In this presentation, I will consider how Jean Rouch and Chris Marker provide the viewpointof anti-colonialism by using the lightweight equipment. Jean Rouch, who began his career as afilmmaker and as an anthropologist by documenting the traditional hunting and ceremonies inWest Africa with a small handheld camera, seized the vivid conversations between the inhabitantsof Paris with synchronous recording in <Chronicle of A Summer, 1961>, chef d’oeuvre of “cinémavérité” movement. This essay corresponds to the spontaneous narration by the cast members in hisethno-fiction, <Moi, un noir, 1958> and <Jaguar, 1967>. By describing the changes in consciousnessof persons, which were caused by the encounters and discussions with others, Rouch uncoveredthe problem of discrimination, labor and colonialism in French society. This relates to Rouch’slifework, which tried to defamiliarize the modern society through documenting the vanishingAfrican traditional ceremonies. Two years after <Chronicle of A Summer>, Chris Marker succeededto show the coexistence of the literary narration and the voices of inhabitants of Paris, captured bysynchronous recording, in <Le Joli Mai, 1963>, which is considered as another example of “cinémavérité”. Marker also treated the problem of discrimination, labor and colonialism, and tried to revealthe historical and social events, oppressed unconsciously in French society. This relates to theawareness of Marker, who had been denouncing French colonialism in Africa from <Statues AlsoDie, 1953>. This kind of problem was re-dealt in <Sans Soleil, 1983>, in which the hope and collapseof guerrilla film making in the anti-colonial movement of Guinea Bissau is referred. Both Rouch andMarker interrogated the borders between countries and explored how they can collaborate withothers. For them, the utilization of the lightweight equipment had the object not for the efficiency,nor the aesthetic reason, but for the continual dialogue with others.
Jean Rouch and Chris Marker: the portrait of contemporaries
“Cinéma-vérité” at the beginning of the trend of direct cinema
<Chronicle of a Summer> and a series of “éthno-fiction” in Paris
“Le Joli Mai”: the relationship between commentary and interview