, ANU Press)
Jean Rouch: Ciné-Ethnography (editor/translator, 2003, U. Minnesota Press)
CDS:
Voices of the Rainforest (1991, Rykodisc)
Rainforest Soundwalks (2001, EarthEar)
Bosavi: Rainforest Music from Papua New Guinea (2001, Smithsonian Folkways)
Bells and Winter Festivals of Greek Macedonia (2002, Smithsonian Folkways)
The Time of Bells (2004, VoxLox).