Direct Cinema

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Direct cinema is a documentary genre that originated between 1958 and 1962 in North America, chiefly in Canada (Quebec) and in the United States. It was characterized initially by a desire to directly capture reality and represent it truthfully, and to question the relationship of reality with cinema. [1], going so far as to attempt to modify reality by using politically charged cinema.

Contents

[edit] The Origins

Many technological, ideological and social aspects need to be understood if one is to understand this event in the history of cinema.

[edit] Light cameras

To create direct cinema one needs portable cameras, which allow the hand-held camera movements that are they style's visual trademark. The first cameras of this type were German cameras, designed for ethnographic cinematography. It is generally recognized that the company Arriflex [2] was the first to widely commercialize such cameras, that were improved for aerial photography during WWII. In itself, the existence of these cameras did not trigger the birth of direct cinema.

[edit] Objective truthfulness

The idea of cinema as an ontologically objective space exists since its very birth. Mechanical objectivity is seen as warranting its truthfulness. The kino-pravda (literally "Cinema Truth") practice of Dziga Vertov, that one can trace back to the 1920's, gave an articulated voice to this notion, where one can also see the influence of futurism.

It is only with this in mind that one can understand today how before the 60's, and the advent of Direct cinema, the concepts of propaganda, film education and documentary very loosely defined in the public. Cinema in its ontological objectivity was seen by many viewers as reality captured, and a means of universal education. One only needs to look today at a documentary of the 50's to grasp the level of understanding that viewers of that day had of manipulation, mise-en-scene and the such, in films shot on "documentary sets." One can then also better understand what is happening with direct cinema and grasp the importance it has had in the perspective of the popular evolution of ideas about reality and the media.

[edit] Sound before the 60's

Before the Nagra [3] sound recording was either done on extremely heavy, or unreliable machinery. Many attempts were made at solving this problem during the 50's and 60's. At the NFB for example a system called SprocketapeTM was designed, but was not impose itself.

In the best case scenario, documentary sound was recorded before, in interviews, or much later on location, with a portable studio located in a sound proofed truck. The sounds that were captured were later synched in sound editing, providing the film with sound. In other cases the soundtrack was recorded like in fiction films: with layers of ambient sound, archival sound effects, foley, and post-synced voices.

In other cases the documentary subject was brought in a studio. If the sound take is then direct, the very documentary nature of the recording is arguable. Production would for example reconstruct a stable in the studio, under its heavy lighting. Close by stands the sound engineer in a sound proofed booth, directing the boom: this is the way it was done for studio films, and is still done today on some TV sets. It is this very surrealist situation of cows in a studio, for a documentary on farming, that is believed to have triggered an awakening by the then young lighting technician Michel Brault working at the NFB.

[edit] What is new in Direct cinema

Now that the Magnecord, Sprocketape or Nagra were just about there, that light cameras existed, the technical conditions necessary for the advent of Direct cinema were present. But what about the social and ideological conditions? The ground was set on that level too. In fact, seen from a distance, this was where the Direct cinema revolution seems most relevant.

Around 1960, with the ideas of Fanon emerging, decolonization was becoming a world trend. Old discourse, habits, white man privileges, and imperial traditions were questioned. The civil rights movement was getting organized. It was only 15 years after WWII, yet an extremely critical view of propaganda and of ideology was emerging in journalists, artists, and intellectual minds.

Above and beyond anything else, Direct cinema seemed to precisely reflect this. It sprang from a desire to test common opinion with reality. It was an attempt to show how things really are, outside the studio, far from the editorial control of the establishment -- be it governmental or big press. But what was critical and new was that this desire to test common opinion and show reality was constantly kept in check with an acute awareness that it is easy to lie with sound and image. This tension was at the center of Direct Cinema, and gave it its form and method.

[edit] The elusive recipe of reality captured

This would result in every filmmaker trying very precise ways of shooting. For Brault, who is believed to have invented modern Hand-held camera work (see Quotes), it specifically meant, for example, the ability to go amidst the people with a wide angle.[4] Other filmmakers would develop very different methods. They would insist, before they started any real shooting, that their subject need to get used to them, to the point of their camera being ignored[5]. Still, another group of Direct Cinema filmmakers would claim that the most honest technique was for a filmmaker to accept the camera as a catalyst, that it provokes reactions. So that they might feel free to ask their film subject to do something they would like to document[6].

This even lead to questioning the ability of filmmakers to properly film someone whom they could not fully understand. For example, can a man understand women's issues? This can better be understood with the example of Jean Rouch who went so far as to hand the camera to the 'subject' (and co-author?) of "Moi, un Noir".

Yet regardless of these specific choices of practice, in the end one thing is sure: the revolution of Direct cinema had more to do with the ethic considerations in documentary film making than with the technology. This may explain why this movement would start in two North American societies that are in social and ideological mutation, French Canada (Quebec) and the USA, spreading later on to South America and France.

[edit] ONF P.Q.

Direct cinema began in 1958 at the NFB/ONF in Québec (Canada) during what is called the Quiet revolution, when the majority of French citizen reacted to minority English rule in Quebec. To understand the special outlook of Quebec filmmakers on their society one needs a bit of social perspective.

At that time, a university education was a rare thing for a Québécois. Public life was English. The people of Quebec were seen by its young emerging intelligentsia as alienated and abused. This period of complex cultural and economical change for French speaking Quebecers can be summarized by the convergence of three phenomenons:

1)The advent of a Welfare state in Quebec accompanying its institutional Anglicization. [7]

2)A nationalist and social movement fighting ethnic discrimination against Canadians of French origins [8]

3)The important industrialization and socio-economical change brought both by the baby boom and by the extraordinary post war wealth (1945-1975) in Quebec (and Canada) meant the end of a more traditional rural life.

The consequences of these three movements, that would deeply modify Quebec society, resulted in a myriad of perspectives on its reality for intellectuals, and artists delving with the camera in their colonized society. Filmmakers would simultaneously try to share their social conscience, help better the living conditions of the Québécois, attempt to bring national independence -- provoking, documenting this transformation, while at the same time keeping a record of what was, of disappearing traditions, in a society so rapidly changing. The landmark film Les Raquetteurs, of quasi anthropological nature, made by Michel Brault (camera), Marcel Carrière (sound) and Gilles Groulx (editing) exemplifies this. [9]

[edit] U.S.A.

In the United States, Robert Drew who had tried journalism with Life Magazine during the war, decided he wanted to apply the photojournalist method to movies. He founded Drew Associates (which included Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker, Terence Macartney-Filgate, and Albert and David Maysles[10]), and started experimenting with technology, syncing camera and sound with the parts of a watch. In 1960, this group produced for Time-Life Broadcast three films: Yanqui, No!, Eddie (On the Pole), and Primary.

Yanqui, No! was on South America, and its tense relations with the U.S.A. It documented the underlying anti-American sentiment in the population. Primary (a documentary about the 1960 Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary campaign between Senators John F. Kennedy and Hubert H. Humphrey) help defined Direct Cinema style, and made it known to a wide public with the help of Time-Life Broadcast. The film reveals how primary elections worked in the U.S. at the time, and raised the profile of Direct cinema. But after these hotly debated experiments, Time Life Broadcast decided to withdraw from its agreement with Drew Associates. Drew Associates would continue on its own.

On June 11, 1963, the Alabama Governor George Wallace [11] blocked the entrance of the University of Alabama, it rapidly became a national issue in the U.S.

Drew Associates had a camera in the Oval office, and recorded the meetings over the crisis. The result played on TV in October 1963: In Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment did not only fuel discussions over the Civil-Rights movement, it also triggered a profound questioning over the political power of Direct Cinema. Access to politicians for documentary filmmakers would never be the same after it.

[edit] France

There is no doubt French filmmaker Jean Rouch is a key figure if one is to understand documentary cinema on the late 50's and early 60's. Moi, un Noir (1958), Chronique d'un été (1961), and many other of his films have been a great influences for generations of documentary filmakers. Yet Jean Rouch did not qualify his cinema as Direct but as Cinéma vérité, this while a close link with Direct Cinema practitioners existed.

[edit] Feminist Cinema

Techniques of direct cinema were also frequently used in early feminist cinema. A whole studio known as "Studio D" was dedicated to women issues at the NFB in Canada.

[edit] Direct Cinema, Cinéma Direct, and Cinéma Vérité

Some find it useful to distinguish Direct Cinema from Cinéma vérité. It must first be said that Cinéma Vérité has many troubling resemblances with Direct cinema. The style of camera work (hand-held) is the same. There is a similar feeling for the viewer that real life is unfolding before his eyes. There is also a mutual concern with social and ethic questions. And both Cinema Verité and Direct Cinema rely on the power of editing to give shape, structure and meaning to the material recorded. It's not uncommon for relative shooting to finished film ratios to be 40:1 or even as much as 100:1 (for this reason many see the editors of documentaries as co-authors).

Yet some film historians have characterized the Direct Cinema movement as a North American version of the Cinema Verité movement, an idea that crystallized in France with Jean Rouch's Chronicle of a Summer (1961). For these historians Cinema Verité is characterized by the use of the camera to provoke and reveal.

Direct Cinema, on the other hand, has been seen as more strictly observational. It is said to rely on an agreement among the filmmaker, subjects, and audience to act as if the presence of the camera does not (substantially) alter the recorded event. But such claims of possible non-intervention (made mostly by critics and historians) have been severely criticized (by critics and historians)).[12]

[edit] Filmakers opinions on this subject

In a 2003 interview (Zuber), Robert Drew explained how he saw the difference between Cinéma Vérité and Direct Cinema: "I had made Primary and a few other films. Then I went to France with Leacock for a conference [the 1963 meeting sponsored by Radio Television Française]. I was surprised to see the cinema vérité filmmakers accosting people on the street with a microphone. My goal was to capture real life without intruding. Between us there was a contradiction. It made no sense. They had a cameraman, a sound man, and about six more--a total of eight men creeping through the scenes. It was a little like the Marx Brothers. My idea was to have one or two people, unobtrusive, capturing the moment." [13].

To further confuse this distinction, it should be noted that Jean Rouch claimed Cinéma Vérité comes from Brault and the NFB (original quote below).Yet the NFB pioneers of the form Brault, Perrault and the others, never used the term Cinéma Vérité to describe their work, a term they found too pretentious. They preferred "Cinéma direct." And if they at times served as catalysts for situations (asking for example people to start traditional fishing again), they always worked in small crews (3) that were very close to their subject. Cinema vérité, the phrase (taken from Dziga Vertov )and the form, can thus be seen as France's spin on the idea of the Cinéma direct of Brault and his colleagues of the French section of the NFB in Canada.

Yet with time it seems these two French words started to mean in English just about anything and everything from a school of thought, to a film style, or look that can be applied to commercials[14]

[edit] Examples of Direct Cinema Documentaries

[edit] Further reading

  • Dave Saunders, Direct Cinema: Observational Documentary and the Politics of the Sixties, London, Wallflower Press, 2007.
  • Jack Ellis, The Documentary Idea: A Critical History of English-Language Documentary Film and Video. N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1989.
  • Claire Johnston, "Women's Cinema as Counter-Cinema" (1975) in: Sue Thornham (ed.), Feminist Film Theory. A Reader, Edinburgh University Press 1999, pp. 31-40
  • Bill Nichols, Representing Reality. Issues and Concepts in Documentary, Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1991
  • Sharon Zuber, "Robert Drew, Telephone Interview, June 4, 2003" in Re-Shaping Documentary Expectations: New Journalism and Direct Cinema. Unpublished Dissertation. College of William and Mary, 2004.

[edit] Quotes

"It must be said, all that we have done in France in the area of cinéma-vérité comes from Canada. It is Brault who brought a new technique of filming that we had not known and that we copied ever since. In fact, truly, there is a "brauchitis" spreading, it is certain. Even the people who consider that Brault is a nuisance, or were jealous, are forced to recognize it." Jean Rouch, June 1963 Cahiers du Cinéma No.144.

"But in order to go and film people, to really go with them, amidst them, they must know you are there. They must accept the consequence of the presence of the camera and that means using a wide angle. The only legitimate process is one that relies on a tacit contract between the one who films and the one who is filmed, where the is a mutual recognition of the other." (Michel Brault)[3]

[edit] References

  1. ^ "The type of cinema that poses the most profound and difficult problems concerning illusion, irreality and fiction, is indeed the cinema of the reel, its very task being to face the most difficult problem asked by philosophy for two thousand years, that of the nature of reality." (In the 1980 festival catalog of Cinema du Réel, Centre Pompidou, Paris) Original text of Edgar Morin on this topic here (in French)
  2. ^ This article is based on a translation of an article from the German Wikipedia. http://www.arri.de/infodown/other/broch/histor_e.pdf
  3. ^ http://www.nagra-france.fr/histoire.htm
  4. ^ http://cinema-quebecois.net/01_hiver_2004/entretien_cornellier_frigon.htm Original interview in French here. Relevant excerpt in the section "Quotes"
  5. ^ See here Albert and David Maysles
  6. ^ Like Pierre Perrault's Moon Trap
  7. ^ Roman Catholic Church was a very powerful institution in Quebec society up until the 60’s.[1]
  8. ^ Intellectuals were using Fanon decolonialisation discourse to explain their situation. See here for reference on 'Nègres blancs d'Amérique' (White Niggers of America) (1968) by Pierre Vallières. Also Front de libération du Québec
  9. ^ See here the French wiki article [2]
  10. ^ "The Hollywood film is an escape of one sort or another. But our films make it damn near impossible to escape. We're interested in what you can't escape from and presenting it... Some people get a little edgy when they see something that is so personal. They don't know where to turn to look for the kind of buffer that most movies give them. In fiction you can say 'it's only a movie' and forget it. You can't do that with reality" –Albert Maysles to The New York Times, Oct. 18, 1987
  11. ^ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1294680
  12. ^ "Clearly, if we accept that cinema involves the production of signs, the idea of non-intervention is pure mystification. The sign is always a product. What the camera in fact grasps is the 'natural' world of dominant ideology." -- Johnston
  13. ^ See also, Ellis, Chapter 14
  14. ^ "Today, we see the influence of vérité in everything from music videos to feature films to TV news. Yet these things are not vérité films. The key difference, I think, is that today's contemporary image industry is almost wholly devoid of thoughtful content; it is pure image (even, or maybe especially, the news) without the sense of social self and social responsibility that vérité filmmakers brought to their work. I am proud that filmmakers in Quebec and the rest of Canada and institutions like the National Film Board of Canada were able to give voice and vision to the vérité movement. Perhaps the next wave of documentarians and their audiences can re-visit some of the lessons learned from cinéma vérité, and adapt them to the challenges of the future." Filmmaker Peter Wintonick, about his film *Cinéma Vérité: Defining the Moment"

[edit] See also

de:Direct Cinema fr:Cinéma direct

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