The Truth of the Matter: Cinéma Vérité and Direct Cinema

Abstract

Cinema verite — a form associated with developments in France — and direct cinema — work associated with the United States — have, since their inceptions in the early 1960s, constituted profound influences on documentary filmmaking.1 Cinema verite, ‘film truth’, drew on Vertov’s description of a kino pravda, a cinema or film dedicated to representing truth in ways not achieved in the fictional cinema. Direct cinema, a misnomer in terms of the fact that most work in the category comprised journalistic reports produced for television, aimed to reveal the truths of human existence residing behind the surface facts. Film historian Eric Barnouw (1983: 255) summarized the forms by describing what he saw as their essential differences: The direct cinema artist aspired to invisibility; the…cinema verite artist was often an avowed participant. The direct cinema artist played the role of the involved bystander; the cinema verite artist espoused that of provocateur. Direct cinema found its truth in events available to the camera. Cinema verite was committed to a paradox: that artificial circumstances could bring hidden truth to the surface.