Welcome to Litsy!

Imagine a society that exists solely in cinema � this book explores exactly that. Using a half-century of films from the archival collection of the National Film Board, NFB Kids: Portrayals of Children by the National Film Board of Canada, 1939-1989 overcomes a long-standing impasse about what films may be credibly said to document. Here they document not �reality,� but social images preserved over time � the �NFB Society� � an evolving, cinematic representation of Canadian families, schools and communities. During the postwar era, this society-in-cinema underwent a profound change in its child rearing and schooling philosophies, embracing �modern� notions based upon principles espoused by the American mental hygiene movement. Soon after the introduction of these psychological principles into NFB homes in 1946 and schools in 1956, there was a subtle transformation in adult-child relations, which progressively, over time, narrowed the gulf of power between generations and diminished the socializing roles of the NFB parents and teachers. NFB Kids is a pioneering study within a new field of academic research � �cinema ethnography.� It adds to the growing body of knowledge about the function, and the considerable impact of, psychiatry and psychology in the post-war social reconstruction of Canadian society and social history. It will be of interest to academics over a broad spectrum of disciplines and to anyone thinking about the advancing arbitrary power of the cinematic state.