Under the Men's Tree

David MacDougall is famous for his participatory-observational style of film-making. MacDougall’s films exemplify both the subject engagement with the camera, and the movement of the camera through a scene as cinematically documental. In Under the Men’s Tree, MacDougall is sitting among the group of men, not outside of it, or above it, but right in the heart of it. MacDougall does not ask any questions, he is mostly just observing, and the participation is felt by the sheer locality of the camera itself. The subjects or characters are carrying on a conversation, and it is when they acknowledge both filmmaker and camera that the film takes on more of the participatory feel. A man says, “you better not say that, he’s filming,” and an audience becomes privy not just what it is like to be there, but of the complexities of anthropological inquiry itself. This moment in the film addresses the enduring question of would a research participant be acting a certain way if there were no anthropologist in the room? Without answering that one directly, we do know that the anthropologist/ethnographic filmmaker/filmmaker will always be affecting the social world in which he/she observes. These questions are about reality itself, a phenomenon that can be addressed scientifically/culturally through documentary and narrative film.

Under the Men’s Tree (David and Judith MacDougall, 1970)