ABSTRACT
For anthropologists, films have been used to document and transmit information about human behavior since the late nineteenth century. Collaboration between filmmakers and anthropologists has produced films that highlight ethnographic information; some focus first on the medium as an artistic form in itself. Interestingly, ethnomusicologists did not systematically adopt film as a research tool nor focus on the production of ethnographic films until considerably later. It was not until the 1960s that film began to be widely adopted for use in ethnomusicological fieldwork, and its techniques, roles, and purposes have been debated in the scholarly literature during the years following that period. 1
Today, film and video are used regularly in ethnomusicological teaching and research to aid in understanding performance practice as well as musical and social behavior. Documentary films, and especially film or video footage, are used in the classroom to communicate information on musical instruments, dance choreography, individual musicians, relationships among performers, and relationships between music and the physical landscape. They are important tools for communicating concepts and presenting alternative points of view of subjects connected to areas typically covered in ethnomusicological classes.
