Jean Rouch

Jean Rouch

1917-05-31 – 2004-02-18 (age 86) Paris, France
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Biography

Jean Rouch (French: [ʁuʃ]; 31 May 1917, Paris – 18 February 2004, Niger) was a French filmmaker and anthropologist.

He is considered to be one of the founders of cinéma-vérité in France, which shared the aesthetics of the direct cinema. Rouch's practice as a filmmaker for over sixty years in Africa, was characterized by the idea of shared anthropology. Influenced by his discovery of surrealism in his early twenties, many of his films blur the line between fiction and documentary, creating a new style of ethnofiction. He was also hailed by the French New Wave as one of theirs. His seminal film Me a Black (Moi, un noir) pioneered the technique of jump cut popularized by Jean-Luc Godard. Godard said of Rouch in the Cahiers du Cinéma (Notebooks on Cinema) n°94 April 1959, "In charge of research for the Musée de l'Homme (French, "Museum of Man") Is there a better definition for a filmmaker?" Along his career, Rouch was no stranger to controversy.

Photos

Known For

Cinématon
Cinématon

1978

as N°1256

Chronicle of a Summer
The Lovely Month of May
The Lovely Month of May

1963

as Self (uncredited)

Son of Gascogne
Son of Gascogne

1995

as Self

The Doll
The Doll

1962

as Officer (uncredited)

Jean Epstein, Young Oceans of Cinema
Jean Epstein, Young Oceans of Cinema

2011

as Self (archive footage)

My Conversations on Film
Freddy Buache, le cinéma
Freddy Buache, le cinéma

2012

as Self (archive footage)

World Without a Game
The Dreamed Films
The Dreamed Films

2010

as Self

Germaine chez elle
Germaine chez elle

1994

as himself

Rouch's Gang
🎦
Maya Deren, Take Zero

2012

as Himself

The Mad Masters
The Mad Masters

1955

as Narrator