Historical and Sociological Aspects of Documental Pictures

Abstract

Although the history of film begins with non-fictional recordings of everyday life, in comparison with classical Hollywood movies, documental films are underrepresented in scientific research. This is true not only of film and media studies but, with some exceptions, sociology and the humanities. So far, both disciplines lack a systematic examination of documental film as regards form and style as well as regarding insights it might provide into the (audio)visual reproduction of social and historical truths. Since the invention of film, only ethnography and visual anthropology have used it as an important methodological tool of social and cultural observation and have discussed its role as such at any length (see Schandlinger 2006, 350). In this context, the social scientist becomes the filmmaker and has to deal with the requirements and demands of film production (see Kurt 2010) without, however, claiming to be a »cinematic artist.« And in general, these are commonly called scientific or sociological films (see Reichert 2007; Kaczmarek 2008; as well as Schnettler in this issue). However, aside from analyses of film as a method, the relevance of documental pictures, from a sociological and a historical perspective, to public cultures of communication and media is often neglected (see Heinze 2012a). Even though there is some overlapping of visual anthropology and film as a method with public cultures of communication and media, there are still some very important differences regarding the goals of these distinct conditions of production.