John Marshall

Children and teenagers throw sticks, berries, and leaves at each other from perches in a large baobab tree.

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In this film, an argument arises between two bands when an antelope killed by a hunter from one band is found and distributed by a man from another band. The film illustrates conflict mediation in traditional Ju/'hoan society and the Ju/'hoan leaders' ability to settle disputes without violence and without formal political organization.

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This short film shows a family's attempt to resolve a dispute among themselves over a brother's damaged car, after the police have been called to intervene.

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This film focuses on a black burglary suspect who, during interrogation by police offers his services as an "undercover" informant - providing the police will suppress his charge.

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The police, looking for a suspect, question the wrong youth.

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A customer tries to explain to police why he feels he has been cheated out of an exhaust system by a garage owner.

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In Nyae Nyae, water often remains in open pans. Sometimes if the rains have been heavy, water stays in these pans, like small lakes, all year. In this film five Ju/'hoan men visit Nama pan. /Ti!kay washes the clothes he acquired on his trip to rescue his band's wives from a farm (as shown in An Argument About a Marriage). The other men bathe. The men use the opportunity to exchange sexual jokes with pleasure and hilarity. This film provides an interesting comparison with A Group of Women.

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This film consists of several sequences related to arrests after street fights involving policemen, and discussions of the incidents by the police in cars and at the station.

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A suburban couple calls the police to intervene after being harassed by a youth.

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This film consists of sequences from the Pittsburgh Police footage intercut with a panel discussion moderated by Professor James Vorenberg of Harvard Law School. Community organizers, police, students and lawyers discussed the issues raised by four sequences, including the implications of the 4th and 5th Constitutional amendments, and the Exclusionary Rule of Evidence for search, seizure, and interrogation procedures. The film demonstrates the multiplicity of roles in police work, and examines the conflicts between how the police define their duties and what the public expects of them.

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This film treats the problem of "loitering." In a number of sequences, police warn youths, police administrators discuss enforcement of loitering laws, officers are insulted, and several youths are arrested.

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Policemen intervene when a woman calls to complain that her boyfriend stole forty dollars. The argument soon escalates as the man refuses to admit that he took any money, and the woman, losing her temper, crashes a glass window and cuts her hand. The police try their best to diffuse the situation and eventually take the woman away from the scene.

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A man arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest tells his story in night court.

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Police search for drugs in a house where they arrest a group of boys who return from a basketball game and are accused of having a loud party and sniffing glue.

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Between 1950 and 1958, John Marshall made four expeditions to film the Ju/'hoansi (a group of !Kung Bushmen) of the Nyae Nyae region of Namibia (then South West Africa). During this time, Marshall shot over 300,000 feet of 16mm film (157 hours). He later produced a total of 23 films exclusively from this footage. In this short film, children tempt fate by playing with scorpions.

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Follows police patrol cars 901 and 904 as they ply the streets of Pittsburgh, responding to diverse situations.

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This film, shot in 1952-53, documents the scarification ceremony called "marking" which was traditionally held for Ju/'hoan boys after they had killed their first large animal. Here, /Ti!kay, a boy of thirteen, shoots his first wildebeest with an arrow. /Ti!kay's father, Kan//a, and Crooked /Qui help the young hunter track, skin, and butcher the animal. After the meat is brought back to the village, a scarification ceremony takes place, symbolizing the importance of hunting and /Ti!kay's passage into social manhood. He is now considered an acceptable son-in-law by the parents of the girl to whom he has long been betrothed.

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Investigation of a Hit and Run follows two officers as they investigate a hit-and-run accident from initial reports to the questioning of witnesses and the interrogation of the suspect, an eighteen-year-old boy nicknamed Pumpkin, along with his girlfriend and brother. A number of factors complicate the case: the suspect was without a driver's license; he reported the car stolen to cover himself; he could not be persuaded to confess; and the girlfriend is pregnant. The police use considerable pressure on the girl, and treat her eventual statement as though it were a confession.

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In this film, a group of women and children gather sweet, fresh /ole berries and sha roots. The younger women, led by N!ai, bait a nest of wasps. As the day wears on, Debe, N!ai's youngest son, grows restless. Di!ai asks N!ai to take Debe home, but she refuses, and walks off to join the younger women. The film explores the interactions between these women as they engage in their everyday pursuit of food. It is a companion film to Debe's Tantrum.

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In this film a five-year-old named Debe refuses to let his mother Di!ai go gathering without him. Di!ai appeals to her daughter N!ai to entertain the child but Debe resists. In the end Di!ai leaves with Debe on her back. This is a companion film to The Wasp Nest which shows Di!ai, Debe, and other women and children on the subsequent gathering expedition.

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This film, shot in 1955, focuses on a small band of /Gwi San living in the arid landscape of the central Kalahari Desert in present-day Botswana.

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In each scene, police respond to a different domestic abuse calls.

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An unemployed woman who has been living in her car is questioned by the police. They offer her advice and finally take her to the Salvation Army.

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Pioneering ethnographic filmmaker John Marshall casts an eye on the inner workings of a Pittsburgh police station, capturing law enforcement’s day-to-day handling of domestic disturbances, juvenile delinquency, suspect interrogation, and various cases to arrive at a sociological, vérité examination of civil liberties and the carriage of justice.

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Women from three separate Ju/'hoan bands have gathered at a mangetti grove at !O to play an intense game in which under-tones of social and personal tensions become apparent.

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An installment in the Pittsburgh Police series. A number of short sequences show some of the events and people in the daily lives of several policemen: their intervention in domestic quarrels, the handling of a hit-and-run case, the approaches taken toward loitering youths, a drunk and disorderly charge being made in Magistrate's Court, and the interrogation of a burglary suspect. Police force candidates are shown being interviewed by members of the police department. They discuss their reasons for wanting to be policemen and their thoughts about themselves and their jobs, placing the film in the context of the community from which the department draws its personnel.

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/Gunda, a young man (who later marries N!ai), pretends to be a lion. He is "hunted" and "killed" by a group of boys.

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An Argument About a Marriage raises questions about the impact of European farms on the economic and the social life of the Ju/'hoansi; about the complexities of marriage rules and bride-service in their traditional kinship system; and about the nature of conflict and its mediation among the Ju/'hoansi. Despite the interpersonal anger, we see how oma's skillful intervention prevents this particular conflict from escalating to violence.

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Tchai is the word used by Ju/'hoansi to describe getting together to dance and sing; n/um can be translated as medicine, or supernatural potency. In the 1950's, when this film was shot, Ju/'hoansi gathered for "medicine dances" often, usually at night, and sometimes such dances lasted until dawn.

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Sha//ge, a very young woman about to have her first child, falls ill, probably with malaria. /Ti!kay, a relative and healer, enters a mild trance, without the stimulus of dancing, in an attempt to cure her. Sha//ge lives but the baby is stillborn.

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This film depicts a moment of flirtation between N!ai, the young wife of /Gunda, and her great-uncle /Ti!kay. The two share a "joking relationship," a Ju/'hoan kin relationship which provides opportunities for casual intimacy, emotional release, and support.

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Ju/'hoan women often share an intimate sociability and spend many hours together discussing their lives, enjoying each other's company and children. In this short film, Ju/'hoan women rest, talk and nurse their babies while lying in the shade of a baobab tree. This film is a good illustration of "collective mothering" in which several women support each other and share the nurturing role.

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