Study of Narrative Genres in Visual Anthropology

Study of narrative genres in documentary depends on narrotology and theories of narration in cinema. However, it seems what differentiates documentary from other genres of cinema, is immediate reference to the events occurred in the historical world. Hence, this inseparable connection of documentary to the issue of reality has led to lots of controversies in analysis of this type of cinema, efforts made to study narrative genres have only resulted in enumeration of its diverse forms. But the documentary position relative to reality must be investigated in order to expound the main traditional and new narrative approaches, since the belief of the present time which considers reality as manipulated reality has brought a new strike to body of the traditional conventions and had opened a new chapter in the field of documentary analysis, On the other hand, one of the oldest documentary forms is ethnology or ethnography documentary, or in new terms, visual anthropology which in direct relation to the science of anthropology by posing question in the nature and origin of customs and institutions, and the way culture is applied to humans’ life looks for contemplation in the meaning of cultural and social differences. In the traditional view, anthropology includes two observational and participative narrative approaches in which subject-filmmaker viewed native people as an external and wisely factor. However, in the present time, influenced by new methods appeared in documentary which have a kind of self-reflection as well as the belief of post-modern in existence of manipulated realities, visual anthropology has been led to a new path. In the area of neo-documentary, anthropology interprets the real fact by two reflexive and per formative methods in which subject-filmmaker takes a new stand versus object so as an inter-mental position between subject, object and audience is obtained. At any rate, it seems that the narrative genres in visual anthropology ought to be investigated by emphasis on the position of subject-filmmaker versus object