The most artistic of ethnographic filmmakers, and the most ethnographic of artistic filmmakers, Robert Gardner is one of the most original, as well as controversial, filmmakers of the last
half century. This is the first volume of essays dedicated to his work--a corpus of aesthetically arresting films which includes the classic Dead Birds (1963), a lyric depiction
of ritual warfare among the Dugum Dani, in the Highlands of New Guinea; Rivers of Sand (1974), a provocative portrayal of relations between the sexes among the Hamar, in southwestern
Ethiopia; and Forest of Bliss (1986), a sublime city symphony about death and life in Benares, India. Eminent anthropologists, philosophers, film theorists, and fellow artists
assess the innovations of Gardner's films as well as the controversies they have spawned.
