Henry Glassie: Field Work, a feature-length documentary by Irish filmmaker Pat Collins, is an inspiring, beautifully crafted, and deeply meaningful portrait of renowned folklorist Henry Glassie. Meditative and evocative, it powerfully captures Glassie’s philosophy and approach to his life’s work and shines a spotlight on the creativity and excellence of extraordinary artists across the globe.
The film opens with an intimate close-up of Glassie’s face in profile. As the music draws the viewer in, we hear him speak eloquently of art as “the unity in being of the personal and social,” as creative acts that bring “a momentary fulfillment of what it is to be human.” This brief introduction sets the stage for what follows—an immersive journey to the places where Glassie has conducted fieldwork over the course of half a century—Brazil, Turkey, North Carolina, and Ireland—to meet the people who have been his great teachers, artists who have generously shared their knowledge, skills, values, and aspirations; individuals whom he deeply reveres and respects. “What I do is I don’t study people at all, I stand with people and study the things they create. That’s what interests me. What do they choose to present as emblems of their being.”
Taking his cue from Glassie, Pat Collins puts the artists and their creative process front and center. Through long, sustained shots of artists at work, the viewer is invited to experience Glassie’s ethnographic methods for ourselves, to watch attentively as potters, clay sculptors, woodcarvers, and metalsmiths lovingly create objects of beauty by hand.
Early in the film, we are transported to the workshop of clay sculptor Rosalvo Santanna in the village of Maragojipinho in Bahia, Brazil, to witness him craft a statue of the Virgin Mary. Slowly, patiently, the camera documents the process of creation as Santanna’s deft hands roll, pound, and shape the clay to make the statue’s long, flowing hair, undulating robe, and delicate hands and fingers. We see the artist’s face in calm concentration as he painstakingly works with different tools, taking care to get every detail exactly right. Perfectly lit and beautifully shot, there is an immediacy and intimacy that connects us with the maker and his artistry as the sculpture takes shape and moves to completion.
Throughout the entire scene the only sounds the viewer hears are the ambient sounds of place—the slapping and pounding of clay, children playing, a baby crying, people talking, roosters crowing—the sounds of the street, workshop, and home. It’s as if we are actually in the studio with Santanna in real time, silent observers, like Glassie, quietly, respectfully watching the artist at work, carefully absorbing key visual information as the artistic process slowly unfolds. It is a brilliant creative decision on the part of director Pat Collins. Indeed, throughout the film whenever artists are creating works of art there are no explanatory subtitles, except for the names of people and places, and no voiceover or on-camera commentary to interrupt the contemplative and absorbing flow of the work. What comes across is the immense skill and knowledge, the care, patience, and commitment that it takes to make beautiful things.
From the rural town of Maragojipinho we go to the coastal city of Salvador in Bahia. In one of the great sequences in the film, and there are many, we meet Edival and Izaura Rosas, masters of intricately carved and exquisitely painted wooden sculptures of religious figures. As Edival gazes reverently at the stunning statues that adorn the altar of a church, he shares what he considers to be his proudest artistic achievement—his efforts to faithfully recreate in spirit and skill two statues that were missing from a tableau on the altar of the four Evangelists, “following the marks” of the two remaining sculptures “so that the greatness of this early artist would flow through me.” Edival’s desire to honor and respect the hand of the original artist comes shining through. Later, as Izaura Rosas delicately applies gold leaf to a carved wooden sculpture in their atelier, she speaks of her deep love for her art, how each piece is an integral part of her life “like a child or a grandchild.” It is mesmerizing to hear these remarkable artists talk about what their work means to them, to discover, as Glassie underscores later in the film, what it is that they think is beautiful and good.
For the first part of the documentary, we glimpse only brief shots here and there of Henry Glassie and his wife, folklorist Pravina Shukla, speaking with artists, watching intently as they work, receiving hugs of warm greeting. Glassie takes a few photographs, he writes in his field notebook, but the focus remains firmly on the artists. It is not until forty-five minutes into the film, while still in Bahia, that we hear Glassie’s wise words, both on camera and as voiceover, as he shares his insights into what inspires individuals like Rosalvo Santanna and Edival Rosas to create excellent works of art and the influences that inform how they practice their craft. “Every community in the world has as a result of its social interactions a kind of agreement on what is beautiful,” he says. “I don’t think that the inner drive of the artist is different, it’s the circumstantial set that’s different.”
From these key thoughts on the centrality of circumstance and community context, Collins brings us from Brazil to Bloomington, Indiana, to learn about Glassie’s own personal journey and the early influences that shaped him and the work he does. As he writes at his desk in his study surrounded by pots, banjos, ceramic plates, and carpets—handmade objects redolent with memory and meaning—Glassie tells of his formative years listening to his grandmother’s stories of local history and watching his grandfather craft beautiful pieces of furniture out of wood, experiences that instilled in him an abiding interest in the history of place and a passion for artistic process. We hear how he was first drawn to folklore as a young man by his love of the traditional music of the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, a love that quickly blossomed into a wider interest in people and their cultural expressions, whether manifested in farming practices, old architecture, or crafts.
During this engaging scene, Glassie unpacks the underlying principles and ideas, the protocols and practices, that motivate and guide his research. “The kind of ethnographic work I do requires a long time in place,” he says. His goal is to get to know a community and its people well, to gain “an understanding of their excellence.” As he speaks, Collins skillfully weaves together images of Glassie’s extensive fieldwork documentation—hand drawn maps, field notes, drawings, photographs of people and their art—interspersed with interview footage of Glassie on camera. These well-chosen visuals, paired with revelatory words, powerfully enhance the viewer’s understanding of Glassie’s fieldwork methods and goals—his “ethnographic quest.” We marvel at the remarkable breadth and depth of his endeavors, his careful documentation, the rigor of his research. “What I want to know about any community is what they think is good,” he says. “The entirety of my art, my science, is to learn how to adjust to their view.”
The film continues on its journey to document inspiring individuals creating art, taking us to Turkey, North Carolina, and Ireland. Along the way, Collins follows Glassie’s protocol of beginning with a sense of place, starting each scene with beautiful establishing shots of the local environment—the rolling hills and mountains of Appalachia; the fields, streams, and country lanes of Ballymenone, Ireland; the workshops and wood-fired kilns of master potters in the Piedmont region of North Carolina; the mountain villages of skilled weavers in Turkey. In places like Ireland and Turkey, where Glassie conducted decades of fieldwork years ago, Collins expertly edits together maps, photographs, archival footage, and audio recordings into evocative scenes that vividly capture community life and art. In Ballymenone, field recordings of stories, songs, and music, coupled with photographic portraits, bring Glassie’s cherished mentors Hugh Nolan and Peter Flanagan to life as they share their knowledge and wisdom. In Kütahya, Turkey, archival film footage of Glassie interacting in the Turkish language with ceramic masters Ahmet Sahin and Mehmet Gürsoy conveys the mutual respect and close bonds of friendship they share with each other.
An absorbing concluding montage of artists in the process of making reunites viewers with the talented individuals we have met over the course of the documentary: superb potters Daniel Johnston, Kate Johnston, and Mark Hewitt shape clay into awe-inspiring pots in North Carolina; Turkish weavers at their looms weave strikingly designed carpets; clay sculptor Rosalvo Santanna, woodcarver Edival Rosas, painter Izaura Rosas, and metal sculptor Samuel Rodrigues create sacred art in Brazil—all of them working with passion and devotion towards excellence.
Masterfully directed by Pat Collins and exquisitely filmed by Colm Hogan, Henry Glassie: Field Work is a triumph—a tangible and lasting work of beauty that honors, through its own fine craftsmanship, the tremendous artistry of the individuals it features, and brings to a wide audience the critically important work and art of folklorist Henry Glassie.
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[Review length: 1516 words • Review posted on February 11, 2022]