Dead Birds (1963 film)

For other uses, see Dead Birds (disambiguation).
Dead Birds (1963 documentary)
Cover or dust jacket art for film Dead Birds (1963 documentary)
Directed byRobert Gardner
Written byRobert Gardner
Produced byFilm Study Center of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University
StarringWeyak, Laca, Pua
Narrated byRobert Gardner
CinematographyRobert Gardner
Edited byRobert Gardner
Distributed byDocumentary Educational Resources
Release date
  • 1963 (1963)
Running time
84 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguagesEnglish
Grand Valley Dani

Dead Birds is a 1963 American documentary film by Robert Gardner about the ritual warfare cycle of the Dugum Dani people who live in the Baliem Valley in present-day Highland Papua province (then a part of Papua province known as Irian Jaya) on the western half of the island of New Guinea in Indonesia.[1] The film presents footage of battles between the Willihiman-Wallalua confederation (Wiligima [id]-Alula [id]) of Gutelu alliance (Kurulu [id]) and the Wittaia alliance (Wita Waya [id]) with scenes of the funeral of a small boy killed by a raiding party, the women's work that goes on while battles continue, and the wait for enemy to appear.[2] In 1964 the film received the Grand Prize "Marzocco d'Oro" at the 5th Festival dei Popoli rassegna internazionale del film etnografico e sociologico ("Festival of the Peoples International Film Festival") in Florence, Italy, the Robert J. Flaherty Award given by the City College of New York, and was a featured film at the Melbourne Film Festival (now Melbourne International Film Festival).[3][4][5][6] In 1998, Dead Birds was included in the annual selection of 25 motion pictures added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and recommended for preservation.[7][8] Dead Birds has come to hold canonical status among ethnographic films.[9][10][11]

  1. ^ Nonfiction Film:A Critical History, p295, Richard Meran Barsam, Indiana University Press, 1992, ISBN 0253207061, 9780253207067
  2. ^ MacDonald, Scott (2013). American Ethnographic Film and Personal Documentary. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 68–74. ISBN 978-0-520-27562-1.
  3. ^ "'Dead Birds,' on Papuans, Wins Flaherty Filn Award". The New York Times. May 13, 1964.
  4. ^ "Melbourne International Film Festival Archive". webpage of the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF). Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  5. ^ "Festival dei Popoli - archives". Festival de Popoli. Retrieved 22 February 2019.
  6. ^ Anonymous (27 January 1964). "Italian Film Prize Won by American". The New York Times: 19 – via Proquest Historical Newspapers.
  7. ^ "National Film Registry Listing". Library of Contgress. Retrieved 22 February 2020.
  8. ^ "Hooray for Hollywood (December 1998) – Library of Congress Information Bulletin". www.loc.gov. Retrieved 2020-09-25.
  9. ^ Roscoe, Paul (2011). "Dead Birds: The 'Theater' of War Among the Dugum Dani". American Anthropologist. 113 (1): 56–70. doi:10.1111/j.1548-1433.2010.01306.x.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference :62 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Ruby, Jay (1991). "An Anthropological Critique of the Films of Robert Gardner". Journal of Film and Video. 43 (4): 3–17.