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1898: Cort Haddon and the Torres Straits Films
The world's first anthropological film was shot by British zoologist Alfred Cort Haddon in 1898 in the Torres Strait Islands.
Haddon, a graduate from Cambridge University in 1878, first visited the islands in 1888, where he spent eight months studying marine biology in his role as Professor of Zoology at the Royal College of Sciences, and Assistant Naturalist to the Science and Art Museum in Dublin. Fascinated by the disappearing customs and cultures of the Islanders, Haddon returned ten years later to make further studies. He assembled a prestigious team of authorities, including Sidney Ray, an expert on Oceanic languages, Dr. C. S. Myers, a musicologist, and Dr. C. G. Seligman, a naturalist who, between them, made around one hundred recordings of the native's speech and song. Other members of the party included psychologists Dr. W. H. R. Rivers and Dr. W. McDougall, and a 21-year-old student named Anthony Wilkin, who would die of dysentery in Cairo three years later. Wilkin was there to take experimental colour photographs.
In March, Haddon purchased a 35mm Newman and Guardia camera and some 2,250 feet of film, intending to film the Islander's dances and ceremonies, and to record their customs. Unfortunately, the film was originally sent to the wrong address, which meant the start of filming was delayed until September 1898, despite the fact that the party arrived on Thursday Island on 22nd April. Another problem was that the camera was damaged in transit, causing the film to jam in the tropical climate.
The filming was carried out by Haddon (and possibly Wilkin) who made the following entries in his diary:
5 September 1898:
Tried to take cinematograph photo of
fire making by Pasi, Sergeant and Mana [?] in morning.
6 September 1898: Tried to take cinematograph photos of Murray I.Kap in
Australia corrobora (beche de mer men on board the lugger Coral Sea belonging
Fred Lankester [...] Bomai-Malu cinematographed [?] at Kiam [...]
[...] some rather important things turned up at the last [...] For example some Australian natives came in a beche de mer boat and I wanted to get a cinematograph of their dancing - and it was also only just at the last that we could get part of the Malu ceremony danced with the masks that had been made for me - but the dance was worth waiting for. I tried to cinematograph it but as has often happened the machine jams and the film is spoiled - I am afraid that this part of my outfit will prove a failure & the colour photograph is I fear at present of little practical value. I have had many disappointments on this expedition, perhaps I was too sanguine.
A total of four-and-a-half minutes of footage from Haddon's expedition still survive, although no screenings of the films have apparently been traced. The film was stored at Cambridge until 1967, when the BFI copied them. Prints are currently held by the Australian National Film & Sound Archive and AIATSIS in Canberra, and Film Australia in Lindfield.
(Source: University of Oxford - Institute of Social & Cultural Anthropology website.)
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