Cinema Verite / Direct Cinema

Beginning in the late 1950's a number of monumental technological

breakthroughs occurred in filmmaking equipment.
These innovations were to change the course of documentary
filmmaking...including
the look,
the approach,
and the content of documentaries

Before the late 50s, documentary filmmaking and filmmaking outside

of a studio in general had historically been hampered by the weight
and awkwardness of filmmaking equipment.

Altho portable equipment dates back to the Lumiere's

cinematographe,
the necessity of using a tripod--a fixed point of view-remained until the 1920's.

The development of the 16mm camera in 1922 made the camera

more portable,
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but the problem of synchronizing sound and image

remained for the next three decades.

Movies became talkies in the 1930's but this sound was

accomplished via an optical sound track
in which the sound is recorded separately and then added
to the film as a separate synchronized track.

Synchronous sound recording required equipment so

cumbersome that location shooting was almost impossible.

AND
At least part of the preference for "Voice Over" narrative
in pre-50's doc film was due to these restrictions.
---(one of the reasons that Edgar Anstey's
HOUSING PROBLEMS was such an
accomplishment"

In the late 50's and early 60's a number of technological innovations

happened that radically changed all of this.

The development of 16mm cameras with plastic rather than

metal parts,
made shoulder-mounted equipment even lighter and
quieter than before.

Around the same time, lightweight, relatively quiet, batterydriven magnetic tape sound recorders were developed.

Even more monumental was the development of a

technology to obtain synchronous sound recording (I'll talk
more about this next class)

Film stock was becoming increasingly sensitive--allowing the

possibility of shooting in low light.

These new technologies held the unprecendented promise

of allowing the filmmaker to circulate freely among his
subjects without interrupting the action.
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As early as 1958, at the National Film Board of Canada, two young

filmmakers Michel Brault and Gilles Groulx used such a lightweight
rig to more or less secretly film a snowshoe race in Quebec. Their
film, Les Raquetteurs is in MRC if you want to check it out.

Equally momentous cinematic events were taking place in both the

US and France.around this same time.

In France cinematic ground was being broken by a fellow named

Jean Rouch.

Rouche was a filmmaker who had distinguished himself doing

ethnographic films in Africa in the 1950s---mostly in Niger and Ghana.
Films include Jaguar (shot in early 50s) and Les Maitres fous (1954)
(the Haouka cult in Niger)

In 1960 Rouch was persuaded by French sociologist Edgar Morin, to

undertake a film experiment closer to home.
Morin suggested that they jointly make a film focusing on the
"strange tribes that live in paris."

(this harkens back to Grierson's comment to Flaherty about his

preference for shooting the "savages of Birmingham" rather
than the savages of far-off, exotic places.

Rouch had met Michel Brault in California a year earlier and had
enlisted him in the project as cinematographer.

In undertaking this film, Rouch wanted to experiment with

a number of new approaches and theories about the
documentary and ethnographic film forms
that he had been toying with for a number of years.

Troubled by the ethical and artistic problems encountered in

attempting to document the life of another culture,
Rouch had experimented in several of his earlier ethnographic
films with allowing individuals from the culture being filmed
to either
comment on the action taking place in the film in
voice over,
or to use the filming as a way of enacting or performing
their personal and cultural fantasy lives.

For Rouch, it became apparent that

any attempt to film a subject as if the camera

were not there was an impossibility, a total lie.
The camera always created its own reality, it's own set of
truths
which could be more revealing and interesting and
true than unfilmed reality.

Instead of vainly attempting to act as a non-intervening "fly on the

wall," The filmmaker could instead
serve as a kind of participant and agent provocateur and
catalyst,
eliciting these personal crises and revelations.

Rouch called his particular brand of cinema cinema verite--literally

cinema truth--as an homage to Vertov (Cinema Pravda)

This was a fairly radical contrast to the style of observational film

being developed at the same time in the US (Direct Cinema)

As we'll see next class, the practitioners of that style were

vehement in their belief that
the essence of life situations were most effectively
revealed when simply observed without intervention.

Interesting that the terms cinema verite and direct cinema are often
used interchangeably--initially, the philosophies and strategies of
these two cinematic movement were poles appart, even if the
surface look of the films was often similar.

Morin:
"Newscasts present us with life in its Sunday best--official,
ritualized--men of state shaking hands, discussions. Once in a
while fate, chance, will place in our field of vision a shriveled or
a beaming face, an accident, a fragment of truth. This scene
taken from life is most often a scene taken from death. As a
general rule, the camera is too heavy, it is not mobile enough,
the sound equipment can't follow the action, and what is live
escapes close up. Cinema needs a set, a staged ceremony, a
halt to life. And then everyone masquerades--equipped with a
supplementary mask on the camera."

Show Chronicle of a Summer

--Shot in the midst of the Algerian War: how does that fact impact the
film?
--In what ways is this film similar to NanooKwhat is the role and
participation of the subjects?
--How different from Grierson?
--How have the filmmakers organized their work? How do the
sections/segments interrelate?
--Segment of marceline walking in the Place de la Concorde, Angelo
getting up and eating breakfast Are these straight recordings of
"reality" what would have happened had the camera not been there
to record? What are they?
--Why does rouch say to Marin: "We're in for trouble?"

Next class I'll be talking more about

In the US, similar experiments were going on.

Robert Drew, a photo editor and reporter for Life magazine, had been
experimenting with candid photography for a number of years.
He became interested in doing similar things with motion
pictures, in developing moving image news essays in a style
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which he called "candid drama" and which would later come

to be known in the US as Direct Cinema.

In a bit, we'll be talking about Jean Rouch, a French ethnographic

filmmaker who coined another term often used interchangeably with
Direct Cinema--Cinema Verite (literally "Camera Truth")
As we'll discuss, however, the approach and philosophy of
Rouch and other French documentary filmmakers in the 60's
was different from the makers of Direct Cinema in significant
ways.

Drew eventually moved to Time Inc.'s Broadcast Division.

In 1957, Time provided him with support for his first film project
and the funds for developing the first small sync sound camera
unit,
which he worked on with filmmaker Ricky Leacock whose
work Drew admired .
(Leacock had been an editor on Frontier Films' Native
land we saw a few weeks back and had worked as an
assistant on Robert Flaherty's last film--Louisiana Story).

Drew and Leacock experimented endlessly with existing equipment

and
finally came up with a way of synchronizing sound and film
by using the vibration of tuning forks.
This mechanism was later altered by using quartz movement
of a wristwatch.

We were trying to get away from

special solutions we wanted
something we could film and take
sound out in the desert or in an
airplane or anywhere.And so when
the Bulova Watch came out, the
Accutron watch the ad for it (I still
have that ad somewhere) I was kind
of looking at the ad and they had said
what the accuracy was. It was one
point in 16,000. And something
registered in my head. So I said, you
know Ricky [Leacock], theres only
16,000 frames in a 400 foot roll.
Thats all you need. We dont care if
its less accurate than that.

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 They also worked with ways to free the microphone and

recorder from having to be attached to the camera by using
wireless transmitters..

The other breakthrough made by Drew and others at this time was
the development of the extended film magazine that would allow
longer uninterrupted shoots(400 instead of the standard 100 feet)
The camera displayed here is a considerably rebuilt Auricon. To convert the
100 foot load Auricon into a 400 foot camera, the top was sheared off and
fitted with a plate to accept a 400 foot film magazine made by the Mitchell
Camera Company. An Angenieux zoom lens is held to the front of the
camera with a special mount milled from solid aluminum. Because this was
not a reflex camera, a special viewfinder was made to allow the camera
operator to see what the lens saw. A box was affixed to one side of the
camera to allow, among other things, installation of a synchronous sound
system controlled by a tuning fork. Not visible here are the battery and
power supply, both specially built for the rig. Inside the camera the original
metal gears, which made a loud and disturbing sound, were replaced by
softer gears milled from teflon blocks. Unwieldy as this rig was--weighting
in at over 35 pounds--it was used to power the Drew Associates
breakthrough candid films, some 40 hours of them, between 1960 and 1966.

Around this same time, Drew formed his production company, Drew
Associates, which enabled him to hire freelance cameramen and
filmmakers,
including D.A. Pennebaker,
Leacock and

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 Albert Maysles
all of whom would go on to distinguish themselves independently.

In a way, this team approach was similar to the British Documentary

movement of the 30's -- but unlike that movement, the backing was
commercial rather than governmental--primary the TV networks at
first.

They also messed around with the camera's viewfinding and lens...
Even tho the camera still weighed 35 pounds--it was revolutionary in
its portability and flexibility.
This portable, synchronous sound camera provided the
catalyst for a radically new way of thinking about
documentary film.

Drew and other proponents of Direct Cinema

believed that Griersonian expository documentary was little
more than an illustrated lecture.
What they were aiming for were films that were
less one-sided

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 and more directly engaged with the world in front of the

camera.
The aim was, to quote Drew, to "crea[e] a new form of
journalism which would take documentary into the street."
(sound familiar? Grierson's "Life on the Doorsteps")

Proponents of direct cinema attempted to strip away the barriers

between filmmaker and subject; between film subject and spectator.

The notion was to film real people in real, "uncontrolled" situations -uncontrolled generally meant minimally scripted (if scripted at all) and
with minimum intrusions of the director either in the act of filming or in
post-production (for eg addition of music, voice overs, etc.).
It has been suggested that this movement in some sense
reflected broader societal changes of the the 1960's
a growing democratization of US societyand end to the
political reaction of the McCarthy era.

The director would be an observer-- a "fly on the wall"Interviews or

other direct interactions between subject and filmmaker were
assiduously avoided. The director would never ask the subject to do
anything or to act in any way.
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Leacock: . "No lights, no tripod, no microphone boom or

pole, never wear headphones (they make you look silly,
and or, remote) never more than two people, never ask
anyone to do anything and most especially never ask
anyone to repeat an action or a line. Allow lots of time,
don't shoot all the time, if you miss something, forget it in
the hope that something like it will happen again. Get to
know your subject if possible in order to generate some
kind of mutual respect, if not friendship.

What am I looking for? I hope to be able to create

sequences that when run together will present aspects of
my perception of what took place in the presence of my
camera. To capture spontaneity it must exist and
everything you do is liable to destroy-it... beware!

Often the kernel of cinematic truth, the drama, was found in shooting
vast amounts of footage and
finding the connections and defining moments in the editing
room.

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But even here an attempt was made

to assemble footage in the order and relation in which
they were shot.
to recreate the events as the filmmaker witnessed them.

Takes were long; scenes were often connected by jump cuts that
swung from general scenes to closely focussed particulars. In many
cases the filmmaker acted as editor

Is this an attempt at cinematic objectivity? Not at all!

"Good films have to be subjectively made -- the viewer has to be
seeing them subjectively. If he's seeing it objectively, it won't
work as film. So, if the viewer needs a subjective experience,
then the filmmaker has to render a subjective experience -something that's from the viewpoint of the filmmakerThe
filmmaker's job is to tell a story, but he doesn't want to stand off
and not be involved or have the camera on a pedestal that
doesn't move. The camera must go with the action or the
characters, and to that extent, it's subjective."
Leacock: "To me, it's to find out some important aspect of our society
by watching our society, by watching how things really happen as
opposed to the social image that people hold about the way things
are supposed to happen"

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Robert Drew: narration can

be a killer
****

By March of 1960, Drew was ready to select their first subject. He

settled on the Democratic Presidential primary in Wisconsin, which
pitted the young John Kennedy against Hubert Humphrey. For the
last week of the campaign, three two-man crews including Drew,
Leacock, Maysles, and Pennebaker tracked both Kennedy and
Humphrey as they made their endless rounds--handshaking,
speeches, photo sessions they also captured rare, private
moments in between.
Captured the essence of american political campaigningThe
expectable political machinery, but also smaller, more hidden and
revealing moments.

The result was a radical departure from past documentariesthe first

example of film made with a portable sound camera that could
circulate freely among its subjects. Some sequences are sync
others shot silentlyor out of sync.
--Leacock: For the first time we were able to walk in and out of
buildings, up and down stairs, film in taxi cabs, all over the
place, and get synchronous sound"
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--Focus on small moments / use as contrastdo not

necessarily advance the story--but reveal

SHOW CLIPS FROM PRIMARY ("The Kennedy Strength" DVD)

--What's the filmmakers point of view? Is there a point of view?

--Direct cinema often implicit or explicity attempted to offer a look at a
subject going about business as if the camera were not there--as if to
say this would have happened if the camera weren't there to record it.
Is this possible?
--Use of candid microphone and camera (scene of kennedy in his
hotel room)
(Leacock hid a microphone in an ashtrayretired to a comfy chair
with the camera in his lap)
--Long tracking shot of Kennedy

Drew Associates discovered that their techniques worked best if

something important was happening to their subject--if they were
involved in an activity demanding their full attention. Also discovered
that their method worked best if the situation had its own drama (with
beginning middle and end) which would climax within a limited
amount of time. Stephen Mamber in his book Cinema Verite in
America calls this "crisis structure."

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One of the cameramen on Primary was Albert Maysles, who with his
brother David split off from Drew Associates in 1962 to do his own
independent work. Albert was the camera guy; David handled sound.

The Maysles developed a style which, while influenced by their work

with Drew, took on its own style. The Maysles, like Drew, tended to
gravitate toward interesting or offbeat personalitiesWhile the
Maysles films relied less on the "crisis structure" of Drew films--the
dramatic tensions in their films tend to come out a character trying to
prove themselves or struggling to survive. The Maysles were the first
to call the type of work they were doing DIRECT CINEMA to
distinguish it from the verite style of Rouch and other continental
filmmakers. (They were also the first to refer to their work as
"nonfiction" film) -- even though
unlike Drew and Leacock, they tended to use many of the techniques
of fictional narrative film.
The hard-line verite philosophy of Leacock and Drew favored the
filmmaker doing his or her own editing--or at least having the primary
hand in the process. The Maysles on the other hand consistently
used a talented editors (particularly Charlotte Zwerin and Susan
Froemke). Since the Maysles like other direct cinema proponents
frequently shot without scripts, their editors assumed a central role in
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shaping the structure and rhythm of the film. Zwerin and other
Maysle editors were often given co-credit with the filmmakers.

Perhaps the two best-know Maysles films are Salesman (1969) and
Gimme Shelter (1970). We're going to look at Salesman todayI'm
really sorry we don't have time for Gimme Shelter -- a film which
captures the violent unravelling of 1960's idealism at a massive
Rolling Stones concert at the Altamont Speedway
It's in MRC
SALESMAN
--ethical issues? Implied consentparticipation of subject in editing
and constructing the film?
--Focus on an individualout of four. Paul
--From whose POV is the story told? How does this differ from
Primary?
Is a POV outside of the camera eye antithetical in verite?
Serves as a narrator in an otherwise unnarrated film
--Maysles have argued that their films should be judged by the same
criteria one applies to fiction films
--What similarities/affinities does this have with traditional fictional
narrative
How does your knowledge or expectations regarding the nature of
this film (any doc) shape your perception and assessment of it?
David Maysles: The most exciting thing in life is to watch the meeting
of two strangers to see how they communicate."

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What metaphors does this film suggestwhat might it be

metaphorical of?

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