ABSTRACT

The Cinema of John Marshall explores the life and art of the pioneering ethnographic filmmaker. Its centerpiece is an autobiographical essay in which Marshall assesses his forty-year involvement with the San peoples (Bushmen) of South Africa and his films, from the 1957 award winning The Hunters to his current work in progress, Death by Myth. The book weaves together the political economy of San dispossession, history and ethnography, personal narratives of historical importance, and expositions of film techniques and film language. The first English language study of the man and his work, The Cinema of John Marshall conveys the complex unity of Marshall's life: the filmic, the intellectual, the political, and the human.