Untitled - Memorial University of Newfoundland

analogous to the Hymesian sociolinguistic project. but \\ith a difference. I
Ifwe deconstruct certain films, which members ofspecific cultural communities
have produced. and examine the ways in which those films are then reincotporated back
into their respective communities., then we have made a crncial step toward understanding
cinema from the '"folk" perspective. that is. approaching an emic, or insider's,
understanding. lfthese films have meanings different for group members than they do for
outsiders experiencing the films, as suggested by Jansen's esoteric-exoteric factor in
folklore (Jansen: passim), then the deconstruction ofthe film texts needs a methodology
that elucidates a range ofemic and etic readings. What this thesis asks is whether one can
enter a community's woridview and describe the cultural vitality ofthat community by
means of the group's popular cinema
In this first chapter. a survey ofthe existing literature on folklon: and popular
cinema. I begin with a discussion ofthe methodologies and approaches that folklorists
have utilized when discussing the feature film. and the problems inherent in those
approaches. Then I discuss how film Studies. as a discipline. approaches the issue of
ethnic popular cinema. This current work refletts the juxtaposition of these two
I Nor is this project exclusively limited to cultural differences in cognitive perception. I
had originally intended to focus this work with much more textural analysis. along the
lines ofthe WoMb and Adair project. But the data generated with the Jewish
communities [ was working with did not allow for such textural analysis to be done.
Working from a ground up approach. as this project demands. I limited myself to those
aspects ofcultw'e that were salient to the communities t studied. That being said. I begin
to address some textural issues in Chapter Six with my discussion ofcoding.