Cinéma Vérité

A camera light enough to rest on a shoulder. A sound recorder light enough to carry. Once both existed, around 1960, the river of documentary changed shape again. What's interesting is that, at almost the same moment, two opposite answers came from opposite sides of the Atlantic. American direct cinema made an ideal of behaving as if no one were filming — watching only, like a fly on the wall. Primary (1960), which follows a presidential candidate, was shot on that principle. French cinéma vérité took the opposite view. Jean Rouch believed the mere presence of a camera draws something out of people. So he didn't hide the filming — he put the act of filming itself on screen. Chronicle of a Summer (1961) even shows the people who were filmed watching the footage of themselves and talking about it. Does staying out of the way bring you closer to the truth, or does stepping in bring the truth out? That question is still open. If you trace this movement's thinking back far enough, it lands on someone who said, in 1929, that the camera is a mechanical eye more accurate than the human eye (→ Avant-Garde Film). An idea that had lain dormant for thirty years woke up once the tools caught up with it.