Crônica de um Verão

"Chronicle of A Summer" invented the cinema verité movement, the idea being that by celebrating and revealing the artificial nature of the film-making process, the truth, or more accurately, some truths will emerge. The film is enveloped with a luminous and appealing humanism, and it is a very cool and cinematic portrait of Paris in the beat days. Remember that World War Two was only a decade or so before this and somehow the fog of that war hangs over the film, especially given the backstory of one of the participants, at least this is what I remember..As historic documents go, it is also amazingly compelling today. I find the film much more absorbing than "Salesman" or Drew Associates stuff. Drink espresso instead of a pint before the film, my friend and you'll be fine..

JB-81

PS If you want to watch paint dry, check out Melville- Although he's pretty great too..

this was fascinating and brilliant doc in my opinion ahead of its time compared to this generation of reality TV and social media. the film focus and the parisian working class in serious of interviews and a brief look at there daily lives and conducting interviews about happiness, the struggles and goals and dreams. i am 44 and i was fascinated watching this film and how life was, and how it has changed in over 53 years. The fascinating film is for an acquired taste for an audience that can appreciate this type of film. This Film won the international critics prize at the 1960 Cannes film festival at the time of its release it was not popular with most critics or audience.

Often cited as one of the greatest documentaries ever made Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin's "Chronicles of a Summer" takes a look at the lives of of ordinary Parisiennes over the course of the summer of 1960. It was filmed in a 'cinema vertie' style, using the people who appear as if they were actors 'acting out' their lives. There is no voice-over; their technique is to use interviews or simply silently film these people going about their business. What distinguishes this extraordinary film from others of its kind is that this is a work both sociological and deeply political, a piece of social history in which Africans are side-lined and homosexuality never mentioned.

Rouch and Morin pick and choose their subjects, mostly workers, students and intellectuals, and back them into a corner where the politics of the proletariat becomes the benchmark. These people talk fearlessly about their treatment by the State and the drugery of their daily routine with white Parisiennes oblivious to their inherent racism.

The film-makers fundamental question is, 'Are you happy?' Initially two women interview people on the street asking them if they are happy and as the film progresses this becomes its focal point while the level of intimacy Rouch and Morin achieves is extraordinary. Theirs is a technique other film-makers have used many times since, perhaps more skillfully as film-making has become more sophisticated but this masterpiece remains the granddaddy of them all. Unmissable.

Some really fascinating stuff pops up in here with pertinent questions that make you wonder how much was real vs performance. Overall a neat look at 1960 Paris that holds time capsule like qualities and the keys to shared traits cross generations.

By 1960 the documentary had evolved with new sound equipment and lighter cameras. In a direct line from the ideas of Flaherty and Vertov, Canadian filmmakers as Michel Brault had made significant shorts as "Les raquetteurs" (1959), while in the United States Robert Drew created his seminal work, "Primary" (1960.) All this activity helped the launching of "cinéma vérité" in France, with this film manifesto made by anthropologist Jean Rouch and sociologist Edgar Morin. With a "caméra vivant" (living camera) and the question "Are you happy?", they went out to the streets of Paris to make a survey, showing passages in the life of students, workers and migrants (including Joris Ivens' future wife), with a short escapade to the St. Tropez beach, and a final confrontation of the creators and subjects with the footage and the idea of constructing objective pieces of reality on film. Rouch and American Frederick Wiseman believed in a kind of documentary open to emotional spaces and fantasy (as opposed, for example, to Richard Leacock's more naturalistic approach), and eventually changed the tone of their works, while the movement finally identified with the concept of "direct cinéma", developed by Canadians and American filmmakers.