Craig Johnson

Abstract

Craig Johnson was the “third man” in what has become one of the legendary ethnographic adventures and bodies of ethnographic cinema: the series of films about the indigenous Yanomamö living in the highland jungles of southern Venezuela, produced by anthropologists Napoleon Chagnon and Timothy Asch. Johnson, who took sound for the canonical The Ax Fight (1974) and other Yanomamö films, and edited some of them, had never spoken publicly about his involvement in and thoughts about his early filmmaking adventure, until this interview. In the years following his disenchantment with the Yanomamö project, Johnson worked on various films and now, through his Interpret Green, develops and constructs interactive installations for museums.