Children as Scientific Actors:

In 1947 a new international journal was founded in Paris: the Revue internationale de filmologie, journal of the new science of filmology. Filmology investigated cinema’s pervasive effects on individuals and society through scientific inquiry, mobilizing experts across the human sciences. Children gained an important place in the journal. In this article, I explore the child’s role as scientific actor in this interdisciplinary research constellation of the postwar period. I examine how children’s perspectives on film were elicited through observation and measurement, questionnaires, and their participation as actors in scientific films or other filmmaking roles. Studying filmology from the perspectives of history of science and history of childhood, I focus on questions of agency and activity. In filmology, activity and passivity in film experience became central research concerns, as scientists sought to understand and counter the passivity strongly associated with cinema.