Intimacy in Ethnographic Film: Listening to How to Improve the World by Nguyễn Trinh Thi

This chapter explores how intimacies are mediated through ethnographic films that pay particular attention to music and sound. Numerous audiovisual strategies have been employed by filmmakers to convey a sense of intimacy across a broad spectrum of approaches, including the observational, essayistic, artistic, sensory, collaborative, experimental and multimodal. In order to reflect on different strategies across this spectrum, the chapter first discusses some intimate moments in John Baily's Amir (1985), which are achieved through an observational approach, before moving on to the experimental evocation of intimacy in How to Improve the World (2021) by Nguyễn Trinh Thi. How to Improve the World is attentive to the indigenous aural culture of the Jarai in the Vietnamese Central Highlands and addresses ethical issues in the context of stark power asymmetries between majority and minority cultures. Inspired by a collaborative ethos, the film's audiovisual experimentation challenges conventional sound-image hierarchies and rigid distinctions between human and more-than-human sounds. The analysis of How to Improve the World reveals how the film employs different types of audiovisual intimacy, aesthetic collaboration and formal experimentation as a way of engaging with the ethics of listening and ecologically oriented ways of knowing and remembering through music and sound

Ethnomusicology and Filmmaking

Despite some passionate advocates for film as a medium of musical ethnography and some recent scholarly writing on the history of ethnomusicological film, a gulf remains between ethnomusicological theorizing and filmmaking. Audiovisual representations of musical practices by ethnomusicologists have proliferated in the digital age, yet ethnomusicological filmmaking is rarely subject to critical reflection. Ethnomusicological film is typically thought of as supplementary supporting data, rather than as a medium for argument or as a stimulus for theoretical discourse in words. Moving beyond an understanding of film/video as visual ‘data’ or ‘evidence’ separate from the writing of ethnomusicological theory, this chapter discusses emergent and potential directions for engagement with film in ethnomusicology. Informed by debates in visual anthropology and art practice, it reevaluates some of the central tenets of realism in ethnomusicological filmmaking and consider the ramifications of new approaches to ethnographic film for music research. Some ideas about the potential of filmmaking for musicology are discussed with reference to some ethnographic films, including one I directed called Hanoi Eclipse: The Music of Dai Lam Linh (Documentary Educational Resources, 2010)

Make a Silence - Musical Dialogues in Asia, Journal of Anthropological Films Vol 4, No 2 (2020).

The Hanoi New Music Festival 2018 was an historic event. It was the largest festival of exploratory forms of new music that has ever been held in Vietnam, and artists from countries across Southeast Asia and Japan came to Hanoi to participate. The film Make a Silence - Musical Dialogues in Asia showcases the diverse, multimedia performances that took place at the Festival, including sound art for theatre and video, underground music and free improvisation. Like the Festival itself, Make a Silence is a sensory feast of musical and visual exploration. Combining vivid artistic images, conversations with musicians and footage of concerts, the film meditates on transnational dialogue in the contemporary music scene in Asia. Artists featured in the film include Otomo Yoshihide (Japan), Trần Thị Kim Ngọc (Vietnam), Jiradej Setabundhu (Thailand), Red Slumber (Vietnam), Siew-Wai Kok (Malaysia), Otto Sidharta (Indonesia) and Yii Kah Hoe (Malaysia). Filmed and directed by Barley Norton. Edited by Louise Boer

Filming Music as Heritage

A burgeoning body of scholarship has critically evaluated heritage discourse and UNESCO’s 2003 Convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage. Ethnographic studies have also begun to assess the impact of policies aimed at safeguarding intangible cultural heritage (ICH) on music practices and communities. Audiovisual representations of ICH, however, have received little scholarly attention. This chapter reflects on how film intersects with the heritagization of music traditions, focusing on the official videos submitted by state parties as part of the process of nominating elements for inscription on UNESCO’s ICH Lists. As a case study, it considers the Ví and Giặm folk song tradition from the Vietnamese provinces of Hà Tĩnh and Nghệ An, which was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2014. Drawing on a research trip to Vietnam in 2013, the chapter unpacks the complex issues involved in the audiovisual representation of intangible cultural heritage and problematizes the notion that film is a neutral form of documentation. Through a comparison of the official video about Ví and Giặm folk songs submitted to UNESCO and a television broadcast of a large-scale staged show featuring performances of folk song and dance, it is emphasized that films are historically situated cultural artifacts with the potential to affect how music heritage is perceived and practiced

Music and possession in Vietnam.

The thesis is a study of musical and ritual practice in Vietnam. At its heart is an investigation into the relations between music and possession during mediumship rituals, len dong. Inquiry into the interaction between music and ritual context is crucial for understanding possession and the music performed at mediumship rituals, châu vân. When possessed by spirits, Vietnamese mediums experience 'aware possession' rather than a form of 'trance'. Châu vân songs invite the spirits to 'descend' to the human world and ensure the maintenance of aware possession. Musicians create song sequences, 'songscapes', for each possession, which musically construct the presence of the spirits. In addition to music's role in ritual, the thesis explores the creative process involved in the realisation of the vocal melodies of châu van songs, and the gradual processes of musical change that have affected the châu vân repertoire and performance practice. The traversing of gender during len dong rituals, by both female and male mediums, has important ramifications for the gender identities of mediums. Ritual practice enables mediums to behave in ways outside prescribed gendered roles and affords them scope for challenging and destabilising established gender categories. Len dong has been a site of contestation during the second half of this century. Despite being prime targets of an anti-superstition campaign, len dong and châu van have undergone a strong revival in the last decade. Concurrent with this revival, folk-culture researchers and ritual participants have attempted to rid len dong of its association with 'superstition' by developing a legitimating discourse which reframes mediumship in nationalist terms. Chiu van has also been implicated in debates concerning the ideological reform of traditional musics and national identity

External Examiner for UNESCO for the nomination file "Ca tru singing of the Viet people"

Report from Fourth Session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Includes the examiners reports on "Ca tru singing"