Portability - Text 1
The expression “direct cinema” refers to a desire to record “reality” as close to lived experience as possible, with the “direct” quality standing in opposition to the onerous quality of the equipment associated with “classical” cinema. It was thus claimed that direct cinema was a new way of making films, based on the lightweight and easy to handle image and sound recording equipment. The most emblematic device of these new practices was the Nagra portable sound recorder, the first model of which was designed in 1951 by the Polish-born Swiss engineer Stefan Kudelski. The performance of the Nagra II (1953) confirmed the potential of this device, whose popularity its inventor ensured by giving it away to great explorers such as the mountain climber Raymond Lambert and the oceanographer Auguste Piccard in order to demonstrate its portability, robustness and reliability. Magnetic tape was the basis of the earliest models, but a different invention, transistors, would prove decisive: in 1958 there appeared the Nagra III, entirely transistor-based with an electric motor, weighing 5.8 kilograms and operating on twelve 1.5 volt batteries (adding considerably to the machine’s weight).[1] Also in 1958, another Swiss manufacturer introduced to the market a device with similar capabilities under the brand name Perfectone.
Also in the 1950s, the advent of television created new relations with images, in which the question of live (“direct” in French) shooting would prove to be decisive. Although this live shooting is often thought of today only in relation to dramatic shows shot in a studio, which are, true enough, emblematic of early television in France, the reality is quite different. Broadcasts of sporting events quickly took pride of place in television programming, with the most popular of these providing the new medium with notoriety. The Tour de France held everyone’s attention, and required a number of technical innovations to obtain the necessary mobility. Orthicon tube cameras were mounted on Citroën ID Break automobiles, and then on motorcycles, with the images being transmitted from control-room buses. We are still a long way from light and portable equipment, but these live television broadcasts and mobile crews trained for reportage gave impetus to the birth of a cinema trying to free itself from the constraints of the studio.[2] Because professional equipment did not satisfy this desire for emancipation, the filmmakers concerned used amateur cameras, not as high quality but much easier to handle, for experiments which have gone down in history: Jean Rouch shot Moi, un Noir (1958) in Niger with a small 16 mm Bell & Howell Filmo 70 spring-motor camera, while others made the Bolex H16 the star of these cameras made for amateurs which, in the late 1950s, would make 16 mm a non-standard format for professionals.
