Misplaced Pages

#32967

54-439: "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. Direct cinema was made possible, in part, by the advent of light, portable cameras, which allowed

108-563: A costume to fit the scene, cameraman Jules Kruger rode another horse to tend the mechanism between shots. Rather than including one or two hand-held scenes for an unusual effect amid an otherwise static film, Gance strove to make his entire film appear as dynamic as possible. It premiered in early 1927. In the 1920s, more cameras such as the Zeiss-Ikon Kinamo, Newman-Sinclair , Eyemo , and De Vry were beginning to be created with hand-held ergonomics in mind. The Bolex camera

162-503: A documentary on farming, rather than in their natural habitat. Synchronized sound was used by French filmmaker Jean Rouch in 1960 when he shot Chronicle of a Summer , a landmark film in direct cinema history, in style of cinéma-vérité , using a 16 mm camera connected through pilottone with a prototype of Nagra III , a transistorized magnetic-tape recorder with electronic speed control, developed by Stefan Kudelski . With improved sound, lighting and camera equipment available,

216-423: A film roll on one winding. These cameras saw limited use in professional filmmaking. Further examples of limited hand-held work in the late 1920s include J. Stuart Blackton 's The Passionate Quest (1926), Sidney Franklin 's Quality Street (1927), and Cecil B. DeMille 's The King of Kings (1927). The emergence of the sound film had an immediate dampening effect on the use of hand-held shots because

270-405: A hand-held camera. Virtually all modern video cameras are small enough for hand-held use, but many professional video cameras are designed specifically for hand-held use such as for electronic news-gathering (ENG), and electronic field production (EFP). Hand-held camera shots often result in a shaky image, unlike the stable image from a tripod-mounted camera. Purposeful use of this technique

324-705: 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. Cinéma vérité has many resemblances to direct cinema. The hand-held style of camera work

378-517: A wide variety of innovative techniques, including strapping a camera to a man's chest, a snow sled, a horse's saddle, a pendulum swing, and wrapping a large sponge around a hand-held camera so that it could be punched by actors during a fight scene. For the Debrie Parvo camera strapped to the horse's saddle, Gance's technical director, engineer Simon Feldman, devised a reversed steam engine for cranking it, powered by two compressed air tanks. Wearing

432-478: Is called shaky camera and can be heightened by the camera operator during filming, or artificially simulated in post-production. To prevent shaky shots, a number of image stabilization technologies have been used on hand-held cameras including optical, digital and mechanical methods. The Steadicam , which is not considered to be a "hand-held" camera, uses a stabilizing mount to make smoother shots. The first silent film era movie cameras that could be carried by

486-422: 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 editing 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

540-547: The Arriflex 16SR ten years later. In the meantime, Eclair had also a much smaller and ergonomic hand-held 16mm camera, the Eclair ACL (1971), an improvement also spurred by Rouch's drive for equipment that matched his vision of cinema. Michel Brault Michel Brault , OQ (25 June 1928 – 21 September 2013) was a Canadian cinematographer , cameraman , film director , screenwriter , and film producer . He

594-598: The National Film Board of Canada 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. 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

SECTION 10

#1732776044033

648-462: The National Film Board of Canada in 1956, working on the celebrated Candid Eye series. From 1961–62 he was in France , where he worked with directors such as Jean Rouch and Mario Ruspoli , and shot the influential Chronique d’un été with Raoul Coutard and others. In France, he is considered an originator and one of the purist practitioners of cinéma-vérité . Brault returned to Quebec and

702-407: 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

756-451: The hand-held camera 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 and battlefield photography during World War II . Easily available, portable cameras played an important part, but

810-630: The CFA for direction and he shared the best director award at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival . The film seamlessly fuses documentary and fiction styles while dramatizing the trauma of innocent people caught up in the October Crisis of 1970. It is still regarded as a masterpiece of Canadian cinema. Brault died of a heart attack on the afternoon of 21 September 2013, while en route to the Film North – Huntsville International Film Festival , where he

864-543: The Cinema vérité filmmakers accosting people on the street with a microphone ( Chronicle of a Summer ). 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 Brothers . My idea was to have one or two people, unobtrusive, capturing

918-521: The Eyemos and Arriflexes in particular were mass manufactured for the Allied and Axis militaries, respectively. This allowed these cameras to be exposed to a much greater number of individuals than would have normally familiarized themselves with them; many wartime cameramen would eventually bring them back into the film industry where they are used to this day. With the Allied capture of Arriflexes, along with

972-832: 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. 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 greater freedom of motion during filming. Newsreel camera operators frequently gathered images using

1026-462: The NFB, but quit the Board in 1965 when Pierre Juneau , the director of French production, rejected his first fiction feature, Entre la mer et l'eau douce . He then enjoyed a successful freelance career in feature films, documentaries, shorts and television. His cinematography ranged from the gritty cinéma-vérité style of À tout prendre to the lyricism of Kamouraska , and his directorial work from

1080-518: 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

1134-534: The United States, Robert Drew , a journalist with Life magazine after 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

SECTION 20

#1732776044033

1188-490: The aesthetic consequences of these smaller cameras weren't fully realized until the late 1950s and early 1960s. A hand-held camera was used in 1958 on the documentary film Les Raquetteurs , shot on 35 mm by Michel Brault . When Jean Rouch met Brault and saw his work, he asks him to come to France, and show his technique. For some context on this film, relationship of documentary sound and image, and Brault's cinema, see Direct Cinema . This trend, led by Michel Brault ,

1242-478: 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. Direct cinema began in 1958 at

1296-424: The cameraman were bulky and not very practical to simultaneously support, aim, and crank by hand, yet they were sometimes used in that way by pioneering filmmakers. In the 1890s, brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière developed the fairly compact Cinematograph which could be mounted on a tripod or carried by the cameraman, and it also served as the film projector. In 1908 with a hand-held Lumière camera, Wilbur Wright

1350-476: 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

1404-476: 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

1458-403: 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 often results in surreal situations, such as cows being in a studio for

1512-421: The existence of these cameras in itself did not trigger the birth of direct cinema. The idea of cinema as an objective space has been present since its birth. The Kino-Pravda (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,

1566-457: The film camera motors were too loud to be able to record synchronized sound on set, and thus early sound films were forced to install the camera within a soundproof booth. By 1929, camera manufacturers and studios had devised shells, called blimps , to encase the camera and dampen the mechanical noise sufficiently to allow the cameras to be free of the booths. However, this came at a cost: the blimped, motorized cameras were considerably heavier. When

1620-399: The hand crank with an electric motor, or with a mainspring and gears, or with gears driven by compressed air. The Aeroscope was a compressed air camera designed by Prószyński, one that proved reliable and popular. Hundreds of Aeroscopes were used during World War I by British war journalists. Sales continued into the 1920s. In January 1925, Abel Gance began shooting Napoléon using

1674-617: 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

Direct cinema - Misplaced Pages Continue

1728-487: The moment. 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

1782-428: 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

1836-415: The perspective of the popular evolution of ideas about reality and the media. Before the use of pilottone sync-sound (invented in 1954) and the 1961 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

1890-483: The realm of 16 mm cameras, Michel Coutant at Éclair was working with Brault and Rouch's input to create prototypes that eventually led to the self-blimped Eclair 16 (also known as the Eclair NPR or Eclair Coutant ), the first successful lightweight sync-sound movie camera. The design included a camera magazine which not only was back-mounted specifically to distribute a more balanced camera weight across

1944-404: The recorded event. Such claims of non-intervention have been criticized by critics and historians. In a 2003 interview (Zuber), Robert Drew 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

1998-551: The release of the new Arriflex II in 1946, many curious non-German cameramen finally had access to the advanced camera. Eclair followed this up with the Cameflex the following year. It was a lightweight (13 lb) camera specifically designed for hand-held shots and could be switched between shooting 35 mm and 16 mm . In 1952, Arri subsequently released the Arriflex 16ST , the first reflex camera designed specifically for 16 mm. Despite these technological developments,

2052-504: 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 The Cat in the Bag ( Le Chat dans le sac ) (1964) and La vie heureuse de Léopold Z (1965). In

2106-485: The shoulder for hand-holding, but also included a built-in pressure plate and sprocket drive, which allowed cameras to be reloaded in seconds — a crucial feature for vérité documentaries. Rouch's 1961 Chronicle of a Summer was shot by Coutard and Brault on a prototype that led to the Eclair 16 . Arri took many years to catch up, debuting the popular Arriflex 16BL in 1965, but not including quick-change magazines until

2160-753: The soon-to-be ubiquitous Mitchell Camera BNC (Blimped Newsreel Camera) emerged in 1934, it weighed in at 135 lb; this clearly precluded any hand-held usage. The aesthetic style of films from this period thus reflected their available technology, and hand-held shots were for the most part avoided. Hand-held shots required use of the smaller hand-wound spring-work cameras, which were too loud to be practical for any shots requiring synchronized (sync) sound, and held less footage than studio cameras. The spring-wound cameras were also not accurate enough speed-wise to guarantee perfect sync speed, which led to many of them having motors installed (the additional sound being negligible). Thus, these cameras could not be used for much in

2214-431: 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

Direct cinema - Misplaced Pages Continue

2268-610: The terse documentary stylings of La lutte to smoothly proficient television dramas such as Les noces de papier , which was entered into the 40th Berlin International Film Festival . He won Canadian Film Awards for lensing Mon oncle Antoine and The Time of the Hunt (Le Temps d’une chasse) , and Genie Awards for his work on Good Riddance (Les Bons débarras) and Threshold . Orders (Les Ordres) (1974), which he directed, shot and wrote, won for him

2322-440: The way of dialogue. They were joined by the revolutionary new Arriflex 35 camera, introduced in 1937, which was the first reflex camera for motion pictures. This camera also facilitated hand-held usage by integrating its motor into a handle below the camera body, allowing easy hand-held support, and weighing a mere 12 lb. Most of these cameras saw steady usage during World War II by both sides for documentary purposes, and

2376-529: The Église Saint-Mathieu in Beloeil, Quebec. Among those present for this homage were the provincial premier, Pauline Marois , and Brault's leading lady from Entre la mer et l'eau douce , Genevieve Bujold . His son, Sylvain Brault , is one of Quebec’s top cameramen, and his daughter, Anouk, is a producer. Over the course of his career, Brault worked as a director or cinematographer on over 200 films. Some of

2430-548: Was a leading figure of Direct Cinema , characteristic of the French branch of the National Film Board of Canada in the 1960s. Brault was a pioneer of the hand-held camera aesthetic. His early cameraman work with Gilles Groulx ( Les Raquetteurs ), Claude Jutra ( À tout prendre , Mon oncle Antoine ) and Pierre Perrault ( Pour la suite du monde ) virtually defines the look of classic Quebec cinema. He became involved with filmmaking while still at university and joined

2484-452: 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

2538-436: Was filmed flying his aircraft on the outskirts of Paris. Thomas Edison developed a portable film camera in 1896. Polish inventor Kazimierz Prószyński first demonstrated a hand-held film camera in 1898 but it was not reliable. From 1909 to 1911, directors Francesco Bertolini and Adolfo Padavan , with assistant director Giuseppe de Liguoro , shot scenes for L'Inferno , based on Dante 's The Divine Comedy . The film

2592-513: Was first made in Paris by André Debrie in 1908. Though expensive, it slowly built in popularity from about 1915. By the mid-1920s it was, in sheer numbers, the most-used film camera of any kind. The problem of hand-cranking and supporting the camera, and simultaneously aiming and focusing it, was difficult to solve. A variety of automatic cranking systems were developed to free one of the cameraman's hands. Various cameras were invented which replaced

2646-425: Was first shown in 1911 and it included hand-held camera shots as well as innovative camera angles and special film effects. In 1915, Thomas H. Ince 's The Italian , directed by Reginald Barker , included two hand-held shots, at least one of which represented the viewpoint of a character. The camera swerved suddenly to match what was happening to the character in the story. The compact hand-cranked Parvo camera

2700-521: Was followed by Raoul Coutard 's work in the French New Wave and the cinéma vérité , "fly-on-the-wall" documentary film aesthetic. In the case of the latter, Richard Leacock and D.A. Pennebaker actually had to force the 16 mm technology forward themselves through a number of extensive camera and audio recording equipment modifications in order to achieve longer-take, sync sound, observational films, beginning with Primary (1960). In

2754-417: Was introduced using half-width 16 mm film stock. These smaller cameras satisfied the demand from both the growing newsreel and documentary fields, as well as the emerging amateur market. They were specifically designed to hold shorter lengths of film—usually 100 to 200 feet (30 to 60 m)—and were driven by hand-wound mainspring clockworks which could last continuously through most or even all of

SECTION 50

#1732776044033

2808-477: Was not implemented. 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

2862-399: 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 awareness of cinema's potential to lie would result in filmmakers' trying precise ways of shooting. For Michel Brault of

2916-538: Was to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award. According to festival founder Lucy Wing, Brault had arrived at Pearson International Airport after a flight from his home in Montreal, accompanied by his son, Sylvain. Brault had begun the drive north to Huntsville by limousine when he began to feel ill, approximately one hour after his arrival in Toronto. A Ceremony of Commemoration was held for Brault on 4 October 4, 2013 at

#32967