Jean Rouch

Jean Rouch (May 31st 1917 with Paris - February 18th 2004 with the Niger), was a Réalisateur of cinema and Ethnologue French.

Biography

Was Jean Rouch the son of Jules Rouch, Météorologue, explorer and director of the oceanographical Musée of Monaco, which, on the boat “Why not?” took part with Jean-Baptiste Charcot in the one of the French polar Expéditions (the Antarctic, 1908-1910). It is on its return in France that it meets the mother of Rouch.

Rouch was the pupil of Marcel Mauss and Marcel Griaule, who documented his ethnographic research with films. According to these influences, it is as an engineer of the Bridge-and-Roadways that he discovers the Africa in 1941. It is then responsible for a building site to the Niger. It is of this time that date its passion for the African continent. Nevertheless, it returns quickly to France where it engages in the resistance.

After a short passage as journalist with the Agency France-Press (AFP), it will return to Africa where it will become a famous Ethnologue. In 1953, in charge of research to CNRS, it creates the Comité of ethnographic film , seat with the Musée of the Man, with Enrico Fulchignoni, Marcel Griaule, André Leroi-Gourhan, Henri Langlois and Claude Lévi-Strauss.

Throughout its career, it attempted to bring back the life of this continent using its camera. During its fifty years of career, it will realize nearly one hundred twenty films. It made many films on the Dogons, some in Co-realization with Germaine Dieterlen.

Jean Rouch was a constant refers for the realizers of the New wave and also a person considered by his intellectual agility and the gift of the word. President of the French Cineclub during five years, between 1986 and 1991, in 1993 he is the prize winner with the International prize of peace. He is a key character of the visual Anthropologie.

Jean Rouch died in February 2004 at the time of an car accident to the Niger, with 16 kilometers of the town of Birnin Konni in the center of the country.

Principal feature films

Courts and means-measurings (partial list)

Some representative films

  • 1948 : Magicians of Wanzerbe . Rites of the magicians Songhay in Niger.

  • 1949 : Circumcision . Rite of Circumcision of the children of Hombori, a village of the Mali.
  • 1949 : Initiation with the dance of had the . A woman Songhai of the archipelago of Tillaberi is initiated. First Price with the Festival of cursed Film with Biarritz, organized by Henri Langlois and Jean Cocteau.
  • 1954 : '' Insane Masters '' (36 ' and other versions). Grand Prix of Biennial international of the cinema of Venice - Film Ethnographic, Mostra, 1957. “Wild” ritual of a group of Africans, a sect nun of workmen of Accra, with the Ghana, who are had by the spirit of Haukas, “insane Masters”, in a setting in scene where they play of the characters associated with the colonial capacity.
  • 1962 : Abidjan, fishing port (24'). To Abidjan, fishermen and ship-owners expose their problems, difficulties and hopes.
  • 1963 Rose and Landry : (Co-realizes with Michel Brault) - Price San Giorgio of Biennial international of the Cinema of Venice. Relations between the generations, loves and marriages, emancipation of the women and exodus towards Europe of the African elites.
  • 1962 : the fifteen year old widows (25 ' - c.m for the series '' the teenagers ''). Yéyés French. Jean Rouch observes the behavior of two teenagers of the Parisian company Yéyé, of which we follow venture. One is serious, the other not.
  • 1964 : the Station of north . Short-measuring of fiction in Sequence shot from approximately 16', belonging to the film Paris seen by… : Jean Rouch, Jean-Daniel Pollet, Jean Douchet, Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol and Jean-Luc Godard
  • 1987: '' Brise-glace ''.

Films on the ritual ones of the Dogons to the Mali (Ceremonies of Sigui)

(German Co-realization with Dieterlen)

  • 1967 : the anvil of Yougo (38 '). Beginning of the festivals of Sigui. The shaven men and vêtus of the ritual costume of Sigui enter on the public place by dancing the dance of the snake. They honor the terraces with large the 60 last years deaths.

  • 1968 : dancers of Tyogou (27 '). Second year of Sigui. The men prepare the ornaments of Sigui before leaving in procession towards the sites the old villages and returning to dance on the public place. The following day the cave of the masks is prepared to receive the large mask at the end of the ceremonies.
  • 1969: the cave of Bongo (40 '). Third year of Sigui. The dignitaries complete their retirement in the cave of Bongo. Around old Anaï which sees its third Sigui (it thus has more than 120 years) the men prepare before going to make the turn of the field of chalk-lining and to drink communielle beer.
  • 1970 : clamors of Amani (35 '). Fourth year of Sigui. Questioned by the chief of Bongo, the “pale fox” gives the road of Sigui d' Amani. Preceded by the old ones, the men of Sigui begin a sinuous route before entering on the ritual place.
  • 1974 : the hood of the circumcision (18 '). Seventh and last year of the ceremonies soixantenaires of Sigui. The three dignitaries of Yamé left in Songo to visit, in cliffs, the hoods of the caves whose walls are covered with paintings devoted to Sigui.

Documentalist

Jean Rouch photographer

  • “Jean Rouch, a African photographer”.

Quotations

  • “In charge of research for the Museum of the Man? Exist there a more beautiful definition of the scenario writer?” (Jean-Luc Godard, in connection with Jean Rouch, the Books of the Cinema n°94- April 59)
  • “There are two ways of designing the cinema of reality: first is to claim to give to see reality; second is to pose the problem of reality. In the same way, there were two ways of conceiving the cinéma-vérité. The first was to claim to bring the truth. The second was to pose the problem of the truth. ” Edgar Morin
  • “All that we made in France in the field of the cinéma-vérité comes from ONF and Brault. ” Jean Rouch

More

In French

  • Catalog of films of Jean Rouch on France Culture
  • Biography, catalog of films of Jean Rouch, on the site of the Committee of ethnographic film.
  • Interview, Biography, catalog of films and bonds of Jean Rouch, on Kinok.
  • Biography on line by Alfred Adler and Michel Cartry.
  • Jean Rouch, almost a man-century on the Man
  • Jean Rouch and the National office of Film, article by Vincent Bouchard

  • Brault and Rouch

  • Jean Rouch three talks and two interventions

  • In 2005 the Editions Montparnasse published a first box of 4 DVD gathering 10 films of Jean Rouch, thus initiating a work of safeguarding and repeat broadcast of its work. See also box DVD Jean Rouch (IRD)

  • direct Cinema

  • “the Setting in scene of reality”, France Culture.
  • “Jean Rouch, Master of the disorder”, Humanity , April 14th, 1999.
  • “Jean Rouch and movies-fright”, Humanity , March 16th, 2005.
  • Analysis of films of Jean Rouch published by the Montparnasse Editions, on Dvdclassik.
  • a cinema in travail*, article by * Marc H. Piault.

  • “the Other face of the mirror” `' Jean Rouch and the other'' - (see ''' pdf '''), analytical article on line on Jean Rouch by Ricardo Costa.

  • Course of a ethno-scenario writer, article by Andre Habib and François the Rider, on Except Field (November 2004).
  • Interview on line by Gilles Mouellic.
  • “the memory is audio-visual” on Africultures, remarks collected by Olivier Barlet (2002).
  • the ethnographic cinema: Jean Rouch (interview followed by biographical reference marks) on the site of the University of Metz.

In English

  • Brian Quist, '' Jean Rouch and the genesis off ethnofiction '' pdf.
  • website in English with bibliography, filmography, essays and interviews: maitres-fous.net

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