Studies in Visual Communication Volume 2 Issue 2 Fall 1975 Article 5 1975 Cinéma Naïveté: A Study of Home Moviemaking as Visual Communication Richard Chalfen Recommended Citation Chalfen, R. (1975). Cinéma Naïveté: A Study of Home Moviemaking as Visual Communication. 2 (2), 87-103. Retrieved from https://repository.upenn.edu/svc/vol2/iss2/5 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/svc/vol2/iss2/5 For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Cinéma Naïveté: A Study of Home Moviemaking as Visual Communication This contents is available in Studies in Visual Communication: https://repository.upenn.edu/svc/vol2/iss2/5 CINEMA NA.iVETE: A STUDY OF HOME MOVIEMAKING AS VISUAL COMMUNICATION 1 RICHARD CHALFEN In comparison with other types of films, home movies are stereotypically !hought of as films of everyday life, of com monplace family activities, of life around the house, and the like. At face value, such films seem to be extremely rich in Those home movies on TV_:_~ore bombshells to come? ethnographic data, and as such, should be valued by social scientists as native views of initimate realities. 2 One objective Figure 7 of this paper is to examine this proposition as data about the problematic relationship between the symbolic reality of the home movie medium, the stated cultural and technical pre behavior organized within social and cultural contexts. Be scriptions about its use, and the reality of everyday life. A ~aviors surrounding filmmaking are understood as promoted, related objective is to better understand the notion of l1mited, or restricted primarily by social norms rather than as symbolic manipulation as it applies to one genre of film com limitations primarily imposed by psychological or technical munication-namely, home movies.