Biography
This page uses content from the Jean Rouch biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.
Jean Rouch (31 May 1917 - 18 February 2004) was a French filmmaker and anthropologist.
Jean Rouch's prolific film career began in French West Africa, where he worked as a civil engineer during World War II, supervising road and bridge construction. Previously, in Paris, he had attended the lectures of Marcel Mauss and Marcel Griaule. In 1946, traveling down the Niger River, Rouch shot his first film with a 16mm Bell and Howell camera, developing an original style after the tripod fell in the water. Later, he enlisted the help of Damoure, a Sorka friend, to film a hippopotamus hunt, and thus began a productive collaboration that has lasted almost four decades. Damoure took sound for Les Maitres Fous, was a central character in Jaguar, and worked with Rouch on many other films, as did several of Rouch's long-standing African friends and co-workers.
Rouch's innovative approaches effected more than anthropological film. In the summer of 1960, Rouch and sociologist Edgar Morin shot [[Chronique d'Un Ete' (Chronicle of a Summer)]], a film dealing with Parisians' thoughts and feelings at the end of the Algerian war. In Chronique, now considered a pioneering "cinema-verite" film, the formerly invisible barrier between the "objective" filmmaker and his subject dissolved. The viewers see the filmmaker approach his subjects on the boulevards of Paris, inquiring, "Are you happy?" Technically, Chronique also furthered the development of a more efficient, portable, synchronous sound system that permitted the filming of longer, unbroken sequences.
Although Rouch is best known for Chronique, and for the inspiration that it offered to New Wave filmmakers such as Jean-Luc Goddard and Francois Truffaut, his most striking contributions to film remain more than seventy ethnographic films made in West Africa. From the 1940s until the present, Rouch has produced films in Ghana, Niger, [[[Mali]], and Upper Volta, ranging from straightforward portrayals of extraordinary ritual events, such as Les Maitres Fous, to "collective improvisations" such as Jaguar, or, more recently, Cocorico! Monsieur Poulet, based on a Niger folk tale.
In the West, Rouch's distinctive vision of the cultures of West Africa has influenced students of anthropology, of ritual, and of Africa. But his influence has been significant on the African continent as well, where he consistently attempted to introduce film technology and to train technicians as he worked. Moustapha Alassane and Oumarou Ganda of Niger, Safi Faye of Senegal, and Desire Ecare of Ivory Coast are among the contemporary filmmakers who once worked with Rouch.
He was killed in an automobile accident in February 2004, some 16 kilometres from the town of Birnin N'Konni in central Niger.
Main feature-length films
- 1954: Les Maîtres Fous (The Mad Masters)
- 1955: Les Fils de l'eau
- 1957: Jaguar
- 1958: Moi, un noir
- 1959: La pyramide humaine
- 1961: Chronique d'un été (Chronicle of a Summer)
- 1965: La chasse au lion à l'arc (The Lion Hunters)
- 1974: Cocorico M. Poulet
- 1978: Margaret Mead: Portrait of a Friend
- 1979: Bougo, les funérailles du vieil Anaï
- 1980: Jean Rouch: Screening Room with Robert Gardner
- 1981: Margaret Mead: Taking Note
- 1986: Jean Rouch and His Camera In the Heart of Africa
- 1998: Rouch's Gang
- 2004: Conversations With Jean Rouch
External links
Biographical details and filmography
- Jean Rouch: A Tribute, including a biography and filmography
- films about Jean Rouch and some more information.
- Maitres-fous.net : A website devoted to the study of Jean Rouch's films
Articles about Jean Rouch
- "Jean Rouch, anthropologist and filmmaker" in French Culture
- "Verite Pioneer Jean Rouch" by Eugene Hernandez in indieWIRE
- Brian Quist, Jean Rouch and the genesis of ethnofiction PDF - thesis.
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