Cinéma Vérité and Direct Cinema - Text 4
For the year that followed, under this same name, the French press grouped together into a coherent whole under the term “cinéma vérité”[3] films such as L’Amérique insolite (François Reichenbach, 1960), Shadows (John Cassavetes, 1961), La pyramide humaine (Jean Rouch, 1961), Primary, Eddie Sachs and Kenya (Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, 1960-62), and Les inconnus de la terre and Regard sur la folie (Mario Ruspoli, 1962). The technical, theoretical, artistic and ethical questions raised by this new cinema were debated during the MIPE-TV study days organized at Lyon from 2 to 4 March 1963 by the RTF’s research department. The terminology was controversial: those who championed the term “cinéma vérité” (Georges Sadoul, Joris Ivens) demanded a moral requirement and the philosophical dimension it upheld, while the partisans of the expression “cinéma direct” (Mario Ruspoli, Louis Marcorelles) praised the restraint and suppleness of the phenomenon as a practice.[4]
The term “cinéma direct” was proposed by Mario Ruspoli as an alternative to “cinéma vérité” in the report he wrote for UNESCO in October 1963. His proposal suggested an analogy between the newly conceived shooting equipment, which he called the “lightweight synchronous cinema group,” and the direct injection found in the engines of Formula 1 race cars. For Ruspoli, this image suggested the new uses made possible by the synchronous audiovisual crew: it should seize sound and image together and act “like a single person,” with the mechanism making it possible to adapt quickly and without interruption to the vagaries of the terrain.[5]
