Made during the summer of 1960 by anthropologist filmmaker Jean Rouch and sociologist Edgar Morin,
Chronicle of a Summer set out to record the everyday lives of a diverse array of Parisians through an highly influential approach to documentary filmmaking that made use of an original mixture of intimate interviews, debates, and observation.
The idea for the film arose when Rouch and Morin served as members of the jury for the first International Festival of Ethnographic Film in Florence, 1959. Rouch remembers Morin approaching him with the following question: “
You have made all your films abroad; do you know anything about contemporary France?” Morin then proposed that Rouch should move away from his devotion to African rituals and customs and instead turn his gaze onto the Parisians “
and do anthropological research about my own tribe.”
The film hinged on a simple theme:
‘How do you live?’ For Morin, this was a question that “
should encompass not only the way of life (housing, work) but also ‘How do you manage in life?’
and
'What do you do with your life?’” These questions were tackled through the film’s redefined approach to the documentary form which was, as the opening voice-over announces, “
made without actors but lived by men and women who devoted some of their time to a novel experiment of film-truth’,” or, as it is more commonly known, cinéma vérité.
The film’s interviews, debates, and observations reveal many fascinating insights into Parisian society at the onset of the 1960s. We witness factory workers and mechanics who talk about the oppressive nature of daily work and life; with one interviewee evoking the words of Albert Camus as read in his
The Myth of Sisyphus. Then there are the debates surrounding the independence wars in Algeria and Congo which situate the film within discussions of racism and decolonisation.
More recently,
Chronicle of a Summer has been read by Richard Brody as “
one of the greatest, and perhaps the primordial, Holocaust film.” This interpretation of Rouch and Morin’s documentary as a ‘Holocaust film’ can be seen in the story of Marceline. We are first introduced to Marceline at the beginning of the film; first as an interviewee for the filmmakers’ as they make a first attempt at their experimental documentary technique, and then as an interviewer asking random passers-by:
“Are you happy?” It isn’t until much later in the film that the numbered tattoo on her arm is revealed.
Immediately after the revelation that Marceline was a Holocaust survivor, the film presents us with its most intense, haunting, beautiful, and powerful scene. Marceline walks along an almost deserted Place de la Concorde, reminiscing about her experience of the Occupation. Far from making this film one about the Holocaust, what this scene demonstrates is a direct link between the legacy of the Second World War and France’s position as a colonial power clinging onto its territories during a time of decolonisation.
As this review as shown, it is often the filmmakers themselves who can provide the best analysis of their film. So I will end this piece on the excellent
Chronicle of a Summer with two quotes by Morin. The first quote relates to the films questioning of how much reality and truth is presented in documentary filmmaking: “
I thought we would start from a basis of truth and that an even greater truth would develop. Now I realise that if we achieved anything, it was to present the problem of truth.”
The final quote is taken from the films end in which Rouch and Morin pace up and down the Musée de l’Homme before Morin states: “
We wanted to make a film about love, but it turns out to be about indifference.”
★★★★½
Shane James
Rating: 12
DVD/BD Release Date: 27th May 2013 (UK)
Director: Edgar Morin,
Jean Rouch
Cast:
Marceline Loridan Ivens,
Landry,
Régis Debray
Buy:
Chronicle of a Summer (DVD + Blu-ray)
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