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Cinema- Vérité. Mini-Lecture 14. Direct Cinema, 1958-1963 (encompassed cinema- vérité , observational cinema, candid cinema, uncontrolled cinema). Lighter equipment (1958: 16 mm cameras) Mobile equipment Sound-on-tape technology (and Pilotone system for synchronization) Small crews
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Cinema-Vérité Mini-Lecture 14
Direct Cinema, 1958-1963(encompassed cinema-vérité, observational cinema, candid cinema, uncontrolled cinema) • Lighter equipment (1958: 16 mm cameras) • Mobile equipment • Sound-on-tape technology (and Pilotone system for synchronization) • Small crews • No scripts or pre-determined structure • No voice-over narration • No staged scene • Subjects’ self-disclosure (speaking for themselves) was key
Direct Cinema in the U.S. • Robert Drew • Wanted to make films for television • Ex: Primary (1960) • about Wisconsin primary between JFK and Hubert Humphrey • Associates: Richard Leacock; Don Pennebaker, David and Albert Maysles
Who is Jean Rouch? • French anthropologist • Made ethnographic films in Africa, famously • Les Maîtres Fous/The Mad Masters (1957), made in Ghana about the Hauka people • Moi, un noir/ Me, a Black Man (1959), made in the Ivory Coast using a mix of fiction and documentary • His films aimed to bond researcher and subject • He said he made films for the people filmed and for himself
Chronicle of a Summer (1960): the most influential work of Direct Cinema • More “interventionist” than Drew et al • Filmmakers provoked confrontations and uncomfortable encounters • Refusal of the fly-on-the-wall approach favored by the American Direct Cinema