Chuck
====================
Perhaps these two books may help :
Cinema Verite in America
What is Cinema Verite
A.Ravett
======================
Hello everybody,
In French, there are two essential texts :
Mario Ruspoli’s report to the UNESCO
http://www.derives.tv/IMG/pdf/RapportRuspoli.pdf
(was it translated to English ?)
And more recently :
GRAFF Séverine : “Cinéma vérité” ou “cinéma direct” : hasard terminologique ou paradigme théorique ?, dossier : Mario Ruspoli et le "cinéma direct" ; DECADRAGES, n°18, Université de Lausanne, Lausanne, 2011 (printemps) ; http://decadrages.revues.org/215
Cheers,
Jean luc Lioult -
Professeur émérite - POLE LETTRES ET ARTS
Aix-Marseille Université
Site : http://www.univ-amu.fr - Email : [log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]
Téléphone domicile : 04 42 23 27 96
Afin de respecter l'environnement, merci de n'imprimer cet email que si nécessaire.
================================
There's also Gilles Marsolais' famous L'Aventure du Cinéma Direct Revisitée, and a chapter in Francois Niney's l'Épreuve du Réel à l'Écran, if you read French!
MK.Corneil
=================================
The article Nathan is thinking of may be Richard Barsam's excellent "American Direct Cinema: The Re-Presentation of Reality" published in Persistence
of Vision, vol 1 no 3 (1986). I also recommend Louis Marcorelles' Living Cinema: New Directions in Contemporary Film-making (1973,
Allen and Unwin) for an expanded discussion of the distinctions and overlaps (philosophical, ideological and aesthetic) between direct cinema and cinema verite.
Frank
-================================
Greetings,
I hope these could be of help:
There is a brief section in Ellis & McLane’s ‘A New History of Documentary Film’ (2005) titled “Direct Cinema vs Cinema Verite” p. 215-218.
I have written about why "Cinema Verite" should not be confused with "Direct Cinema" in a Turkish monthly film journal:
https://www.academia.edu/3168143/Cinema_Verite_Değil_Direct_Cinema
Also these are the related texts that I use in my doc course:
· Bill Nichols: ‘The Observational Mode’ in Introduction to Documentary, pp. 172-179.
· Lewis Jacobs: ‘Documentary Becomes Engaged and Vérité’ in The Documentary Tradition, pp. 368-380.
· ‘The Grain of Truth’ in Imagining Reality, The Faber Book of Documentary: pp. 249-282.
· Stella Bruzzi: ‘The Legacy of Direct Cinema’ in New Documentary: a Critical Introduction, pp. 67-74.
· ‘The Making of The Cinema Verite Breakthrough
in American Film’:
http://www.drewassociates.net/Main/verite.htm
· The Candid Films of Robert Drew:
http://www.drewassociates.net/Main/picturebook.htm
· ‘The True Story: Albert Maysles on Subjects and Truth’ and ‘Susan Fromke: The Craft of Verite’ in DOX, #45, February 2003, pp. 7-9.
· Bill Nichols: ‘The Participatory Mode’ in Introduction to Documentary, pp. 179-194.
· Peter Graham: ‘Cinéma Vérité in France” in Film Quarterly, Vol.17, No.4 (Summer 1964), pp. 30-36.
I also suggest the documentary "Lonely Boy" (Canada, 1962, Roman Kroiter & Wolf Koenig, 27 min.) as an excellent "teaching film” on this subject matter.
Best,
Can
--
Can Candan
Bogazici University, Istanbul-Turkey
[log in to unmask]
http://boun.academia.edu/CanCandan
========================================
There is a mimeographed translation of the Ruspoli report in the BFI library. I cite it in chapter 10, 'Truth Games' of my book 'The Politics of Documentary', which deals exactly with this topic.
Michael
Michael Chanan
Professor of Film & Video
University of Roehampton
=============================================
It's a classical and well known article, it may be very old, but I can't resist
mention Brian Winston's 'The Documentary Film as Scientific Inscription'
('Theorizing Documentary' and others) and its inspired description of the
French/American meeting at the 1963's Lion/ORTF conference, with the 'Verité'
and 'Direct' sides and confrontations. Best,
Fernão
------------------------------------------
Fernão Pessoa Ramos
CEPECIDOC (Center for Research in Documentary Film)
Department of Cinema/UNICAMP/Brazil
http://www.iar.unicamp.br/docentes/fernaoramos/
=============================
This is fantastic, I'm saving this whole thread.
If you only need enough to explain to undergrads, then that's why I wrote pp. 44-55 in Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford U Pres, 2007).
PATRICIA AUFDERHEIDE
======================================
Hi all,
And if you do read French, than I can warmly recommend the book Sévérine Graff has written (Jean-Luc Lioult already referred to an article by her) : Cinéma-vérité - Films et controverses (Presses
Universitaires de Rennes, 2014. She's mainly focussing on the first decade-and-some-years and the controversies around these notions.
You can find a summary here : http://www.pur-editions.fr/detail.php?idOuv=3428
Best,
Kees Bakker
===========================================
Aside from the written texts suggested on this subject, I would also mention the documentary that we made about Cinema verite/direct at the NFB in 1999 (Cinema verite: defining the moment, Peter Wintonick dir). We interviewed a lot of the original players
for that film, and had a large argument at the NFB about the title. French production wanted cinema direct, and English production cinema verite. We went with the latter title because we thought it would be more widely understood. I hope the NFB still has
the original interviews since most of our interviewees are now gone.
All the best,
Kirwan Cox
============================================
Chuck et al.,
I would add to the list of resources that are good for helping to tease out the difference between direct cinema (especially the American variation) and cinéma-vérité this book:
Robert Drew and the Development of Cinema Verite in America by P. J. O’Connell (Southern Illinois University Press, 1992)
and Ricky Leacock’s writings are always fun to read:
"A Search for the Feeling of Being There" by Richard Leacock, 1997,
link to article
"1960: A Revolution in Documentary Film Making as seen by a participant" by Richard Leacock, 1993,
link to article
Cheers,
David.
David Tamés, Assistant Teaching Professor
Department of Art + Design | Program in Media and Screen Studies
College of Arts, Media and Design, Northeastern
University
+1.617.216.1096 (mobile) @cinemakinoeye
(Twitter)
===========================================
There's also Steve Mamber's book on cv in america, an early effort, and I take it up in Representing Reality and
Intro to Doc, offering observational and participatory as modes that seem to get at the difference more clearly than direct or cv, given all the vageries on meaning conveyed by those words.
bill nichols
==============================================
Leacock, Richard (2011). The Feeling of Being There: a filmmaker’s memoir. Paris: Semeïon.
Brian Winston
===============================================================
Since this thread is becoming a significant resource on this theme I should mention a 50 minute programme that I made for BBC2's The Late Show in 1992 - Verite Today. It looks back at 1960 - at Chronique d'un Ete & Primary - as a way of historicising currents
in UK documentary towards the end of the century. It includes interviews with Rouch, Leacock, Broomfield, Akomfrah, and our very own Brian Winston.
I keep meaning to put the whole onto You Tube to make it more accessible.
Right now there is a just a clip.
Best wishes,
M
Mandy Rose
Associate Professor
Director - Digital Cultures Research Centre
University of the West of England
dcrc.org.uk
http://i-docs.org/
@collabdocs
======================================
Ha if we are all plugging our work I would like to mention my Psychoanalysis and Ethics in Documentarry Film (2014) Routledge. Also please look up Elizabeth Cowie's brilliant essay in the collection edited by me Embodied Encounters: New Approaches
to Psychoanalysis and Cinema.
==================================================
