Educational Media Reviews Online

Hardly a household name in the United States, Michel Brault is better known to our Canadian neighbors to the north for being one of the leading figures in Quebecois cinema and an important contributor to the art of documentary filmmaking. To date, he is the sole Canadian to have won the Best Director prize at the Cannes International Film Festival. Born in Montreal in 1928, Brault began working as a professional photographer before switching to cinematography in the late 1940s and a career with the esteemed National Film Board of Canada before switching again in the 1970s to directing narrative films. While with the NFBC, Brault helped to develop the use of a lightweight synch sound movie camera that pioneered the “fly on the wall” technique which defined what we now call cinema verite or direct cinema. Hired by Jean Rouch to shoot his groundbreaking film Chronicle of a Summer (1960), Brault collaborated with Rouch in developing the tropes that have dominated documentary filmmaking ever since.

Filmed shortly before his passing at the age of 85 in September, 2013, Michel Brault: The Cinema is What You Want It to Be features Brault speaking directly to the camera in a traditional talking heads style approach while being asked questions by Rina Sherman as part of her series of films entitled Voices: Meeting with Remarkable People. At Brault’s suggestion, the film was shot using a video-phone system comparable to Skype. Modest in ambition, the film’s sole purpose is to record Brault and get him to speak about his contributions to filmmaking in his own words. Sherman brings no directorial vision of her own to the project. There is no introduction of any kind and no attempt to place Brault in context of film history. The absence of any kind of camera movement or editing is tiresome. Brault might argue that this minimalist approach represents cinema at its purest, but watching one subject from the same perspective for 85 minutes will challenge even the most ardent cinephile’s patience. American audiences’ lack of familiarity with Brault’s body of work will also be a deterrent especially given that the interview addresses little else. That said, having Brault’s viewpoint on record for future generations is valuable and it adds to a growing body of work devoted to the unsung contributors of film history. It is important that we expose our students and film enthusiasts to more than celebrity profiles and block busters. However, a little whip cream on the side isn’t always a bad thing, is it?! It is recommended primarily for academic institutions with a film studies curriculum that place an emphasis on teaching documentary history or theory.