Henry Glassie: Field Work by Pat Collins (review)

While not a conventional biopic, Henry Glassie: Field Work, a feature-length documentary from Irish filmmaker Pat Collins, traces the trajectory of folklorist Henry Glassie's fieldwork through vignettes of his "collaborators" at work. I use the term "collaborator" rather than the more commonly used "informant" to align with Glassie's own description of the nature of his relationship to the artists he works with, as "standing with them in the study of their own creations." The film is a quiet piece that mimics certain aspects of the fieldwork process itself—long hours sitting with a camera, documenting the process of making: the performance of the art form. Though it is unclear why Collins chose to separate the words "field" and "work" in the title, this is a film about what we can learn through the practice of fieldwork.

For folklorists familiar with the written works of Glassie or his partner, Pravina Shukla, the artists and pieces included in the documentary will be familiar. Some of the quotes read by Glassie serve as folkloric Easter eggs pulled directly from the pages of his books. For lay viewers, they are thoughtful words from a thoughtful scholar of art and material culture that beautifully frame each section. Collins opens the film with an oft-cited quote from The Stars of Ballymenone:

That inescapable complexity, the unity in being of the personal and the social, is at its peak made sensate in the creative acts that allow us to be ourselves, to communicate, to connect with others, and build within the social alliances of mutual benefit. Call it art—call it folklore—but that's what it is: a momentary fulfillment of what it is to be human.

(Glassie [2006] 2016:415)

From there, opening titles contextualize Glassie's fieldwork endeavors and publications. Quotes like this, and there are several, give audiences unfamiliar with Glassie's books—and the field of folklore itself—an understanding of one of Glassie's core philosophies: the importance of viewing art in terms of its cultural context and the relative nature of beauty.

Like the argument Glassie makes toward the end of the film about the nature of history in community, the story of his fieldwork is told out of temporal order. We begin in Maragogipinho, Bahia, Brazil, one of the locations of his most recent publications with Shukla. We end in Ballymenone, Ireland, where one of his earlier ethnographic projects took place. Additional locations include Kütahya, Turkey; Bloomington, Indiana; and the Piedmont and Appalachian regions of North Carolina, representing a wide range of creative endeavors such as pottery, painting, rug weaving, Appalachian mountain music, printmaking, and woodcarving. In each location, Collins provides striking shots of place—buildings, geography, daily life—followed by extended shots of people at work in their homes and studios. Collins' 2017 film Song of Granite shares the same slow pacing, ebbing and moody soundtrack, and pensive tone. The artful, tight shots of hands and faces are all hallmarks of his style and provide a certain intimacy.

This film is not an overt biography of Glassie. Neither is it a guide for doing fieldwork. The viewer is given glimpses into Glassie's academic training and work with mentors like Fred Kniffen and Paul Clayton, but the main focus of the film is the idea behind ethnographic documentation of art and people. This emphasis is furthered by Glassie's inclusion of one of his mentors in his books about Ballymenone: Hugh Nolan, a local storyteller and vernacular historian. The guiding quotes from Glassie illuminate the theoretical grounding of his work as a folklorist. In elucidating his own folkloristic orientation, he provides a framework for understanding both culture work and art in general.

This is also not a documentary about the featured artists as individual creators. We do not learn about their histories, their teachers, or their emic perspective on their craft. We see them make art and, as a result, are able to understand their...