In 1950, Laurence Marshall, (John Marshall's father) retired as President from Raytheon Corp., the giant electronics firm he founded before WWII. Laurence was not one to waste his time on frivolous pursuits so the retirement was an opportunity for him to get to know his son better. As a young boy, John, always wanted to go to Africa. He read books about exploring in Africa like Jock of the Bushveld by Percy Fitzpatrick. The Marshalls had heard about an interest in looking for a lost city in the Kalahari Desert and contacted the Peabody Museum at Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution to see if there might be some interest in a Kalahari expedition. The director of the Peabody at that time, J.O. Brew, suggested that they go look for some "wild Bushmen" while they searched for a lost city.
In 1950, the entire Marshall family went off on the first of many expeditions to the Kalahari Desert in South West Africa (now Namibia). Laurence Marshall assigned the jobs. Lorna Marshall (John's mother) was to do the ethnography, Elizabeth (now the well-known writer, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas) was to write a book, and John was to make the movies. On their second expedition they did indeed encounter a group of Bushmen living deep in the desert, who had had no direct contact with whites. They were still living by their ancient hunting and gathering ways. These Bushmen began a relationship with the Marshalls that continued through three generations.
John began working with a hand-held Bell and Howell camera and loads of Kodak film in 100-foot-rolls. The film came with a few instructions on how to make a movie, that and a shopping list of subject areas for anthropologists in the field was all John had as he launched what became a lifetime work; filming the Bushmen of the Kalahari. He was a teenager in 1950 and got captivated by hunting. John Marshall's first film THE HUNTERS (1957), which he shot from 1950-52, became a classic and enjoyed phenomenal success. It was shown in theaters, and was purchased by every major American and European university with a film collection. For many years John has repudiated THE HUNTERS on the grounds that it is an artistic creation, a product of his own imagination and that consequently, it misrepresents the real nature of the culture. Throughout his career he has used this to argue for a more meaningful collaboration between anthropology and documentary film.
The general stylistic principle guiding most of John Marshall's filmmaking has been cinema vérité, further elaborated by him with the concepts of "sequence" and "slot". He argues that his method and product are merely "reporting" and that true meaning comes from "immersing" the viewer in the ordinary life of the people through "sequences," snatches of reality. Given this strong commitment to what he sees as a scientific or journalistic endeavor, it is interesting that John's personal commitment to the Ju/hoansi (Bushmen) people and his views of how films may be used in development work on their behalf, are essentially humanistic, relativistic and, postmodern.
John Marshall continued his film documentation of the Ju/hoansi throughout the 1950's. Due in part to the political ramifications of apartheid, Marshall was not allowed to enter South Africa from the early 1960's and throughout much of the 1970's as his close relationship with the Bushmen was seen as a threat to the status quo. By 1960 John was working with D.A. Pennebaker and Ricky Leacock to further the development of cinéma vérité. By this time, Marshall was recognized as a gifted cameraman. He shot TITICUT FOLLIES for Fred Wiseman. Never one to shy away from danger, he went to work for NBC, shooting the civil war in Cyprus.
From 1969 to 1971 Marshall shot and produced his groundbreaking Pittsburgh Police Series. Seen against the background of the civil rights upheaval, filmed in gritty black and white, these films were precursors to such TV programs as Hill Street Blues and "reality" TV shows like Cops.
In 1978 Marshall returned to South Africa with a PBS crew to make the television movie N!ai, The Story of a !Kung Woman. After a nearly twenty- year absence he was shocked by the devastation of the people and culture he had recorded in his youth. At this point his film style changed. He lived and worked with the people he had previously filmed, throughout the 1980's and 1990's. While continuing to document events on film and later video, he became an advocate and political activist, with and for the subjects of his film. The work of John Marshall with the Ju/hoansi (Bushmen) continues today. A five part series for television, A KALAHARI FAMILY has been edited from the 2 million feet of 16mm film and thousands of hours of video tape that now comprise the Marshall/Africa archive. The original film materials were used to establish the Human Studies Film Archive at the Smithsonian Institution. A KALAHARI FAMILY can be seen at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts opening March 20th with an all day screening on Saturday March 22ndand repeat screenings till the end of the month.
Cynthia Close