The Face Behind the Truth in Cinema

Since the beginning of Documentary Filmmaking, films have shown the eternal search for truth. Exposing reality as it is to the world through Film became a goal to Documentary Filmmakers. For a period of time Filmmakers lost their path along the way and became promoters who manipulated the audience around the world into believing what they wanted. During the 1960’s two special movements began to emerge in different parts of the world. Direct Cinema in North America and Cinema Vérité in Fance. These two movements brought back the notion of revealing the true through their Films. The new movements encourage Filmmakers to take the position of observers. Direct Cinema and Cinema Vérité are often confused and classify as one movement. This is not a surprise since their principle is to capture the authenticity of life as it is lived, and to break through the veneer between the audience and the subject. But in reality Direct Cinema and Cinema Vérité are different and should not be classified as one since their practitians take different approaches in the filmmaking process, Direct Cinema takes an objective aproach, while Cinema Vérité takes a reflective aproach.

Is important to point out that Cinema Vérité and Direct Cinema films aesthetic and philosophy was not first thought of during the 1960’s. The father of Documentary Robert Flaherty foreshadows key elements of Cinema Vérité and Direct Cinema. For example, the interest in studying real people in their actual environment. In Nanook of the North (1922) Flaherty Follows Nanook and his family for moths, to show the world Nanook’s background life style and culture. Another example is that Flaherty saw the Filmmaking process as and art of observation and afterward selection. Which relat...

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...diting Cinéma Vérité gives the impression that there is no room between the beginning, the end or the start of another shot, on the contrary to Direct Cinema which reveal to us a sequence of events.

The bottom line is that, Direct Cinema and Cinéma Vérité are often misplaced as one due to similarities between their rooots and their purpose of revealing the truth through the lense. But, despise their similarities they are two different movements. This is reflected by the different approach in which they both achieve their goal. Direct Cinema takes an objective observational approach in which the filmmakers try to influence as little as possible in the film by only observing and not participating. While Cinéma Vérité takes a reflective approach in which the filmmakers influence the movie by participating and provoking different situations and reactions to a subject.