TECHNES Encyclopedia Database

Feedback

When it emerged, direct cinema revisited the film experience, questioning its ability to express the truth. This is why, following Robert Flaherty, the use of feedback recurs under the influence of filmmaker-ethnographers (Jean Rouch in particular). There were two sides to this idea of feedback on a film: one was the result of the filmmakers screening the rushes during the shooting of the film; and the other resulted from the persons who were filmed screening the rushes or a rough cut of the film. An example would be the final feedback of Chronique d’un été (Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, 1961), which was incorporated into the film and consists in a two-fold revisiting of the filming experience by those who took part in it.