Educational Media Reviews Online

During the summer of 1960 French filmmaker Jean Rouch and sociologist Edgar Morin set out to conduct an experiment on film. They wanted to capture real people interacting in front of the camera, so they sent two women out onto the streets of Paris with a camera and microphone to ask passersby the question "Are you happy?" As various people answer the question or dodge the situation completely, the viewer is treated to a real slice-of-life experience of the Parisian streets.

The film moves from this lighthearted beginning to a more serious tone, as the filmmakers set up interviews and discussions with a host of local characters including a student from the Ivory coast of Africa, a Holocaust survivor, a deeply depressed Italian immigrant and a factory worker. These characters reveal the intimate details of their lives and give the audience a glimpse of the issues that were on the minds of the people during the summer of 1960. There is a particularly interesting discussion of racism that occurs among several of the characters, including the young African student. Another fascinating segment occurs when Rouch and Morin show the film footage to the subjects who have been filmed. After viewing the film, they give their impressions of seeing themselves and each other on the screen. Several of the characters note that their conversations seem "acted" even though the situations were filmed as they originally occurred. This segment provides an interesting commentary upon the nature of subjectivity and raises the question, "Can a person can ever be totally natural if they know they are being filmed?"

Rouch and Morin were among the first filmmakers to use hand held sync sound, thus giving them the ability to record incidents and conversations on the spot and they coined the term "cinema vérité" to describe their process. Because they manipulated the settings and situations in which they filmed their subjects, their approach would no longer be considered pure vérité. They did serve as a model, however, for many other filmmakers who would continue to explore the various possibilities of "cinema vérité."

The film transfer of this documentary is extremely clear and the sound is good, considering that it was recorded live under a variety of natural circumstances. The sound quality may be of secondary consideration for many audiences, however, because the film is in French with subtitles. Unfortunately, much of the subtitling is awkward and a great deal of nuance is lost through the translation. Also, the subtitles contain slang that is not commonly used today. While this creates an interesting opportunity for those interested in linguistics, some viewers will be jarred by the unfamiliar terms.

This documentary will be of most interest to students of film and sociology. It is a fascinating piece of work and is a seminal film in the history of documentary. It should be a part of the collection of any academic library whose customers may have a particular interest in film history. The film will not have a wide appeal for the general public due to its unusual structure and subject matter, however.