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INTERDISCIPLINARY CASE STUDY: Cinéma vérité 真實電影

• Interdisciplinary practice involves the transfer of knowledge from one discipline onto another.

• Sometimes the transfer is two-way, so that both disciplines are changed as a result.

• Today, we will consider one example.

• The interdisciplinary combination of cinema and anthropology 人类学 led to the development of a new discipline, ethnographic cinema. – Ethnography is a branch of anthropology that studies

the culture of groups of people. – It has been applied in many other fields, such as

business studies, game studies, cultural studies, and media theory.

• We will focus today on two filmmakers who have

integrated ethnography and cinema.

INTRODUCTION: THE FILMMAKERS Section zero

JEAN ROUCH (1917-2004) 让 鲁什

French Filmmaker and Anthropologist 人类学家.

JEAN ROUCH (1917-2004) • Influenced by modern art (surrealism) and jazz. • Trained as a civil engineer. • Became interested in African culture while working as an engineer in

Africa (mainly Niger) in the 1940s. • Encouraged to study African culture by anthropologist Marcel Griaule. • 1953: Ph.D. in anthropology from the Sorbonne University.

Rouch described documentary cinema as both “art and research”.

Jean Rouch, Cine-Ethnography, p. 273.

Edgar Morin (born Nahoum, 1921-) 埃德加 莫林

• Trained as a sociologist. • His work is highly trans-disciplinary. • Focuses on the study of systems and complexity.

• After Rouch made several films about Africa, Morin convinced him to apply ethnographic methods to people in his own country, France.

Rouch and Morin worked together in the film Chronicle of a Summer (1960) about everyday life in Paris. The film began an interdisciplinary tendency in cinema known as Cinéma vérité.

TWO DIRECTIONS IN DOCUMENTARY CINEMA: DIRECT CINEMA VS. CINÉMA-VÉRITÉ

Part One

• It is important to mark a distinction between Direct Cinema and Cinéma vérité.

• Direct Cinema and Cinéma vérité are both different from mainstream documentaries.

MAINSTREAM DOCUMENTARY • Mainstream documentary often has a voice of authority

(a narrator’s voice-over). • This voice is supposed to be authoritative. • It addresses the audience. • It supplies background information (exposition). • It also imparts the values or themes of the

documentary. • The body of the speaker is often not shown on

screen.

MAINSTREAM DOCUMENTARY

• The authority figure is at times shown on the screen. • This approach is typical of television documentaries.

MAINSTREAM DOCUMENTARY

• In addition, mainstream documentary uses the technique of talking heads.

• Experts, witnesses, or group representatives that express their opinions, often shown in medium shot or medium close-up, against a neutral background.

MAINSTREAM DOCUMENTARY

• Pretends to bring the truth to the audience.

ALTERNATIVES TO MAINSTREAM DOCUMENTARY

There are two kinds of alternative documentary that reject this approach. 1. Direct Cinema 直接電影

Filmmakers: Richard Leacock, the Maysles Brothers, Robert Drew, D. A. Pennabaker, Barbara Kopple

2. Cinéma vérité 真實電影 Filmmakers: Jean Rouch, Edgar Morin

Direct Cinema vs. Cinéma vérité • Similarities:

– Both DC and CV take advantage of very light camera and sound equipment to move as freely as possible around everyday life situations.

– Little or no use of a voice of authority or traditional talking heads.

Both avoid the use of professional actors.

Main difference between DC and CV

• Direct cinema 直接電影 takes a “fly on the wall” approach: – The people being recorded should

become unaware of the camera. – The film crew is supposed to

behave as a “fly on the wall”, observing without being noticed.

– This approach is sometimes called observational cinema.

– The filmmakers should not interfere with the actions of the people being recorded.

• The “fly on the wall” approach is sometimes called observational cinema.

• Pennabaker shooting Don’t Look Back.

Example of Direct Cinema: Salesman (Maysles Brothers, 1969)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXxZnL5HokA

Many direct cinema films try to remain neutral, but sometimes filmmakers take sides in a social conflict. Harlan County, USA (Barbara Kopple, 1976)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwFiPa20AuU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLkT7z0C5Bc

Primary (Robert Drew, 1960)

DIRECT CINEMA 直接電影 SUMMARY

1. No (or very little) voice of authority. 2. No (or very few) talking heads. 3. Free mobility in everyday life situations 4. Observational (fly on the wall approach). 5. Non-interference on the lives of the people

being observed.

HONG KONG EXAMPLE • Tammy Cheung 張虹 makes documentaries about

Hong Kong and China influenced by Direct Cinema.

DIRECT CINEMA: TAMMY CHEUNG

• Created the Visible Record organization to promote the distribution, exhibition, and discussion of documentary films. http://www.visiblerecord.com/main/?lang=en

• Village Middle School 農村初中 by Tammy Cheung https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0idmnuH7muU&index=3&list=PL7F80EA63BE1B9345

Note: • Many documentaries are not pure examples

of direct cinema. – They do include some traditional interviews and

voice-over.

DIRECT CINEMA: CHINA EXAMPLES 中国市长The Chinese Mayor • Dir: 周浩 Zhou Hao

– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzynBeI15U4

• Received a Special Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival for “unparalleled access”.

• “Mayor Geng Yanbo is determined to transform the coal-mining center of Datong, in China’s Shanxi province, into a tourism haven showcasing clean energy. In order to achieve that, however, he has to relocate 500,000 residences to make way for the restoration of the ancient city.”

• Source: http://www.sundance.org/blogs/news/2015-sundance-film-festival-announces-feature-film-awards

DIRECT CINEMA: CHINA EXAMPLES 老年男女 Mr. Jia and His Friends • Dir: 訾瀚 Zi Han

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooMq6PEi2Y0急診 Emergency Room China • Dir: 周浩 Zhou Hao 书记 The Transition Period • Dir: 周浩 Zhou Hao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_0blieSP80 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeXjGAPsgjQ

• Before we continue, think about this:

• Do you believe it is possible for a filmmaker to become a fly on the wall and observe without being noticed?

• Is it possible for a filmmaker to avoid interfering with the people being recorded?

Cinéma vérité 真實電影 disagrees with the fly-on-the-wall approach

Our discussion will focus on the film Chronicle of a Summer 夏日纪事 (1960, Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin) as a landmark example of Cinéma vérité

Criticism of Direct Cinema by Cinéma vérité

Cinéma vérité disagrees with the fly-on-the-wall approach: It is an illusion to pretend that the filmmakers can play the role of a fly on the wall, observing without being noticed. People are always aware of the camera and the filmmakers. When the filmmakers try to discover the truth, they will always interfere with and so change the lives of the people being recorded. For instance, people will become conscious of the camera and perform for it.

Criticism of Direct Cinema by Cinéma vérité

Most people develop everyday hide that hide the truth like a mask.

The fly on the wall can only see the surface mask. Direct cinema only focuses on the superficial behavior of people.

• Cinema Verite rejects the fly on the wall approach. • The filmmaker should not just observe and try to become

invisible. • Instead, the filmmaker should interact with the people to

discover what is behind their everyday masks.

• They often ask questions and intervene actively to disturb the ordinary behavior of the subjects in the film.

• In Direct cinema, the filmmakers often hide themselves from the audience.

• In cinéma vérité, the filmmakers are often seen on camera and do not pretend to be invisible, like a fly on the wall.

The filmmakers created artificial situations on purpose to extract a deeper or unconscious truth. The people would sometimes play the role of interviewers and ask questions to other people (e.g., “Are you happy?”).

The filmmaker actively interferes with the lives of

the people.

• In Chronicle of a Summer, the filmmakers organized a meal to bring people of different races together.

• The aim was to show what different people think about race.

• The aim is to bring to the surface the thoughts, values, and desires of the people.

• Role-playing is sometimes used in CV. to break down everyday routine and penetrate into a deeper or unconscious reality.

• By playing roles or performing artificial tasks, “that which is hidden

or repressed comes to the surface”. • The borderline between documentary and fiction becomes blurred:

fictional methods are used to reach a deeper truth.

Jean Rouch, Cine-Ethnography, p. 232.

• The filmmakers show sections of the film to the people being filmed, asking them to comment on themselves and each other.

• This discussion is then recorded and added to the film.

Jean Rouch highlighted the idea of participation. Cinema is a means of direct communication between the filmmaker and the people being researched.

Jean Rouch: “Film is the only means I have to show someone else how I see him” so “the participating camera” gives the researcher the “possibility of direct communication with the group he studies”.

Jean Rouch, Cine-Ethnography, p. 43.

• He introduced the concept of shared anthropology. • He showed the footage to the people being filmed and

asked for their reaction: – He showed them how he saw them, and asked them

whether or not they recognized themselves in those images.

– Their feedback then influenced the final film.

• The people being studied are not simply objects being recorded but active collaborators of the filmmaker with a voice of their own.

• Filmmaking becomes a dialogue with other people or other cultures.

• In Chronicle of a Summer, Jean Rouch invited participants to view the film in progress and comment on how they see themselves and one another.

• Rouch emphasized shared anthropology: cinema is dialogue and communication rather than a monologue with only one voice.

POWER AND DOCUMENTARY

• Documentary often involves power relations. • The filmmaker is in control whereas the

people being studied often become objects without power.

• Instead, Cinéma vérité attempts to enhance dialogue and participation.

TIP FOR YOUR PROJECT

• Show the people you are studying sections of your documentary and encourage them to discuss how they see themselves, one another, and their situations.

• Do not think of yourself as a figure of authority

who has all the answers.

• Spend time trying to get to know the people you are studying, and try to participate in their lives.

• The filmmakers do not just hide behind the camera.

• They show themselves on camera. • They do not just observe the people under

study but also interact with them.

• During discussions, the filmmakers raise the question about the degree to which their work has captured the truth about people’s lives.

• They often express doubts and uncertainty about their own knowledge.

• They are always self-critical, raising questions about their own methods and results.

• Perhaps truth is not a result that can be attained but an ongoing process that must always be criticized and can never be taken for granted.

• This point shows another key disagreement between cinéma vérité and direct cinema.

• Direct cinema is not explicitly self-critical. – No questions are raised about the filmmakers

themselves and the possibility of knowledge. • Cinéma vérité is often self-critical.

– It often raises questions about the possibility of knowledge.

IMPORTANT POINT

• One of the most interesting directions for interdisciplinary art involves raising questions about the nature of knowledge and the pursuit of truth.

Cinéma vérité raises questions about the

philosophy of knowledge.

1. What is the relationship between the observer and the observed?

– Is it possible to observe anything without affecting it?

– Is it possible for the scientist to achieve non-interference?

2. How do we reach the truth? – Should we just observe everyday behavior? – Should we instead interfere with everyday life to

reach a deeper truth?

The two filmmakers who made Chronicle of a Summer discuss these philosophical issues. They ask the question “What is truth?”

• Whereas mainstream documentaries try to give the audience clear-cut answers, cinéma vérité filmmakers ask questions and pose problems.

• The filmmakers often discuss the problems that they face in making the film.

"There are two ways to conceive of the cinema of the Real: the first is to pretend that you can present reality to be seen; the second is to pose the problem of reality. In the same way, there were two ways to conceive cinéma vérité. The first was to pretend that you brought truth. The second was to pose the problem of truth.“

Edgar Morin The first method belongs to Direct Cinema. Only the second method is proper cinéma vérité.

• One of the most interesting directions for interdisciplinary work involves asking questions about the nature of knowledge.

• These issues arise not only in documentary cinema but in other areas of knowledge.

• They are transdisciplinary questions.

TIP FOR YOUR PROJECT

• Do not assume that you know all the answers and that you will communicate conclusions to the audience.

• Discuss or highlight the problems involved in acquiring knowledge and in making your documentary project. – For instance, if you are not sure how to start or end

the film, show all of your possible beginnings or endings and shoot yourself explaining your doubts.

– Let the audience be aware of the process. – Encourage the audience to raise questions about, and

perhaps even challenge, your own work.

• Cinéma vérité filmmakers often theorize their own practice explicitly.

• The dialogue between theory and practice is very important to them.

• Cinéma vérité always involves all of the following: 1. Observation 2. Intervention 3. Theorization

• These three aspects are not separate but inter-related.

– Filmmakers observe by making interventions. – Their theories influence how they observe and intervene. – Their observations and interventions then change their theories.

CONCLUSION

• Direct Cinema filmmakers take a purely observational, fly-on-the-wall approach based on non-interference.

• Cinéma vérité intervenes in the lives of the people being portrayed in order to probe beyond the surface and raises self-critical questions that challenge the possibility of knowledge and explicitly connect theory and practice.

TIP FOR YOUR PROJECT

• Encourage the people you are studying to participate in the process of making the film.

• Create special situations where their values, desires, emotions, and thoughts can emerge.

• Do not be afraid to show yourself on camera interacting with them. – Always think about and be aware of the ways you

interact with the people your are studying.

NOTE

• Sometimes the term “Cinéma vérité” is used to describe both Direct Cinema and Cinéma vérité.

• Different people use these words in different ways.

• In practice, the borderline between the two terms is not clear-cut.

• Direct Cinema and Cinéma vérité influenced one another.

• Sometimes, direct cinema techniques are used in cinéma vérité projects.

• Even in chronicle of a Summer. the filmmakers sometimes encourage people to ignore the camera.

• Both direct cinema and Cinéma vérité sometimes use voice-over and talking heads.

• This lecture has exaggerated the differences between these two methods, to make the distinction clearer, sharper, and more precise.

• In your assignments, feel free to combine aspects from both methods.

• You are also welcome to use other methods, such as for instance found footage.

• Using 龙哥 (director: Zhou Hao周浩 ) • Chinese documentary that employs both Direct Cinema

and Cinema Verite methods, although it is perhaps mostly a direct cinema work.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoAVqUzZSS0

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxZYXYcZOrE

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMyNiXEBrOU

• The following section is optional, and might not be covered in class.

• It describes some older films that inspired Cinéma vérité.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND TO CINÉMA VÉRITÉ AND DIRECT CINEMA

Optional material

Background to Cinéma vérité

Cinéma vérité was inspired by several tendencies in classical documentary cinema, including: 1. Ethnographic cinema (participant

observation): Robert Flaherty 2. Cine-Eye or Cine-Truth: Dziga Vertov 3. Total Research Investigation: Marcel Griaule

Background to Cinéma vérité

1. Ethnographic cinema (participant observation): Robert Flaherty

2. Cine-Eye or Cine-Truth: Dziga Vertov 3. Total Research Investigation: Marcel Griaule

Participant observation • A method of qualitative data collection in ethnography. • The researcher aims to be accepted by and become

familiar with the community being studied. • The research process often takes a long time. • The researcher takes active part in the life of the

group, acquiring the necessary skills to take part in some daily activities.

ROBERT FLAHERTY

• American filmmaker Robert Flaherty (1884-1951) applied the method of participant observation to documentary cinema.

• Film: Nanook of the North (1922)

• Spent a year among the Inuit people of Hudson’s Bay before shooting them on film.

• Built a small lab on site to develop the film and show it to the people who were recorded.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4kOIzMqso0

• In many of Flaherty’s documentary films, there was not a definite script.

• The organization and content of the film evolved through conversations among the filmmakers and with the participants themselves.

• Excerpt from Flaherty’s film Louisiana Story (1948): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efCDe-ZH-Dk

Background to Cinéma vérité

1. Ethnographic cinema (participant observation): Robert Flaherty.

2. Cine-Eye or Cine-Truth: Dziga Vertov 3. Total Research Investigation: Marcel Griaule

Dziga Vertov

• The French term “cinema verite” is a translation of the Russian Kino-Pravda or Cinema-Truth.

• The term was invented by Soviet documentary filmmaker Dizga Vertov.

• Vertov explored his

ideas about documentary in the film Man With a Movie Camera.

CINEMA-EYE and CINEMA-TRUTH

• Dziga Vertov’s method

1. Bring the camera to the street and shoot real people:

– Shooting film in the middle of life itself, without a fictional script. .

2. Use both camera technology and montage to: – Actively reveal unseen patterns and connections, – invisible to the naked eye, – capable of going beyond superficial impressions.

• According to Vertov, the filmmaker must not focus on expressing her/his own inner world.

• The filmmaker must go out and explore the world with the aid of technology.

According to Vertov, the camera is an eye: But more perfect that the naked human eye. It helps us to see what we could not otherwise see.

Man with a Movie Camera (1929, Dziga Vertov). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z97Pa0ICpn8

Background to Cinéma vérité

1. Ethnographic cinema (participant observation): Robert Flaherty.

2. Cine-Eye or Cine-Truth: Dziga Vertov 3. Total Research Investigation: Marcel Griaule

“Total research investigation”.

• Marcel Mauss (French sociologist and anthropologist) asked his students to record everything around them.

• Social research and cinema were closely connected, since cinema became a medium of social research.

• Good environment for interdisciplinarity.

• Mauss believed that cinema is an excellent medium for documenting the motion patterns of the human body in different cultures.

• He emphasized the possibility of using the cinema to investigate the “techniques of the body”” how people move in daily life.

His student Marcel Griaule used film and photography to record the Dogon ethnic group (in Mali, Africa) between 1931 and 1956. Griaule met cinema verite Jean Rouch and encouraged him in his work.

• A documentary film was later edited based on his footage.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bZXYB3U2FM

Rouch himself often used the camera to capture the organized gestures or motions of ordinary people:

the “techniques of the body” (Mauss) of those people.

• Tip for your project: Spend time observing how people’s bodies move in their everyday life. Combine direct cinema and cinema verite methods.

Inspired by the research of Marcel Griaule and others, Jean Rouch wrote:

“It was thus noticed that there was little difference between ethnography and cinema”.

Jean Rouch, Cine-Ethnography, p. 270.

Jean Rouch explains why cinema is exactly like ethnographic research: “when the filmmaker records on film the actions or deeds that surround him, he behaves just like an ethnologist who records his observations on a notebook; when the filmmaker the edits the film, he is like an ethnologist editing his report; when the filmmaker distributes his film, he does the same as the ethnologist who gives his book to be published and distributed.”

Jean Rouch, Cine-Ethnography, p. 270.

• Let us focus our attention on the first part of the quote: “when the filmmaker records on film the actions or deeds that surround him, he behaves just like an ethnologist who records his observations on a notebook”

• Can you think of any problems that a filmmaker

who wants to record images as if writing on a notebook might encounter?

Problems for documentary making 1. Professional camera equipment was very heavy. 2. Microphones were too sensitive to wind and other

sources of noise. Most cameras were very noisy, making it very difficult to shoot film and record sound at the same time. The camera often had to be enclosed inside a large booth.

These problems restricted the mobility of the filmmaker who wanted to shoot freely outside the studio.

• There was a conflict between the aims of some documentary filmmakers and the available technology.

16mm film • In 1923, the Eastman Kodak

company introduced 16 mm film. • Not considered professional-grade

at first, used mainly by amateurs. • Used extensively to document

events during the Second World War.

• Taken over by documentary filmmakers during the 1950s.

• Light and portable cameras enhance the mobility of the filmmaker.

• Jean Rouch called 16mm film a “revolution” in film production.

• Lighter sound equipment made it possible for filmmakers to record on location.

• 1951: first Nagra tape recorder prototype. • The synchronization of sound and image improved

throughout the 1950s.

Camera as a pen The equipment could be used as a “pen”, and the filmmaker could shoot more freely and spontaneously,

like taking field notes in a notebook or sketchpad.

The history of technology had a very strong impact on the art of documentary cinema.

Rouch on the impact of new technologies:

The portable camera allows the filmmaker “to adapt to the action as a function of the spatial layout” and so “to penetrate into reality” instead of looking from a distance.

Jean Rouch, Cine-Ethnography, p. 38.

Rouch on the impact of new technologies:

“From now on, ethnologists and sociologists will be able to go to any part of the world and bring back images such as have never before been seen, images in which there will be this complete union of sound and image, of action, of setting, and of language.”

Jean Rouch, Cine-Ethnography, p. 272.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Rouch emphasized that cinema and

anthropology should not be seen as two

separate disciplines:

– Anthropologists must also be well trained in film technique.

– The camera is like the pen used to take notes. – The researcher must always be ready to follow and

record the action on the spot, which is only possible on the basis of a solid technical training.

– Rouch’s documentary cinema is interdisciplinary.

Self-study

Further reading

Classic history of documentary cinema

Self-study

Further viewing:

Documentary about Cinema Verite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0dOLHemSgs#t=16