David MacDougall is an Honorary Professor in the Research School of Humanities and the Arts at the Australian National University, Canberra

'MacDougall is masterful in writing succinctly about how audiences and their bodies connect to the films that they are watching. The Looking Machine is a must read for those interested in the history and humanity of movies.'Choice'This book is a tour de force, tracing the formation of the field of visual anthropology in dialogue with those documentary-makers and early photographers, whom MacDougall commends for rejecting ‘sanitized or highly edited accounts of what we witness’, and instead portraying ‘the particularities of everyday life – painful, awkward or pleasurable’. What I cherish most about this book is the insistent thread of ‘looking’ and what the camera affords: An embodied, sensuous cinema where the camera figures as an extension of the body and consciousness, allowing us to see differently. There is something for readers well acquainted with MacDougall’s writing in this book, as well as for newcomers to his oeuvre; for students and practitioners within film (studies), anthropology, and related disciplines. The many examples and references are a rich resource, and the reader should set aside time for watching film clips alongside reading this book. The Looking Machine inaugurates the Manchester University Press’ Series in Anthropology, Creative Practice and Ethnography, and beautifully sets the scene for the books to come.'Ethnos

• IntroductionPart I: Filmmaking as practice1 Looking with a camera 2 Dislocation as method 3 Camera, mind, and eye 4 Environments of childhoodPart II: Film and the senses5 The third tendency in cinema 6 Sensational cinema 7 The experience of colour 8 Notes on cinematic spacePart III: Film, anthropology and the documentary tradition9 Observation in the cinema 10 Anthropology and the cinematic imagination 11 Anthropological filmmaking: an empirical art12 Documentary and its doublesBibliographyFilmographyIndex

David MacDougall is an Honorary Professor in the Research School of Humanities and the Arts at the Australian National University, Canberra

'MacDougall is masterful in writing succinctly about how audiences and their bodies connect to the films that they are watching. The Looking Machine is a must read for those interested in the history and humanity of movies.'Choice'This book is a tour de force, tracing the formation of the field of visual anthropology in dialogue with those documentary-makers and early photographers, whom MacDougall commends for rejecting ‘sanitized or highly edited accounts of what we witness’, and instead portraying ‘the particularities of everyday life – painful, awkward or pleasurable’. What I cherish most about this book is the insistent thread of ‘looking’ and what the camera affords: An embodied, sensuous cinema where the camera figures as an extension of the body and consciousness, allowing us to see differently. There is something for readers well acquainted with MacDougall’s writing in this book, as well as for newcomers to his oeuvre; for students and practitioners within film (studies), anthropology, and related disciplines. The many examples and references are a rich resource, and the reader should set aside time for watching film clips alongside reading this book. The Looking Machine inaugurates the Manchester University Press’ Series in Anthropology, Creative Practice and Ethnography, and beautifully sets the scene for the books to come.'Ethnos

• IntroductionPart I: Filmmaking as practice1 Looking with a camera 2 Dislocation as method 3 Camera, mind, and eye 4 Environments of childhoodPart II: Film and the senses5 The third tendency in cinema 6 Sensational cinema 7 The experience of colour 8 Notes on cinematic spacePart III: Film, anthropology and the documentary tradition9 Observation in the cinema 10 Anthropology and the cinematic imagination 11 Anthropological filmmaking: an empirical art12 Documentary and its doublesBibliographyFilmographyIndex

David MacDougall is an Honorary Professor in the Research School of Humanities and the Arts at the Australian National University, Canberra

'MacDougall is masterful in writing succinctly about how audiences and their bodies connect to the films that they are watching. The Looking Machine is a must read for those interested in the history and humanity of movies.'Choice'This book is a tour de force, tracing the formation of the field of visual anthropology in dialogue with those documentary-makers and early photographers, whom MacDougall commends for rejecting ‘sanitized or highly edited accounts of what we witness’, and instead portraying ‘the particularities of everyday life – painful, awkward or pleasurable’. What I cherish most about this book is the insistent thread of ‘looking’ and what the camera affords: An embodied, sensuous cinema where the camera figures as an extension of the body and consciousness, allowing us to see differently. There is something for readers well acquainted with MacDougall’s writing in this book, as well as for newcomers to his oeuvre; for students and practitioners within film (studies), anthropology, and related disciplines. The many examples and references are a rich resource, and the reader should set aside time for watching film clips alongside reading this book. The Looking Machine inaugurates the Manchester University Press’ Series in Anthropology, Creative Practice and Ethnography, and beautifully sets the scene for the books to come.'Ethnos

• IntroductionPart I: Filmmaking as practice1 Looking with a camera 2 Dislocation as method 3 Camera, mind, and eye 4 Environments of childhoodPart II: Film and the senses5 The third tendency in cinema 6 Sensational cinema 7 The experience of colour 8 Notes on cinematic spacePart III: Film, anthropology and the documentary tradition9 Observation in the cinema 10 Anthropology and the cinematic imagination 11 Anthropological filmmaking: an empirical art12 Documentary and its doublesBibliographyFilmographyIndex