Harvard-Peabody Expedition. Robert Gardner and Karl Heider's book Gardens of War detailed the filmmaking and aspects of Dani culture relating to the film's themes . A recent work by Gardner and Charles Warren described the making of this film. Karl G. Heider authored The Dani of West Irian: an Ethnographic Companion to the Film Dead Birds, ethnographic monographs, and film shorts. Peter Matthiessen separately wrote about the Dugum Dani and Baliem Valley in his book Under the Mountain Wall: a Chronicle of Two Seasons in the Stone Age. Background Dead Birds reflects the concerns of anthropology emergent by the early 1960s relating to the practice of warfare in non-state level societies. The film also fits the-then dominant paradigm of structural-functionalism that emphasized demonstrating how diverse characteristics fit into the larger pattern of the culture. Dead Birds has been taken to exemplify the approach of anthropological holism as it knits together small and seemingly insignificant moments and actions, with those of great cultural significance. Release The film was first shown at an evening meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences held at the Cohen Arts Center at Tufts University, Boston, on Nov. 13, 1963. It was first distributed by Contemporary Films located at 267 West 25th Street, New York, NY. Reception Since the film's release, some reviewers have praised filmmaker Gardner's presentation as poetic and cinematographic, while others have criticized it as lacking a clear scientific and ethnographic focus. Reviewers have frequently remarked on its evocation of a Dani fable and its supporting shots of birds. The most-noted visual is the long take of a bird soaring over the Baliem Valley that is the film's establishing shot. Reviewers point out that the film foregrounds Dugum Dani understandings of the world. Others complained that the film gave short shrift to data on the culture such as the kinship system and food production. Though stylistically impressive, Dead Birds has been criticized with respect to its authenticity. The characters who speak in the film are never subtitled, and even then the voice itself is not always what it seems. What the audience perceives as Weyak's voice is actually a post-filming dub of Karl G. Heider speaking Dani. Gardner himself did not speak Dani, and so all his interpretations of events are second-hand. The battle sequences are made up of many shots taken during different battles and stitched together to give the appearance