Direct Cinema

Direct cinema is a form of documentary film which emerged in the late 1950s and the 1960s. Its origin is often associated with the advent of lightweight cameras and transportable, synchronized sound recording devices, although this sort of technological determinism is somewhat controversial. "In fact," writes Claire Johnston, "the lightweight camera was developed as early as the 1930s in Nazi Germany for propaganda purposes; the reason why it was not until the 1950s that it assumed common usage remains obscure."

Related Topics:
Documentary film - Technological determinism - Claire Johnston

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A pioneering work in the form was Les Raquetteurs (The Snowshoers) by the Canadians Michel Brault and Gilles Groulx (1958). Techniques of direct cinema where also frequently used in early feminist cinema. In the United States, Robert Drew founded Drew Associates (which included Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker, Terence Macartney-Filgate, and Albert and David Maysles). In 1960, this group produced for Time-Life Broadcast three films: Yanqui, No!, Eddie (On the Pole), and Primary. In particular, Primary (a documentary about the 1960 Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary campaign between Senators John F. Kennedy and Hubert H. Humphrey) defined the Direct Cinema style. 16:14, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Related Topics:
Michel Brault - Gilles Groulx - Feminist cinema

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It's useful to distinguish Direct Cinema from Cinema Verité. Typically, film historians have characterized the Direct Cinema movement as the U.S. version of the Cinema Verité movement, an idea that crystallized in France with Jean Rouch's Chronicle of a Summer (1961). Cinema Verité uses the power of the camera to provoke and reveal. Direct Cinema, on the other hand, is 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 the recorded event. In Direct Cinema, the filmmaker aims to be a fly-on-the-wall capturing life as it unfolds, although such claims of non-intervention have been severely critized. (Johnston again: "Clearly, if we accept that cinema involves the production of signs, the idea of non-intervention is pure mystification. The sign is always a product. What the camera in fact grasps is the 'natural' world of dominant ideology.")

Related Topics:
Cinema Verité - Jean Rouch - Chronicle of a Summer

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In a 2003 interview (Zuber), Robert Drew explained how he saw the difference between Cinema Verité and Direct Cinema: "I had made Primary and a few other films. Then I went to France with Leacock for a conference . I was surprised to see the cinema verité filmmakers accosting people on the street with a microphone. 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 the moment." . 16:14, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

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Both Cinema Verité and Direct Cinema rely on the power of editing to give shape and structure to the material recorded. It's not uncommon for shooting to finished film ratios to be 40:1 or even as much as 100:1.

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