Direct Cinema
Encyclopedia
Direct Cinema is a documentary
genre that originated between 1958 and 1962 in North America, principally in the Canadian province of Quebec
and the United States
. Similar in many respects to the cinéma vérité
genre, it was characterized initially by filmmakers' desire to directly capture reality and represent it truthfully, and to question the relationship of reality with cinema.
and more intimacy in the filmmaking. It also produced movements that are the style's visual trademark. The first cameras of this type were German cameras, designed for ethnographic cinematography. The company Arriflex was considered the first to widely commercialize such cameras, that were improved for aerial photography during World War II
. Easily available, portable cameras played an important part, but the existence of these cameras in itself did not trigger the birth of Direct Cinema.
(literally "Cinema Truth") practice of Dziga Vertov
, which can be traced back to the 1920s, gave an articulated voice to this notion, where one can also see the influence of futurism
.
Before the 1960s and the advent of Direct Cinema, the concepts of propaganda, film education and documentary were loosely defined in the public. Cinema in its ontological objectivity was seen by many viewers as reality captured and a means of universal education, as had been photography in its early period. Documentaries from the 1950s provide insight into the level of understanding that viewers of that day had of manipulation and mise-en-scène in films shot on "documentary sets." Direct Cinema gained its importance in the perspective of the popular evolution of ideas about reality and the media.
(invented in 1954) and the 1957 Nagra III
, sound recording machinery was either extremely heavy or unreliable. Many attempts were made to solve this problem during the 1950s and 1960s. At the National Film Board of Canada
(NFB), for example, a system called "Sprocketape" was designed, but was not imposed.
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 (synchronized) in sound editing, thus providing the film with sound. In other cases, the soundtrack was recorded, as in fiction films: with layers of ambient sound, archival sound effects, Foley, and post-synced voices.
In other cases the documentary subject was brought into a studio. Sound taken directly from the studio made the documentary nature of the recording arguable. For example, a production might reconstruct a stable in the studio, with a sound engineer close by in a soundproof booth. This mimics the production of some studio films and TV series, but results in a surreal situation of cows in a studio for a documentary on farming, rather than in their natural habitat.
Direct Cinema seemed to reflect this new attitude. It emerged from a desire to compare common opinion with reality. It attempted to show how things really are, outside the studio, far from the editorial control of the establishment—be it governmental or big press. What was noteworthy was that the 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 resulted in its formal style and methodology.
of the National Film Board of Canada
, who pioneered modern hand-held camera
work, it meant the ability to go amidst the people with a wide angle. Other filmmakers would develop different methods. Some insisted that their subject needed to get used to them before they started any real shooting, so it would seem the camera was being ignored 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 and acknowledge that it provoked reactions. This allowed filmmakers to feel free to ask their film subject to do something they would like to document.
The desire to capture reality led to some questioning the ability of filmmakers to properly film someone whom they could not fully understand. As an example, Jean Rouch
went so far as to hand the camera to the "subject" (and co-author) of Moi, un Noir
.
Regardless of these practices, one thing is certain: Direct Cinema had more to do with the ethical considerations in documentary film making than with the technology. This could explain why the movement began in two North American societies that were in social and ideological mutation, French Canada (Quebec) and the United States, before spreading to South America and France.
in Quebec
, at the dawning of the Quiet Revolution
, a period of intense social and political change.
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 phenomena:
The consequences of these three movements deeply modified Quebec society and resulted in a myriad of perspectives by intellectuals and artists in their colonized society. Filmmakers would simultaneously try to share their social conscience, improve the living conditions of the Québécois and attempt to bring national independence—provoking, documenting this transformation, and at the same time keeping a record of disappearing traditions in a rapidly changing society. The landmark film Les Raquetteurs
(1958), co-directed by Michel Brault
and Gilles Groulx
, is a key example , as is Groulx's 1961 Golden Gloves.
Direct cinema techniques were also incorporated into a number of key fiction films of the period, such as Le chat dans le sac (1964) and La vie heureuse de Léopold Z (1965).
, a journalist with Life
magazine during the war, decided 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
.) They started experimenting with technology, syncing camera and sound with the parts of a watch. In 1960, this group produced three films for Time-Life Broadcast: Yanqui, No!, Eddie (On the Pole), and Primary
.
Yanqui, No! focused on South America
and its tense relations with the U.S. 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), helped define 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. After these hotly debated experiments, Time Life Broadcast withdrew from its agreement with Drew Associates. Drew Associates would continue on its own.
On June 11, 1963, the Alabama
Governor George Wallace
blocked the entrance of the University of Alabama
to oppose integration. His defiance of court order rapidly became a national issue in the U.S. Drew Associates had a cameraman in the Oval office and recorded the meetings over the crisis. The result played on TV in October 1963. Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment
not only fueled discussions over the Civil Rights Movement
, it also triggered a profound questioning over the political power of Direct Cinema. Politicians became more cautious about allowing access by documentary filmmakers.
to give shape, structure and meaning to the material recorded. Some film historians have characterized the Direct Cinema movement as a North American version of the cinéma vérité movement. The latter was exemplified in France with Jean Rouch
's Chronicle of a Summer (1961). For these historians cinéma vérité 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 relies 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. Such claims of non-intervention have been criticized by critics and historians.
explained how he saw the differences between cinéma vérité and Direct Cinema:
Jean Rouch
claimed cinéma vérité came from Brault and the NFB. Yet the NFB pioneers of the form Brault
, Pierre Perrault and the others, never used the term cinéma vérité to describe their work and, in fact, found the term pretentious. They preferred "Cinéma Direct". Cinema vérité, the phrase 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.
Cinéma vérité came to be a term applied in English to everything from a school of thought, to a film style, and a look adopted by commercials.
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
genre that originated between 1958 and 1962 in North America, principally in the Canadian province of Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Similar in many respects to the cinéma vérité
Cinéma vérité
Cinéma vérité is a style of documentary filmmaking, combining naturalistic techniques with stylized cinematic devices of editing and camerawork, staged set-ups, and the use of the camera to provoke subjects. It is also known for taking a provocative stance toward its topics.There are subtle yet...
genre, it was characterized initially by filmmakers' desire to directly capture reality and represent it truthfully, and to question the relationship of reality with cinema.
Origins
"Direct Cinema is the result of two predominant and related factors—The desire for a new cinematic realism and the development of the equipment necessary to achieving that desire"(Monaco 2003, p. 206) Many technological, ideological and social aspects contribute to the Direct Cinema movement and its place in the history of cinema.Light cameras
Direct Cinema was made possible, in part, by the advent of light, portable cameras, which allowed the hand-held cameraHand-held camera
Hand-held camera or hand-held shooting is a filmmaking and video production technique in which a camera is held in the camera operator's hands as opposed to being mounted on a tripod or other base. Hand-held cameras are used because they are conveniently sized for travel and because they allow...
and more intimacy in the filmmaking. It also produced movements that are the style's visual trademark. The first cameras of this type were German cameras, designed for ethnographic cinematography. The company Arriflex was considered the first to widely commercialize such cameras, that were improved for aerial photography during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Easily available, portable cameras played an important part, but the existence of these cameras in itself did not trigger the birth of Direct Cinema.
Objective truthfulness
The idea of cinema as an objective space has been present since its birth. The Kino-PravdaKino-Pravda
Kino-Pravda was a newsreel series by Dziga Vertov, Elizaveta Svilova, and Mikhail Kaufman.Working mainly during the 1920s, Vertov promoted the concept of kino-pravda, or film-truth, through his newsreel series. His driving vision was to capture fragments of actuality which, when organized...
(literally "Cinema Truth") practice of Dziga Vertov
Dziga Vertov
David Abelevich Kaufman , better known by his pseudonym Dziga Vertov , was a Soviet pioneer documentary film, newsreel director and cinema theorist...
, which can be traced back to the 1920s, gave an articulated voice to this notion, where one can also see the influence of futurism
Futurism
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century.Futurism or futurist may refer to:* Afrofuturism, an African-American and African diaspora subculture* Cubo-Futurism* Ego-Futurism...
.
Before the 1960s and the advent of Direct Cinema, the concepts of propaganda, film education and documentary were loosely defined in the public. Cinema in its ontological objectivity was seen by many viewers as reality captured and a means of universal education, as had been photography in its early period. Documentaries from the 1950s provide insight into the level of understanding that viewers of that day had of manipulation and mise-en-scène in films shot on "documentary sets." Direct Cinema gained its importance in the perspective of the popular evolution of ideas about reality and the media.
Sound before the 1960s
Before the use of pilottonePilottone
Pilottone and the related neo-pilottone are special synchronization signals recorded by analog audio recorders designed for use in motion picture production...
(invented in 1954) and the 1957 Nagra III
Nagra
Nagra is the trademark referring to any of the series of mostly battery-operated portable professional audio recorders produced by Kudelski SA, based in Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Switzerland....
, sound recording machinery was either extremely heavy or unreliable. Many attempts were made to solve this problem during the 1950s and 1960s. At the National Film Board of Canada
National Film Board of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's twelve-time Academy Award-winning public film producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary, animation, alternative drama and digital media productions...
(NFB), for example, a system called "Sprocketape" was designed, but was not imposed.
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 (synchronized) in sound editing, thus providing the film with sound. In other cases, the soundtrack was recorded, as in fiction films: with layers of ambient sound, archival sound effects, Foley, and post-synced voices.
In other cases the documentary subject was brought into a studio. Sound taken directly from the studio made the documentary nature of the recording arguable. For example, a production might reconstruct a stable in the studio, with a sound engineer close by in a soundproof booth. This mimics the production of some studio films and TV series, but results in a surreal situation of cows in a studio for a documentary on farming, rather than in their natural habitat.
Ideological and social aspects
With improved sound, lighting and camera equipment available, the technical conditions necessary for the advent of Direct Cinema were present. The social and ideological conditions that led to Direct Cinema also appeared.Direct Cinema seemed to reflect this new attitude. It emerged from a desire to compare common opinion with reality. It attempted to show how things really are, outside the studio, far from the editorial control of the establishment—be it governmental or big press. What was noteworthy was that the 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 resulted in its formal style and methodology.
The elusive recipe of reality captured
The awareness of cinema's potential to lie would result in filmmakers' trying precise ways of shooting. For Michel BraultMichel Brault
Michel Brault, OQ is a Quebec cinematographer, cameraman, film director, screenwriter and film producer. He is a leading figure of Direct Cinema, characteristic of the French branch of the National Film Board of Canada in the 1960s...
of the National Film Board of Canada
National Film Board of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's twelve-time Academy Award-winning public film producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary, animation, alternative drama and digital media productions...
, who pioneered modern hand-held camera
Hand-held camera
Hand-held camera or hand-held shooting is a filmmaking and video production technique in which a camera is held in the camera operator's hands as opposed to being mounted on a tripod or other base. Hand-held cameras are used because they are conveniently sized for travel and because they allow...
work, it meant the ability to go amidst the people with a wide angle. Other filmmakers would develop different methods. Some insisted that their subject needed to get used to them before they started any real shooting, so it would seem the camera was being ignored 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 and acknowledge that it provoked reactions. This allowed filmmakers to feel free to ask their film subject to do something they would like to document.
The desire to capture reality led to some questioning the ability of filmmakers to properly film someone whom they could not fully understand. As an example, Jean Rouch
Jean Rouch
Jean Rouch was a French filmmaker and anthropologist.He is considered to be one of the founders of the cinéma vérité in France, which shared the aesthetics of the direct cinema spearheaded by Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker and Albert and David Maysles...
went so far as to hand the camera to the "subject" (and co-author) of Moi, un Noir
Moi, un noir
Moi, un noir is a 1958 French ethnofiction film directed by Jean Rouch. The film is set in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. It won the 1958 Louis Delluc Prize....
.
Regardless of these practices, one thing is certain: Direct Cinema had more to do with the ethical considerations in documentary film making than with the technology. This could explain why the movement began in two North American societies that were in social and ideological mutation, French Canada (Quebec) and the United States, before spreading to South America and France.
Quebec
Direct Cinema began in 1958 at the National Film Board of CanadaNational Film Board of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's twelve-time Academy Award-winning public film producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary, animation, alternative drama and digital media productions...
in Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, at the dawning of the Quiet Revolution
Quiet Revolution
The Quiet Revolution was the 1960s period of intense change in Quebec, Canada, characterized by the rapid and effective secularization of society, the creation of a welfare state and a re-alignment of politics into federalist and separatist factions...
, a period of intense social and political change.
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 phenomena:
- The advent of a welfare stateWelfare stateA welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those...
in Quebec accompanying its institutional Anglicization. - A nationalist and social movement fighting ethnic discrimination against Canadians of French origins
- The important industrialization and socio-economical change brought both by the baby boomPost-World War II baby boomThe end of World War II brought a baby boom to many countries, especially Western ones. There is some disagreement as to the precise beginning and ending dates of the post-war baby boom, but it is most often agreed to begin in the years immediately after the war, ending more than a decade later;...
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 deeply modified Quebec society and resulted in a myriad of perspectives by intellectuals and artists in their colonized society. Filmmakers would simultaneously try to share their social conscience, improve the living conditions of the Québécois and attempt to bring national independence—provoking, documenting this transformation, and at the same time keeping a record of disappearing traditions in a rapidly changing society. The landmark film Les Raquetteurs
Les raquetteurs
Les raquetteurs is a 1958 Direct Cinema documentary film co-directed by Michel Brault and Gilles Groulx. The film explores life in rural Quebec, at a convention of snowshoers in Sherbrooke, Quebec in February of 1958...
(1958), co-directed by Michel Brault
Michel Brault
Michel Brault, OQ is a Quebec cinematographer, cameraman, film director, screenwriter and film producer. He is a leading figure of Direct Cinema, characteristic of the French branch of the National Film Board of Canada in the 1960s...
and Gilles Groulx
Gilles Groulx
Gilles Groulx was a Canadian film director. He grew up in a working-class family with 14 children. After studying business in school, he went to work in an office but found the white-collar environment too stultifying...
, is a key example , as is Groulx's 1961 Golden Gloves.
Direct cinema techniques were also incorporated into a number of key fiction films of the period, such as Le chat dans le sac (1964) and La vie heureuse de Léopold Z (1965).
U.S.A.
In the United States, Robert DrewRobert Drew
Robert Lincoln Drew is an American documentary filmmaker known as a pioneer of cinéma vérité, or direct cinema, in the United States....
, a journalist with Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
magazine during the war, decided to apply the photojournalist method to movies. He founded Drew Associates (which included Richard Leacock
Richard Leacock
Richard Leacock was a British-born documentary film director and one of the pioneers of Direct Cinema and Cinéma vérité.-Early life and career:...
, D.A. Pennebaker, Terence Macartney-Filgate, and Albert and David Maysles
Albert and David Maysles
Albert and David Maysles were a documentary filmmaking team whose cinéma vérité works include Salesman , Gimme Shelter and Grey Gardens . Their 1964 film on The Beatles forms the backbone of the DVD, The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit...
.) They started experimenting with technology, syncing camera and sound with the parts of a watch. In 1960, this group produced three films for Time-Life Broadcast: Yanqui, No!, Eddie (On the Pole), and Primary
Primary (film)
Primary is a 1960 Direct Cinema documentary film about the 1960 Wisconsin Primary election between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey for the United States Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States....
.
Yanqui, No! focused on South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
and its tense relations with the U.S. 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
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
and Hubert H. Humphrey), helped define 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. After these hotly debated experiments, Time Life Broadcast withdrew from its agreement with Drew Associates. Drew Associates would continue on its own.
On June 11, 1963, the Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
Governor George Wallace
George Wallace
George Corley Wallace, Jr. was the 45th Governor of Alabama, serving four terms: 1963–1967, 1971–1979 and 1983–1987. "The most influential loser" in 20th-century U.S. politics, according to biographers Dan T. Carter and Stephan Lesher, he ran for U.S...
blocked the entrance of the University of Alabama
University of Alabama
The University of Alabama is a public coeducational university located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States....
to oppose integration. His defiance of court order rapidly became a national issue in the U.S. Drew Associates had a cameraman in the Oval office and recorded the meetings over the crisis. The result played on TV in October 1963. Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment
Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment
Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment is a 1963 cinéma vérité documentary film directed by Robert Drew. The film centers on the University of Alabama integration crisis of June 1963. Drew and the other filmmakers, such as D. A. Pennebaker and Richard Leacock, were given access to all the key...
not only fueled discussions over the Civil Rights Movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
, it also triggered a profound questioning over the political power of Direct Cinema. Politicians became more cautious about allowing access by documentary filmmakers.
Direct Cinema and cinéma vérité
Cinéma vérité has many resemblances to Direct Cinema. The hand-held style of camera work is the same. There is a similar feeling of real life unfolding before the viewer's eyes. There is also a mutual concern with social and ethical questions. Both cinéma vérité and Direct Cinema rely on the power of editingFilm editing
Film editing is part of the creative post-production process of filmmaking. It involves the selection and combining of shots into sequences, and ultimately creating a finished motion picture. It is an art of storytelling...
to give shape, structure and meaning to the material recorded. Some film historians have characterized the Direct Cinema movement as a North American version of the cinéma vérité movement. The latter was exemplified in France with Jean Rouch
Jean Rouch
Jean Rouch was a French filmmaker and anthropologist.He is considered to be one of the founders of the cinéma vérité in France, which shared the aesthetics of the direct cinema spearheaded by Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker and Albert and David Maysles...
's Chronicle of a Summer (1961). For these historians cinéma vérité 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 relies 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. Such claims of non-intervention have been criticized by critics and historians.
Filmmakers opinions on this subject
In a 2003 interview (Zuber), Robert DrewRobert Drew
Robert Lincoln Drew is an American documentary filmmaker known as a pioneer of cinéma vérité, or direct cinema, in the United States....
explained how he saw the differences 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 BrothersMarx BrothersThe Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act, originally from New York City, that enjoyed success in Vaudeville, Broadway, and motion pictures from the early 1900s to around 1950...
. My idea was to have one or two people, unobtrusive, capturing the moment."
Jean Rouch
Jean Rouch
Jean Rouch was a French filmmaker and anthropologist.He is considered to be one of the founders of the cinéma vérité in France, which shared the aesthetics of the direct cinema spearheaded by Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker and Albert and David Maysles...
claimed cinéma vérité came from Brault and the NFB. Yet the NFB pioneers of the form Brault
Michel Brault
Michel Brault, OQ is a Quebec cinematographer, cameraman, film director, screenwriter and film producer. He is a leading figure of Direct Cinema, characteristic of the French branch of the National Film Board of Canada in the 1960s...
, Pierre Perrault and the others, never used the term cinéma vérité to describe their work and, in fact, found the term pretentious. They preferred "Cinéma Direct". Cinema vérité, the phrase 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.
Cinéma vérité came to be a term applied in English to everything from a school of thought, to a film style, and a look adopted by commercials.
Examples of Direct Cinema documentaries
- Crisis: Behind a Presidential CommitmentCrisis: Behind a Presidential CommitmentCrisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment is a 1963 cinéma vérité documentary film directed by Robert Drew. The film centers on the University of Alabama integration crisis of June 1963. Drew and the other filmmakers, such as D. A. Pennebaker and Richard Leacock, were given access to all the key...
- Robert DrewRobert DrewRobert Lincoln Drew is an American documentary filmmaker known as a pioneer of cinéma vérité, or direct cinema, in the United States....
, 1963 - The Chair - Robert DrewRobert DrewRobert Lincoln Drew is an American documentary filmmaker known as a pioneer of cinéma vérité, or direct cinema, in the United States....
, 1963 - Tread - Richard LeacockRichard LeacockRichard Leacock was a British-born documentary film director and one of the pioneers of Direct Cinema and Cinéma vérité.-Early life and career:...
, 1972 - Chiefs - Richard LeacockRichard LeacockRichard Leacock was a British-born documentary film director and one of the pioneers of Direct Cinema and Cinéma vérité.-Early life and career:...
, 1968 - Gimme ShelterGimme Shelter"Gimme Shelter" is a song by English rock band The Rolling Stones. It first appeared as the opening track on the band's 1969 album Let It Bleed. Although the first word was spelled "Gimmie" on that album, subsequent recordings by the band and other musicians have made "Gimme" the customary spelling...
- The Maysles Brothers, 1970 - Salesman - The Maysles Brothers, 1969
- Meet Marlon Brando - The Maysles Brothers, 1966
- Brothers' KeeperBrother's Keeper (film)Brother's Keeper is a 1992 documentary directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky. The film is about an alleged 1990 murder in the village of Munnsville, New York. The film is in the "Direct Cinema" style of the Maysles brothers who had formerly employed Berlinger and Sinofsky.The film contrasts...
- Joe BerlingerJoe BerlingerJoseph "Joe" Berlinger is an American documentary film-maker who, in collaboration with Bruce Sinofsky, has created such films as Paradise Lost about the West Memphis 3, Brother's Keeper, Some Kind of Monster, and Crude....
and Bruce SinofskyBruce SinofskyBruce Sinofsky is an award-winning documentary film director, who began his career at Maysles Films.Sinofsky was born in Boston, Massachusetts. As Senior Editor for Maysles, he worked on commercials and feature films until 1991, when he and Joe Berlinger formed their own production company,...
, 1992 - Neukölln UnlimitedNeukölln UnlimitedNeukölln Unlimited is a 2010 German documentary. The film follows three Lebanese siblings - Hassan, Lial and Maradona - through their daily lives in Berlin's district of Neukölln....
- Agostino ImondiAgostino ImondiAgostino Imondi is an Italian documentary film director based in Berlin, Germany.-Career:Imondi set foot in the media industry in the year 2000, starting as a volunteer camera operator and editor for Melbourne community TV station Channel 31....
and Dietmar Ratsch, 2010
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 Hfall, 1989.
- Claire JohnstonClaire JohnstonClaire Johnston was a feminist film theoretician. She wrote seminal essays on the construction of ideology in mainstream cinema .-Writings:...
, "Women's Cinema as Counter-Cinema" (1975) in: Sue Thornham (ed.), Feminist Film Theory. A Reader, Edinburgh University Press 1999, pp. 31–40 - Bill NicholsBill NicholsBill Nichols is an American historian and theoretician of documentary film. His study Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary covers the theory of documentary film, a topic neglected by mainstream film theory...
, 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.