11. “There are two ways to conceive of the cinema of
the Real: the first is to pretend that you can present
reality to be seen; the second is to pose the
problem of reality.
In the same way, there were two ways to conceive
cinéma vérité. The first was to pretend that you
brought truth. The second was to pose the problem
of truth.”
– Edward Morin
15. Truth is something unattainable.
We can't think we're creating truth
with a camera. But what we can
do, is reveal something to viewers
that allows them to discover their
own truth.
-Michel Brault
17. “Cinema Verité confounds fact and truth, and
thus plows only stones.
Fact creates norms, and truth illumination.
There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and
there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It
is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached
only through fabrication and imagination and
stylization.”
– WERNER HERTZOG
18. WE CAN NEVER GET CLOSE TO THE
TRUTH EXCEPT THROUGH LYING.
– Abbas Kirostami
CINEMA VERITE
One of the major traditions in documentary is not dead! Continually being remade and re developed, starts in 1922 with Nanook of the North
Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin’s Chronicle of a Summer,
Maysles brothers’ Grey Gardens,
Fredrick Wiseman Highschool 1968
Chronique d'un été (1961)
Les Raquetteurs (1958)
Nanook of the North, Flaugerty, 1922
Lonely Boy (1962)
Iraq in Fragments (2007)
No voice over, no editorializing
Up the Yangtze is a 2007
INDUSTRY calling these Character-driven docs --- slightly different than veritie but borrows a lot from the form
John Cassevette’s Woman Under the Influence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdfXfqlJyb4
Mr. Zhao spent more than 12 years filming Chinese petitioners who would come to Beijing, often for years, to seek redress for wrongdoing by local officials, only to be met by harassment and sometimes detention.
This feature-length documentary is the unrehearsed story of what happened when old-timers from Île-aux-Coudres, a small island in the St. Lawrence River, were persuaded to revive a local whale-catching practice. Through the magic of words and the mystery of the catch, the film uncovers a spirituality rooted in the moon and the rhythm of the tides. More than a documentary, it is a fresco of the myths and legends among the traditional fishing communities of Quebec. In French with English subtitles.
At its 1963 Cannes premiere, it was billed as For Those Who Will Follow.[1] The NFB has also promoted the film in English as Of Whales, the Moon and Men [5] or The Moontrap,[6] depending upon whether it was the 105 minute or 84 minute version, respectively. The release of a 2007 "Île-aux-Coudres Trilogy" DVD trilogy also translates the film title as For the Ones to Come
Kent Jones https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/340-a-woman-under-the-influence-the-war-at-home
Cinema Verité confounds fact and truth, and thus plows only stones. And yet, facts sometimes have a strange and bizarre power that makes their inherent truth seem unbelievable.
Fact creates norms, and truth illumination.
There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization.
It was Edgar Morin, co-director with Jean Rouch of Chronicle of a Summer, who once mused that fiction film was more honest than documentary because it doesn’t make any attempt to hide its fiction or imaginings by pretending to be a reflection of reality as we do in documentary. As documentary filmmakers, we have inextricably linked ourselves to telling “the truth,” and with that territory comes the responsibility of behaving ethically. PEPITA
The Conceit of the “Real”
This is the film that inspired Herzog’s narrative drama Rescue Dawn, starring Christian Bale and Steve Zahn. While that adaptation drew some criticism for the liberties Herzog took with the original story, Little Dieter Needs to Fly is known to contain just as many falsities. In one scene, subject Dieter Dengler talks of his time spent as a prisoner of war in Laos. Herzog shows him getting out of his car and shutting the door multiple times. He then opens and closes the front door of his house over and over, explaining that this obsessive behavior is a lingering result of having spent so much time under lock and key. In truth, Herzog orchestrated this scene to elevate this theme through the use of visuals. It’s this experimentation with fact and fiction (“ecstatic truth,” as Herzog calls it) that makes him one of the more daring filmmakers in the documentary world, and Little Dieter Needs to Fly as exciting and engaging as its big-budget Hollywood counterpart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=214&v=LbATTyDCN7A