The transitional cinema matters because it is a competitive form consonant with epistemological changes in anthropology. This article focuses on competing aspects in Edward S. Curtis’ In the Land of the Head-Hunters (1914), a film that celebrates Kwakiutl culture in the consolidation of anthropology and cinema, attempts at making a subsequent phase of film history combined to the emergence of "documentary film." The filmic style in the Head-Hunters shows a conjunction between early cinema and modernism art in the 1920’s. The Head-Hunters involves imperialistic discourses, often embracing a tradition of expeditionary filmmaking. The Head-Hunters also has a phase of a composite art with Kwakiutl theatrical performance based on their legend and myth. The film is thus reminiscent of Wagner’s musical drama, or Italian historical spectacle films such as Cabiria (1914). Curtis negotiated dramatic representation with authentic representation in alliance with anthropological knowledge in the middle of a transformation at the turn of the century. The Head-Hunters is a prominent film in that it involves conflicts between actuality and narrative, anthropological and dramatic, realism and sensationalism, providing Curtis a distinct position in the era of transitional cinema.
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