Happy Birthday, Jean Rouch! Born today in 1917, this French anthropologist and filmmaker is considered to be one of the founders of cinéma vérité in France.
Rouch's practice as a filmmaker, for over sixty years in Africa, was characterized by the idea of shared anthropology.
Rouch's practice as a filmmaker, for over sixty years in Africa, was characterized by the idea of shared anthropology.
Influenced by his discovery of surrealism in his early twenties, many of his films blur the line between fiction and documentary, creating a new style: ethnofiction.
This is a neologism which refers to an ethnographic docufiction, a blend of documentary and fictional film in the area of visual anthropology.
It is a film type in which, by means of fictional narrative or creative imagination, often improvising, the portrayed characters (natives) play their own roles as members of an ethnic or social group.
The first film of which Rouch is best known for directing is the thirty-six-minute 1955 French horror documentary/short film 'Les Maîtres Fous' ('The Mad Masters'). It was shot in 1953, edited in 1955, and finally shown in 1957.
The participants performed the same elaborate military ceremonies of their colonial occupiers, but in more of a trance than true recreation.
The possessions caused the participants to foam at the mouth, burn themselves with torches and to sacrifice, boil and eat a dog.
However, it was with Rouch's seminal film, the 1957 French Eastmancolor drama/ethnographic film 'Moi, un noir' ('Me, A Black', also released as 'I, a Negro'), that pioneered the technique of the jump cut.
The possessions caused the participants to foam at the mouth, burn themselves with torches and to sacrifice, boil and eat a dog.
However, it was with Rouch's seminal film, the 1957 French Eastmancolor drama/ethnographic film 'Moi, un noir' ('Me, A Black', also released as 'I, a Negro'), that pioneered the technique of the jump cut.
This was popularized by French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic Jean-Luc Godard.
Afterwards, Rouch was hailed by the Nouvelle Vague (French New Wave) filmmakers as one of their own.
Afterwards, Rouch was hailed by the Nouvelle Vague (French New Wave) filmmakers as one of their own.
The second film of which Rouch is best known for co-directing (along with French philosopher and sociologist Edgar Morin) is the 1961 French black and white documentary film 'Chronique d'un été' ('Chronicle of a Summer'). Rouch also narrated.
The film follows real-life individuals discuss topics on society, happiness in the working class among others and with those testimonies the filmmakers create fictional moments based on their interviews. Later on, the individuals discuss the images created.
The film is also widely regarded as an experimental and structurally innovative film and an example of cinéma vérité and direct cinema.
The term "cinéma verité" was suggested by the film's publicist and coined by Rouch, highlighting a connection between film and its context.
This was a fact of which Canadian cinematographer, cameraman, film director, screenwriter, and film producer Michel Brault confirmed in an interview after a screening of 'Chronicle of a Summer'. This occurred at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at its 36th event in September 2011.
In a 2014 Sight and Sound poll, film critics voted 'Chronicle of a Summer' the sixth best documentary film of all time.
Commenting Rouch's work, someone "in charge of research for the Musée de l'Homme" in Paris, Godard questioned: “Is there a better definition for a filmmaker?".
Rouch passed in Birni-N'Konni, Niger on February 18, 2004 from an automobile accident. He was 86.
Rouch had been active from 1947–2002.
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