It is all too revealing that this book has several pages describing the "eminent anthropologists, philosophers, film theorists, and fellow artists" who contributed essays to the work, listing their degrees, academic titles, university affiliations, selected publications, and major artistic works, including their films.
But, oddly, for a book titled "The Cinema of Robert Gardner" no filmography of the cinema of Robert Gardner, no bibliography of his books, and no biography of Gardner
It's the sort of book that will be all too familiar to anyone who has ever served time as a graduate student in the social sciences: two editors, fifteen contributors, and lots of long sentences piled high with qualifiers and attributions. Stuff like this: "This is an anthropology that foregrounds the phenomenological priority of embodiment in our apprehension of the world, as the existential condition of possibility of both self and culture. (p. 9)" It's a book by academics for academics.
Robert Gardner is a landmark figure in the evolution of documentary film. He deserves better than this.
You can read my complete review of this book for the magazine of the International Documentary Association at http://barryhampe.com/barryhampewriter/bookreviews.html.
