Cinéma Vérité /Direct Cinema

Cinéma Vérité: Defining the Moment

(Peter Wintonik, National Film Board of Canada,1999) 103 min.

Week 10 Study Questions: November 22

Bruzzi, 67 – 74; Lioult, “Framing the Unexpected” www.ejumpcut.org

1. According to Bruzzi, Nichols’s position on observational cinema is that it comes at the expense of loss of voice? If Nichols has seen “voice”

“style plus,” what is at stake here? What else is lost? List.

2. Consider the 4 different direct quotes Bruzzi attributes to U.S. direct cinema makers about their documentary practice. How have these statements been construed? What are other possibilities for interpreting these statements?

3. What are 3 practical aspects of basic film and/or video making that make the ideal of pure cinema impossible for makers to sustain?

4. How would direct cinema makers (for instance, the Maysles in Salesman) defend the manipulation of events to suggest a story?

5. Bruzzi says that observational cinema has been mis-defined, mostly by observational filmmakers. What new definition does she offer? Does this definition apply to all documentary films?

1. How does Lioult convince you that there is a problem with the staged-unstageddichotomy that has historically defined documentary practice? 2. How can a documentary scene be understood as both spontaneous and arranged?3. Why does Lioult need to add the category “framing the unexpected” toPonech’s Type I “flexible” plans and Type II “more restrictive” plans asstrategies for documentary practice?

I. American direct cinema:the models

Primary (Richard Leacock and Robert Drew [Drew Associates], 1969)

Don’t Look Back, 1967 ( D.A. Pennebaker, 1967)

Salesman (Albert and David Maysles, 1969)

Problem: discrepancies:

Stated ideals vs. cinema practice

D.A. Pennebaker: “It is possible to go to a situation and simply film whatYou see there, what happens there, what goes on….And what’s a film?It is just a window someone peeps through”

2. American direct cinema = observational cinema

1. lightweight equipment

2. follow, do not lead the action

3. shoot/edit in chronological order

4. events must be revealed untouched

5. all music must have diegetic source;

no non-diegetic music can be used

6. no juxtapositions/no Kuleshov effect

7. the story must be “found” in the material

CU Mozzhukhin + shot of cherry trees =CU Mozzhukhin + shot of bowl of soup =CU Mozzhukhin + shot of baby in casket =

A) 3rd meaning produced from juxtaposition of 2 shots

PsychoPsycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

Marion Crane stopped by cop “shower sequence”

B) With absence of establishing shot, viewer infers shots in same space

establishing shots

A) Shot/Reverse Shot

3. direct cinema A. the paradox :

documentary strives to give us unmanipulated reality

totally unmanipulated or untouched reality is ultimately impossible

B. the problem: the hierarchy of direct cinema style (documentary codes)

pure = no narration, no interviews, no non-diegetic music

less pure = non-diegetic music, interviews, voice-over narrationleast pure = self-reflexive camera,

sound recording

4. French Cinéma Vérité = new cinema truth

Chronicle of a Summer/ Chronique d’un été(Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, 1960)

1. The truth in lies: anticipates faux documentary Rouch: film technique as “lying intermediary”; more realthan the truth. (“telling the truth by lying”)

2. characters: the truth of their lies and fictions produces of a new reality that would not have existed

3. cutting style: shots give impression that there isno space between the beginning of the end of one shotand start of another.

4. documentary of encounter: characters & camera

Chronicle of a Summer/ Chronique d’un été(Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, 1960)

Post-WW II – Nagra tape recorder +

16mm Bolex camera = Cinéma Vérité

camera as confessional accelerator: subjects must be provoked

Characters: MarcelineJean-Pierre (philosophy student)Marilou – Italian living in ParisAngelo – Renault workerLandry – African Jean Rouch – filmmakerEdgar Morin - filmmaker/sociologist

Chronicle of a Summer/Chronique d’un été, Jean Rouch & Edgar Morin, 1960

5. The legacy of direct cinema

Frederick Wiseman: Basic Training, 1970; Primate, 1974; The Store, 1983; Zoo; Hospital; Welfare

Michael Moore: Roger and Me, 1989; Bowling for ColumbineFahrenheit 911 (2003); Sicko (2006), Capitalism: A Love Story (2009)

Nick Broomfield: Soldier Girls (1981); Chicken Ranch (1983)Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam, 1995), Ghosts (2007)

Other directors/films: Harlan County, U.S.A. (Barbara Kopple, 1976)Sherman’s March (Ross McElwee, 1985) Cannibal Tours (Dennis O’Rourke, 1987) Grey Gardens (Albert and David Maysles, 1988) Truth or Dare (Alex Keshishian, 1991) The War Room (D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, 1993) Hoop Dreams (Steve James, Frederick Marx, Peter Gilbert, 1994)

- interest in the quotidian (ordinariness)- people as subjects- following vs. leading subjects

Common features:

6. The false comparison:

Cinéma Vérité (France)

camera provokes subject

new reality produced in the

making of the film

Direct Cinema (U.S.)

passive camera: no provocation

reality pre-exists & must be

respected

Jean Rouch: No difference between either: presence of the camera alone (automatically) provokes

Cinéma Vérité: Defining the Moment (Peter Wintonik, National Film Board of Canada,1999) 103 min.

“ER: The Live Episode”

Foreign letters

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