Thick Inscription and the Unwitting Witness: Reading the Films of Alfred Haddon and Baldwin Spencer

Due to the ability of a cine-camera to record more than the filmmaker realizes at the moment of filming-a quality referred to here as "thick inscription"-it is often possible, many years later and in the light of subsequent comparative ethnography or changing historical circumstances, to reinterpret the ethnographic significance of film footage in terms that go well beyond those imagined by the original filmmaker. In the course of a detailed analysis of their films and in combination with a comparison of their filmmaking practices, this article will show how this principle applies to the work of Alfred Haddon and Baldwin Spencer, two of the most important early practitioners of ethnographic filmmaking. The article concludes with a brief appraisal of their cinematographic legacy. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.