Jean Rouch

Jean Rouch ( born May 31, 1917 † 18 February 2004 in Birni - N'Konni ) was a French film director.

Life and work

He was a pupil of Marcel Mauss, member of the Resistance and is considered a masterpiece of ethnographic film and founder of cinema vérité. However, Rouch himself emphasized how much his approach the French-Canadian filmmaker Michel Brault owed ​​( see quote below).

In 1946, he lost during an expedition on the Niger River in Africa, the tripod of his camera, and was forced to use the machine as a handheld camera. This is considered the beginning of cinéma vérité, whose name he has coined.

In his films, he deals with upheavals in Africa and Europe but also gives insight into the social life, the rituals, and the role of myth in societies.

Famous Les Maitres Fous is his film from 1954 about a ritual of Hauka, a then popular sect in West Africa. It represents the cult, in which participants are possessed by spirits in a trance, which stand for the former European colonial power, as the Governor-General, the engineer, the engineer, etc. In the cult of the trauma of colonialism has been processed.

Rouch been criticized in the 1960s of pages left groupings in France, who reproached and rejected him lack of commitment weltanschaulichem him as a post-colonial lovers of African rituals. The African writer and director Ousmane Sembene made ​​reference to his work and his vision with the accusation " You look at us like insects ." For many Songhai on the Niger Rouch was against it as a griot, who presented his art on a canvas.

Jean Rouch died in February 2004 in a car accident.

Films (selection )

  • Les fils de l' eau ( The Sons of the Water ), 1950
  • Mammy Water ( Mamy Wata ), 1953-1956
  • Les maîtres fous ( The Mad Masters ), 1954
  • Jaguar, 1957-1967
  • Chronique d'un été ( Chronicle of a Summer ), 1960
  • Petit à petit, 1969
  • Dionysus, 1984
  • Enigma, 1986
  • Moi fatigué debout, moi couché ( Tired Standing Up and Lying Down ), 1997

Quote

"Il faut le dire, tout ce que nous avons fait en France dans le domaine du cinéma vérité vient de l' ONF (Canada). C'est qui Brault a apports une nouvelle technique de que nous ne tournage connaissions et pas que nous tous copions depuis. D' ailleurs, vraiment, on a la ' brauchite ', ça, c'est sûr; même les gens qui que considèrent Brault est un emmerdeur ou qui sont étaient jaloux Forces de le reconnaître. " Jean Rouch, June 1963, Cahiers du cinéma, No.144.

" It must be admitted, all we have done in France in the area of ​​cinéma vérité comes from the ONF ( National Film Board of Canada ). From Brault comes a new technique of revolution, we did not know and which we copy ever since. Incidentally, one really has the ' Brault virus ', that's for sure; even the people who think Brault for a pain or who were jealous are forced to admit it. "

Cinéma vérité Cult (religious practice) Spirit possession Colonial empire Songhay languages Integrated Authority File
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