Calendar – Past Event

A seminal figure of both film art and social science, Jean Rouch (1917-2004) represents a fountainhead of many aspects. A filmmaker who came to cinema gradually, Rouch had been a civil engineer in colonial Niger, where his observation of possession rituals formed the basis of his interest in anthropology. Formally trained to gather visual evidence, he evolved radically new approaches to documentary practice in Africa over many decades. Among these, one finds the assumption of scientific neutrality replaced by the possibility of fruitful and revealing stimulations in the acknowledgement of the camera, and the possibility of cinema as participating in and subject to trance states. Such affronts to received Western notions opened still-ongoing debates within anthropological circles. Rouch's interest in the ontology of cinema led to experiments that proved hugely influential in his native France and worldwide, as in his most famous work, Chronique d'un Été (1961), co-directed with Edgar Morin, now regarded as a foundation document of cinema verité and a cornerstone of the French New Wave. Rouch's continuing work in post-colonial Africa evolved collaborative filmmaking approaches with colleagues including Damouré Zika and Oumarou Ganda, creating proto-fictional modes only partly distinct from documentary practice, and opening up the distinction of "ethno-fiction."This series samples but a fraction of Rouch's vast cinematic output, and celebrates his unique contributions to human understanding. 

Farther Than  Far: The Cinema of Jean Rouch is presented by the UCLA Film & Television Archive, in association with the French Film & TV Office-Consulate General of France in Los Angeles, Film at REDCAT, and Los Angeles Filmforum.