''The Hunters'' is a 1957
ethnographic film
An ethnographic film is a non-fiction film, often similar to a documentary film, historically shot by Western filmmakers and dealing with non-Western people, and sometimes associated with anthropology. Definitions of the term are not definitive. ...
that documents the efforts of four !Kung men (also known as Ju/'hoansi or
Bushmen) to hunt a giraffe in the
Kalahari Desert
The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa extending for , covering much of Botswana, and parts of Namibia and South Africa.
It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African Namib coastal d ...
of
Namibia
Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
. The footage was shot by
John Marshall during a
Smithsonian-
Harvard Peabody sponsored expedition in 1952–53.
In addition to the giraffe hunt, the film shows other aspects of !Kung life at that time, including family relationships, socializing and storytelling, and the hard work of gathering plant foods and hunting for small game.
The film was produced at the Film Study Center of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University by John Marshall in collaboration with
Robert Gardner. It won the
Robert J. Flaherty
Robert Joseph Flaherty, (; February 16, 1884 – July 23, 1951) was an American filmmaker who directed and produced the first commercially successful feature-length documentary film, '' Nanook of the North'' (1922). The film made his reputati ...
Award for best one-off documentary from the
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
in 1958,
and was named to the US
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception ...
by the
Librarian of Congress in 2003 for its "cultural, aesthetic, or historical significance".
''The Hunters'' was preserved in 2000 with a grant from the
National Film Preservation Foundation.
In his book ''At The Edge of History'', William Irwin Thompson uses the structure of ''The Hunters'' to model the universal form of conflict in values in human institutions.
See also
*
List of American films of 1957
A list of American films released in 1957. ''The Bridge on the River Kwai'' won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
A-B
C-H
I-N
O-Q
R-T
U-Z
See also
* 1957 in the United States
References
External links
1957 filmsat the Interne ...
References
External links
*
''The Hunters''at
Documentary Educational Resources
Documentary Educational Resources (DER) is a US non-profit producer and distributor of film and video in anthropology and ethnology.
It was founded in 1968 by independent filmmakers John Marshall and Timothy Asch and is based in Watertown, Massac ...
*''The Hunters'' essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pages 541-54
United States National Film Registry films
American documentary films
1957 films
BAFTA winners (films)
Anthropology documentary films
Films about hunter-gatherers
Films shot in Namibia
1950s English-language films
1950s American films
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