ABSTRACT

Although human beings always have been prime subjects for the cameraman, social scientists have, on the whole, been the last to recognize the research potential of films. Film can provide the data for a systematic world ethnography and for the systematic study of social interaction, but until recently it has been little used for these purposes. Excellent collections of films do exist, such as those in the Musée de l’Homme and in the Institut für den Wissenschaftlichen Film at Göttingen, but their function in science has been illustrative and supplementary rather than central and hypothesis-producing. Even the collection of film has been neglected by those whose studies it might best serve.