When comparing the early filmmakers Promio and Kahn, we bring up the age-old, ever-present debate of cinematic intention and whether it matters. Both claimed to capture foreign cultures objectively, both embarked on their international fillmmaking travels for with different intentions. Promio (there were many filmmakers who did this at the time but we will use him as a specific example) wanted to capture these foreign cultures and bring the footage back to France for both the advancement of cinema but also financial reasons. These travel films were a hit with audiences, selling them a vision of a world they wouldn’t otherwise be able to see, so these films continued to be made because there was now an audience demand, an audience willing to pay. Additionally Promio sold the Lumierè film equipment to wealthy elites in these foreign cultures he visited. There was the more altruistic intention of the advancement of film, pushing the boundaries of what film could capture and expanding the bounds of the medium beyond Paris.

Comparatively, Kahn began filming these cultures with “the goal of which was nothing less than to make an exhaustive visual survey of the small indigenous cultures existing on Earth before their unavoidable disappearance.” (Werner 441) The motivations were not financial, as proven by the fact that the archive caused Kahn to go bankrupt but also proven by the fact that he donated money in the form of scholarships to help students study abroad. While the reading states that Kahn “believed that peace between nations could be achieved through a better understanding between people from different cultures” there is a critical difference between understanding cultures in a way that views and respects them as an equal, and understanding them in a way that exoticizes and tokenizes them. The article does not claim to make a definitive answer to which it is, but it doesn’t even address the potential difference.

While Promio’s films brought these cultures to Paris, they were viewed with novelty and marvel, the same way an animal might be viewed at a zoo. These films were made knowing that these people were fascinating because they were different and the films served to otherize these cultures. From what the reading says about Kahn, I am likely to believe that his intentions were pure and scholarly, but it is simply the nature of an outsider recording a culture to otherize them. If the members of this culture has been giving the film equipment and artistic freedom to record themselves, Kahn’s archives would have been a much more valuable and well-rounded resource for truly knowing these cultures instead of documenting how the French viewed these cultures.