This illustrates the room that Rouch and Morin left for their subjects to be changeable, inconsistent even, and the way that they assimilated these idiosyncrasies into their own definition of the real. This approach extended to all facets of verité, resulting in a cinematic style that accepted the interference of the filmmaking process with the reality that process sought to reveal.
Cinema verité was fundamentally committed to an authentic film experience, one that left the ambiguities, the emotional complexities, spontaneity, and changeability of life intact. It embraced the potential of filmmaking to interfere with reality, rather than sought to eliminate it, which has become an important aspect of a wide range of cinematic genres today.
Key characteristics of cinema verité
Some of the key characteristics of cinema verité are as follows:
- Shot on hand-held cameras
- Filmed on location
- Natural lighting
- Featuring real people
- Shaky camera work
- Camera moves with the action
- Every-day stories
- Emotional / political underpinnings
- Acknowledgement of the filmmaking process
- Investigative/ interventionist approach
Examples of cinema verité
By the 1960s hand-held cameras could capture both the sights and sounds of a real-life location, outside of the elaborate set-ups of studios. As a result of this, a more passive reality became significantly more observable to the camera eye. The film that first introduced the verité style - experimenting with this new cinematic potential - was Chronicle of a Summer (1960), directed by Morin and Rouch. Chronicle of a Summer follows the everyday lives of Parisians. As well as being filmmakers, Morin was a sociologist and Rouch, an anthropologist, so at times they approach their subjects as studies, and the documentary, a form of research. At the beginning of Chronicle of a Summer, Morin and Rouch appear, candidly talking about the challenges of the project. They wanted a naturalist representation of people’s lives, but they considered that their subjects’ actions and behaviors would inevitably be altered by the very presence of the camera. So, they chose to film people’s response to a simple prompt: ‘are you happy?’ This, they decided, was how they were going to get their subjects to converse. Including this discussion of the filmmaking process - this decision making - in the film itself, shrinks the divide between the filmmaking and the filmic subjects, contextualizing the on-screen reality with the reality behind the camera.
Much of Chronicle of a Summer is made up of clips of Parisian pedestrians being asked about their happiness, revealing a variety of perspectives on life. Some seem frightened by the solicitation, others annoyed, but many engage, revealing details of their family lives, their working conditions, their age, and finances. A sample of these answers can be watched here: