Overview
In The Impulse to Preserve, filmmaker Robert Gardner reflects on a life spent observing, recording, and illuminating the human condition in some of the most remote regions of the world. Originally published in 2006, this lavishly illustrated book is now distributed by the Peabody Museum Press.
Synopsis
In The Impulse to Preserve, filmmaker Robert Gardner reflects on a life spent observing, recording, and illuminating the human condition in some of the most remote regions of the world. Originally published in 2006, this lavishly illustrated book is now distributed by the Peabody Museum Press.
Library Journal
Gardner is a celebrated documentary filmmaker who has made it his life's mission to seek out and record the complex, vanishing cultures and tribes in the world's remotest corners. His films include Dead Birds, an account of a New Guinea Stone Age society, and Forest of Bliss, a study of death and regeneration rituals in India. This book collects his reflections on more than 40 years of work, with pieces ranging from extended essays to brief musings and jottings. Entries from journals he kept while filming record Gardner's battles with the elements, balky equipment, and bureaucrats. The most notable feature of this work is the author's steadfast refusal to engage in sentimentality or idealize his subjects. Indeed, much of the material describes war, mutilations, executions, the sexual subjugation of women, and other examples of humankind's "futile cruelty." Gardner concludes, "We are all imprisoned by culture, one way or another." Enhanced by nearly 500 high-quality color photographs and a vivid, sometimes poetic text, this personal account is recommended for academic anthropology and documentary filmmaking collections.-Stephen Rees, Levittown Lib., PA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.