Cinéma vérité was one of the very
important movements in cinema. It began and
flourished in France in the 1960s.
The French films Chronicle of a Summer directed by Jean
Rouch and Edgar Morin and released in 1961, and
The Lovely Month of May, directed by
Chris Marker, and released in 1963,
as perfect examples of Cinéma
vérité.
The French phrase Cinéma vérité
means ‘truthful cinema’ or ‘truth cinema’. Cinéma vérité movement cinema called
as in the two common alternative terms Observational
cinema’ and ‘direct cinema’. Also terms like ‘live camera’, ‘cinema manqué’( is a
French independent organization with the aim of curating film exhibitions and
film festivals, promoting, distributing and preserving artist videos,
experimental cinema, alternative cinema and counter-culture).
cinema banalite were also used to signify this
movement.
Cinéma vérité is emerged far away from the very controlled
filmmaking practices centred around the studio system which had perfectly
choreographed staged events and a very strict pre-fixed script.
When we trace the ideological genealogy
and the praxis model of Cinéma vérité, we can understand that most of the
principles of Cinéma vérité had already been anticipated and practiced by
the Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov through his Kino-Pravda, or cinema-truth
movement in the 1920s.
Cinéma vérité as a distinct
sub-genre of films began with Jean Rouch’s French film, Moi, un Noir (I,
a Black) (253). The film was an experimental one, which had the filmmaker’s
black African friend as the subject. It was released in 1958.
What are the defining methodological and
stylistic features of Cinéma vérité?
Major feature of Cinéma
vérité:
i. The use of hand-held camera
ii. Dependence on synchronous live
sound recorded on location
iii. Shooting in real places instead
of dedicated sets
iv. Shooting the situations
undirected
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