Cinema Verite

In its literal translation, Cinema Verite means 'film truth.' Essentially this is what documentary sets out to do, finding out or telling the truth in some form. It was a style of filmmaking developed by French film directors in the 1960s.

Their production techniques contrasted greatly from Hollywood filmmakers as we know it. These French directors would prefer to work with non-actors, small hand held cameras and actual real settings such as someones home to use as a set. Obviously, as film students, this is something that would work well for us as we have limited, if any, resources. For the purpose of our film this is all that would be required.

One interesting production technique in regards to sound was that they would tape record actual conversations, interviews, and statements of opinions made by people, and then find pictures to illustrate the sound recordings to use over the top of them. I visualise the start of our film using this kind of technique whereby we would have shots of Sheffield in general with a voiceover stating what the documentary is about, giving some statistics, and giving different views.

With Cinema Verite, the filmmakers goal was always to show life how it really is, using the film as the artistic medium. This is something that would be very important for us to maintain as it is essential to portray the truth in order to reach our goal with this film.

One filmmaker we all know, Jean-Luc Godard, was very much influenced by Cinema Verite and his first feature film 'Breathless' (1960) was shot without a script. He improvised as he went along, sometimes writing dialogue and rehearsing actors on the spot just before he would 'roll cameras for a take.'

The key difference between a typical Hollywood film and Cinema Verite is the respective goals of each. Hollywood will aim to create some kind of fantasy that would be sufficient in attracting its mass audience to go and see it, resulting in a handsome profit. Cinema Verite however, aims to show the mundane truth of people's everyday lives and the social context in which they live their lives. It is part of the broader artistic tradition of realism and the cinematic tradition of documentary filmmaking. In our case, we will be using Sheffield as the location for our documentary, and will be looking at the benefits of the film industry in this area and the impacts it has had.



Some famous French examples of Cinema Verite to take a look at:

'Chronicle of a summer' (1961) by Jean Rouch
'Le Joli Mai' (1962) by Chris Marker