Cinéma vérité

By 1960s: Days of Rage on June 30, 2024

"Cinéma vérité (... French: lit. truth cinema; 'truthful cinema') is a style of documentary filmmaking developed by Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch, inspired by Dziga Vertov's theory about Kino-Pravda. It combines improvisation with use of the camera to unveil truth or highlight subjects hidden behind reality. It is sometimes called observational cinema, if understood as pure direct cinema: mainly without a narrator's voice-over. There are subtle, yet important, differences between terms expressing similar concepts. Direct cinema is largely concerned with the recording of events in which the subject and audience become unaware of the camera's presence: operating within what Bill Nichols, an American historian and theoretician of documentary film, calls the 'observational mode', a fly on the wall. Many therefore see a paradox in drawing attention away from the presence of the camera and simultaneously interfering in the reality it registers when attempting to discover a cinematic truth. The camera is always acknowledged, for it performs the act of filming real objects, people, and events in a confrontational way. The filmmaker's intention was to represent the truth as objectively as possible, freeing the viewer from deceptions in how those aspects of life were formerly presented to them. From this perspective, the filmmaker should be the catalyst of a situation. Few agree on the meanings of these terms, even the filmmakers whose films are being described. Pierre Perrault sets situations up and then films them, for example in Pour la suite du monde (1963) where he asked old people to fish for whale. The result is not a documentary about whale fishing; it is about memory and lineage. In this sense cinéma vérité is concerned with anthropological cinema, and with the social and political implications of what is captured on film. How a filmmaker shoots a film, what is being filmed, what to do with what was filmed, and how that film will be presented to an audience, all were very important for filmmakers of the time. In all cases, the ethical and aesthetic analysis of documentary form (see docufiction) of the 1950s and 1960s has to be linked with a critical look at post-war propaganda analysis. This type of cinema is concerned with notions of truth and reality in film. Feminist documentary films of the 1970s often used cinéma-vérité techniques. This sort of 'realism' was criticized for its deceptive pseudo-natural construction of reality. Edgar Morin coined the term around the time of such essential films as 1960's Primary and his own 1961 collaboration with Jean Rouch, Chronicle of a Summer. ..."
Wikipedia
PBS - Cinema Verite: The Movement of Truth (Video)
The Birth and Legacy of Cinema Verité
Criterion: Cinema Verité
YouTube: What is Cinema Vérité?, Direct Cinema: A Visual Essay, How Cinéma Vérité Changed Hollywood Forever