Talk:Cinéma vérité

message: The exclusion of Robert Drew is a major problem here. He is mentioned only in reference to Drew Associates, but his contributions to cinema verite needs to be included. Certainly there is some controversy among Drew, Pennebaker, Leacock and Maysles over who did what in the early Drew Associates films. Doxrus (talk) 19:10, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: There is a gigantic problem here with point-of-view:
"Such is certainly the case with Breathless whose conventions can now appear quite mannered and open for critique."
The author doesn't just say that a certain opinion exists, but aligns with it saying "Such is *certainly* the case . . ." Can't something much more neutral go in this intro section?
Jupitermenace 16:50, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As historian Bill Nichols points out, the reality effect of a new mode of documentary representation tends to fade away when "the conventional nature of this mode of representation becomes increasingly apparent".< ref >"Representing reality: issues and concepts in documentary", Bill Nichols, Indiana University Press 1991, p.32< /ref > In other words, a new filmmaking mode initially appears to be unvarnished "reality" on the screen, but as time goes by, that mode's conventions become more and more obvious.  Such is certainly the case with cinéma vérité, whose conventions can now appear quite mannered and open for critique.
The lead of an article should inform the reader about the most significant facts regarding an article subject.  That the conventions of cinema verite "can now appear quite mannered and open for critique" is not a fact about cinema verite.  The statement, as worded, doesn't even have concrete meaning to a reader new to the topic.  Might I suggest that perhaps the most serviceable substitute for this paragraph in the lead would be an abbreviated list of films most undeniably exemplary of cinema verite style, so that if a person wanted to get an understanding of cinema verite, he or she would need look no further than viewings of the sample set of films? Robert K S (talk) 18:47, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV 

message: Cinéma vérité literally means something closer to "the theatre of truth", not "true film" Krawn 05:29, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition 

message: Contrary to the article, cinéma vérité is not considered a "movement" but rather a term used to describe a certain aesthetic as applied to film-making.Mglegend 22:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, c'mon; in the absence of a RS (a proof by blatant assertion will hardly do, when the topic is motivation in the arts), that's far too fine a distinction among movements, aesthetics, tendencies, orientations, philosophies, and styles. !--Jerzy•t 02:35, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  ("Movement") 

message: I have contributed to the french version of this article (Cinéma Direct).  I would like to comment on some of the article I see here.  
Please excuse my less than perfect English.  I am a Quebec producer and filmaker called Serge Noel. And it is now 4 pm on the this june 27.
"Direct Cinema is largely concerned with the recording of events in which the subject and audience become unaware of the camera's presence. Essentially what is now called a "fly on the wall" documentary. It was felt this was the best way to reveal the truth of the moment being recorded."   
I believe this to be a general misconception.   
In fact a lot of cinéma direct or cinéma vérité insists on the presence felt of the filmaker (a quote of Michel Brault on the french article attests to that).
The filmaker is often seem as catalyst of a situation.  This is the case for filmakers like Pierre Perrault who sets situations up, asking old people to fish whale and who then films that Pour la suite du monde.
In Cinéma Vérité, there was I belive (at least in Quebec Cinema), concerns with anthopological cinema, and with social and political implications of what was captured on film.  How you film, (what you film, what you do with what you film, how you show what you filmed, all were very important for filmakers of the time.  They sparked very ethical discussions.  You also have to put this in the context of post war propaganda analysis.  When independant, objective, strong journalism was a very important thing amongts intellectuals. People remembered what damage propaganda could do.
So, I believe that the best way to discribe this type of cinema is to say that it is concerned with notions of truth, and reality, in film.  To say that it is an interrogative and highly ethical minded film form, looking mainly at the social, anthropologiqcal and political aspects of reality. 
As Edgar Morin wrote in an introduction to a event held on cinéma vérité at Pompidou:  "There are two ways to conceve of The cinema of the Real : the first is to pretend that you can give reality to see ; the second is to pose the problem of reality.  In the same way, the were two ways to conceve cinéma-vérité.  TYhe first was to pretend that you brought thuth, the second was to pose the problem of truth."
-- " Il y a deux façons de concevoir le cinéma du réel : la première est de prétendre donner à voir le réel ; la seconde est de se poser le problème du réel. De même, il y avait deux façons de concevoir le cinéma-vérité. La première était de prétendre apporter la vérité. La seconde était de se poser le problème de la vérité."
In a sense,  its ethymology is at the core of what it is : questionning Cinéma.
As for the French russian term Cinéma Vérité , Jean Rouch coined it, as an hommage to Vertov who believe the movie camera could see things invisible to the human eye.  
That was the dream I guess, what everyone was shooting for.  And yes it does litteraly translate to Cinema Thruth.   In Quebec, Cinéma Direct was opposed to studio documentary, which were the norm world wide up untill the late "50's.  Filmakers found "cinéma vérité" to be a bit pretentious, they went with cinema direct, as they loved to just take the camera and go, without giving any explanations to the producers at the NFB... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.252.72.75 (talk • contribs) 27 June 2006.
(Serge, just type four tildes at the end, for a signature.  The machine does the rest.)
Director Noel makes the point exactly,  in perfect English:  That cinema verite may be hard to define for what it is; but it is brutally trivial to pinpoint it exactly for what it is NOT -- propaganda.  Take the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will, point to it, study it, and write down what is the OPPOSITE of that film, and there you have it:  cinema verite. (I don't happen to have a copy of Riefenstahl's magnum opus right now, but as I recall, there was nothing "staged", as in most cheesy "documentaries" that are stuffed full of talking heads and reenactments; yet those staged events at the '36 Olympics are as portrayed in the movie as IMHO the opposite of cinema verite.  Jeez, now that I think about it, the very exaggeratedness of that movie was pretty close to the truth, wasn't it?  The goosestepping soldiers in the big parade; that WAS reality. I take it all back, about that movie.  Yeah, people have been debating that movie for a long time, haven't they? Truth in cinema is a real kettle of fish.)  Still, you take a government-funded war propaganda film made during a war, it's the opposite of cinema verite.  Sorry for the digression about Ms Riefenstahl's movie.Richard8081 (talk) 15:51, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: To this, I would add that the paragraph he quotes from (the one with 'Essentially what is now called a "fly on the wall" documentary') doesn't impress me much, either. Does someone want to take a shot at this? - Jmabel | Talk 05:07, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: A Quebec perspective

message: after life vérité? It certainly uses some vérité techniques, but it is set in, well, an afterlife. - Jmabel | Talk 19:25, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''[[after life]]'' 

message: The section on "Select cinéma vérité-style television shows" needs to be trimmed or eliminated, in my opinion.  Most of the shows currently listed have nothing to do with cinéma vérité-style beyond the use of hand-held camera and I'd suggest that hand-held camera is not enough to qualify a program as cinéma vérité.  The Office does qualify because it is a fiction program shot in the style of a documentary (including face-the-camera interviews), but most of the others are not. --Jeremy Butler 11:46, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Although they don't cite their reasons, I think the editors who added Firefly and Battlestar Galactica did so because the two shows use hand-held camera (as do many c-v docs). As I suggest above, that ain't enough. And also, I removed the  tag you added, because (1) the article as a whole is already so tagged and (2) the lists of c-v films/filmmakers don't have their own  tags and one could make the same criticism of them. --Jeremy Butler 12:36, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Hand-held camera is certainly not enough, or the second half of Jaws would be cinéma vérité. I'll remove these, if no one beat me to it. - Jmabel | Talk 05:46, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Select cinéma vérité-style television shows? 

message: I see that "COPS" is now listed. I've only seen it once, but doesn't that at times use a musical score? Also, don't they use superposed computer-generated text and so on? Those are not vérité techniques. But, again I only saw it once, and not recently. Can someone who knows it better please weigh in? - Jmabel | Talk 07:13, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  TV again 

message: I think that this section needs a mjor face-lift. I see that someone has quoted Bill Nichols, who is a major authority on the history of Documentary and has several good chapters in his books on cinema verite. But I would argue that some of the directors that Wikipedia is associating with cinema verite are very questionable. John Cassavetes, although he shot very naturalistically, is nowhere near cinema verite, that doesn't even make sense, and neither does Alfonso Cuaron. These are just flagrant misinterpretations of cinema verite... I wasn't sure I should go and edit the page, as I am new to editing on Wikiedia, but these are missing the point entirely.
:Done AlatarK (talk) 04:48, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cinema Verite directors 

message: "Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That!" ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0488953/ ) I'm pretty sure it's a qualified film, giving dozens of cameras to random folks to shoot whatever they wanted, along the same lines as the Rolling Stones unreleased documentary "Cocksucker Blues". 199.214.28.100 (talk) 18:56, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about that 2006 Beastie Boys film? 

message: I added Alex Jones as he has produced a large amount of films in this category, including 'truth rising' which gets a DVD/Download release on Jult 4th.  I assume that he was removed because certain people on wiki have an OPINION about his views, this is NOT how wikipedia works!  It's hardly a 'fringe view' that he has created and released plenty of films which fit into this category, after all you can download them from prinsonplanet.tv or find them on google video -weather or not his views are mainstream or not does shouldn't affect his right to be in this article, the fact that he is a notable and well known producer, director and creator of cinema verite certainly qualifies a small mention in the list which i've added him to.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.147.137.87 (talk) 23:32, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Documentaries are not necessarily cinéma vérité, and we can't take his word that that's his style.  Just because I don't believe he has a credible view in his mind.... Well, that's not relevant.  We still need a reliable source that that's his style.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 06:54, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why not alex jones? 

message: The article is happily proceeding through the invention of the two-person crew, but instead of continuing with what they did with it, the article then jumps to the 1970's explaining that someone else made it even better by combining the two-person crew into a one-person crew. Now firstly this is silly, as changing from two intruders to one is not a dramatic difference (and in any case, news VTRs changed the whole game a couple of years later), but also it totally misses the point: it's not about technology, it's about what the film-makers did with it!
Perhaps the history of the equipment should be separated from that of the medium? Or they should be interspersed? The way it stands, the equipment history is given first billing which can hardly be the intention.AlatarK (talk) 04:45, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why switch to the 1970's just when it starts going? 

message: I've copied over the various lists from the article, and am hoping to get some input on what should stay as good examples of CV, and what is just "related" or "influenced by".  We'd best serve the reader with a concise list of works that represent the genre.  In the interests of shortness, I think that we should yank the redlinks.  If these films don't have articles, they don't serve to demonstrate the topic. I'm thinking we should require refs that state relationship to C.V., otherwise it's just interpretation and O.R.  Remember that documentarians are not CV by default, its a question of approach.  I'm going to strike the ones I have problems with, and ital comments to follow.  
* Jon Alpert  
* Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky (Creative Thinking International)
* Michel Brault and Gilles Groulx (Les Raquetteurs, 1958)
* Nick Broomfield
* Linda Goode Bryant
* John Cassavetes
* Robert Drew  
* Tamara Goldsworthy
* Claude Jutra
* Amos Gitai
* Allan King
* Louis King
* Barbara KopplePlot description of Cinéma Vérité: Defining The Moment, accessed online on the New York Times website 23 October 2006.
* Harmony Korine
* Roman Kroitor
* Richard LeacockRichard Leacock in Allmovie, accessed online on the New York Times website 23 October 2006.
* Barbara Loden
* Chris Marker
* John Marshall
* The Maysles Brothers (Albert and David Maysles)  
* Michael Moore Very much not C.V. style of filmmaking.
* D.A. Pennebaker  
* David Perlov
* Jean Rouch  
* Ulrich Seidl
* Ellen Spiro
* Bela Tarr
* Dziga Vertov  
* Frederick Wiseman  Daniel Asa Rose, Frederick Wiseman Takes His Camera to the Races, The New York Times, June 1, 1986. Accessed online 23 October 2006.
===Select cinéma-vérité films===
* 24 ID seconde (2000)http://fr.youtube.com/results?search_query=24+idées+seconde&search_type=
* À Hauteur d'homme (2003)
* After Life (1999)
* Bad Boys (1961)
* Billy The Kid (2008)Apple - Trailers - Billy the Kid - Trailer
* The Carter (2009)
* C'était un rendez-vous (1976)
* Chronique d'un été (1961) 
* Cocksucker Blues (1972)
* Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (1963)
* Demon Lover Diary (1980)
* Distance (2001)
* Dont Look Back (1967)
* Down For Life (film) (2009)
* Eat The Document (1969)
* Elizabeth and Mary (1965)
* The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1987)
* Flag Wars (2003)
* Gimme Shelter (1970)
* Grey Gardens (1975)
* Happy Mother's Day (1964)
* High School (1968)
* Hoop Dreams (1994)
* Hospital (1970)
* Import/Export (2007)
* Iraq in Fragments (2007)
* The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife (1991) 
* Lonely Boy (1962)
* Moi Un Noir (1958)
* Mysterious Object at Noon (2000)
* Near Death (1989)
* Primary (1960)
* Les Raquetteurs (1958) (French article)
* Salesman (1969)
* Seventeen (1983)
* The Plaint of Steve Kreines as recorded by his younger brother Jeff (1974)
* Titicut Follies (1967)
* Wanda (1971)
* Warrendale (1967)
* West 47th Street (2003)
* Woodstock (1970)
* Roger and Me (1989) not C.V. in style
The techniques (if not always the spirit) of cinéma vérité can also be seen in fiction films such as The Battle of Algiers, The Blair Witch Project, Jimmy and Judy, Cloverfield, Diary of the Dead, District 9, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Battle: Los Angeles , REC and Paranormal Activity among others. 
====Short films====
* A Day in the Death of Donny B (1969)
===Cinéma vérité-style films and television shows===
Many film directors of the 1960s and later adopted use of the handheld camera, techniques and cinema vérité styles for their fiction films based on screenplays and actors.  They often had actors use improvisation to try to get a more spontaneous quality to the takes.  Influential examples include director John Cassavetes, who broke ground with his film Faces.John Cassavetes in Allmovie, accessed online on the New York Times website 23 October 2006.
The techniques of cinéma vérité were also readily adapted to use in TV fiction programs, such as Homicide: Life on the Street, The X-Files' COPS episode,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0751264/  Sanctuary, Friday Night Lights, NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues, Battlestar Galactica, The Thick Of It, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Lost, Arrested Development, Reno 911!, Trailer Park Boys as well as both the UK and American versions of The Office. Documentary series are less common, but include:
*COPS
*The Real World
*The Thick of It
*Trauma: Life in the E.R.
*"American High"
*The First 48
===Discussion===
It may be worth looking at List of teen films. It went through AFD recently, and I cleaned it up by referencing as many items as possible and removing the rest temporarily. Maybe we could do the same here? The criteria I set up at that list is to have more than one source identify a work as being cinema verite. Erik (talk | contribs) 01:47, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that may be the way to go.  I'll start looking for sources for the filmmaker list. This may be a slow-motion cleanup, as I don't have that much free time right now, but thanks for the help! The Interior (Talk) 02:05, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  March 2011 List Cleanup 

message: It may be worth looking at List of teen films. It went through AFD recently, and I cleaned it up by referencing as many items as possible and removing the rest temporarily. Maybe we could do the same here? The criteria I set up at that list is to have more than one source identify a work as being cinema verite. Erik (talk | contribs) 01:47, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that may be the way to go.  I'll start looking for sources for the filmmaker list. This may be a slow-motion cleanup, as I don't have that much free time right now, but thanks for the help! The Interior (Talk) 02:05, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: The intro the article is very informative but I feel that it basically says everything about the genre, leaving the remainder of the article for lists of films/tv/etc considered within the canon. This would be a much more elegant article if the various infos in the header were given their own section and expanded. There must be more to say about the history, the characteristics, the audience and reception... I would lend a hand here but I know very little about the genre myself...Milotoor (talk) 09:54, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Structural Rearrangement 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: What need does that fulfill? I'm re-sorting, to chrono, which will be valuable to users interested in seeing or documenting the evolution of the genre.--Jerzy•t 03:16, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alphabetically ordered films??? 

message: I am confused as to how the film list was compiled. The definition offered in th first paragraph of the article says that cinéma vérité is "a style of documentary filmmaking." So how are fictional, narrative films with actors playing others, such as Faces, After Life and Distance included within this definition. (After Life, which films the activities of persons after their death, is probably as far away from documentary as a film can be.)  If one includes fictional films in this category of films, then the category is defined by techniques, such as hand-held cameras, inconsistent focus, etc. The Blair Witch Project would then be considered cinéma vérité.  I think the problem with the article stems from the fact that it is not based in secondary sources which cover film criticism or film history. In fact, there is probably no more motely assortment of references than those cobbled together here. AnthroMimus (talk) 20:08, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of films inconsistent with definition. 

message: The caption underneath says “Cinéma vérité in relationship to direct cinema and observational cinema” and shows what’s essentially a Venn Diagram in case there’s any confusion as to which photograph I’m speaking of. Anyways, I’d recommend removing it and using another one. I’m not sure how else to do that or maybe I would. There is at least one odd spelling mistake and the picture honestly doesn’t even really explain anything in my opinion. First it talks about authors, then goes on to talk about filmmakers? It’s just confusing.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cool879 (talk • contribs) 02:17, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, and have removed the image.  The image does not present a useful Venn diagram at all.  It is not clear what is being communicated, and the wording is poor.  Doctormatt (talk) 06:21, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Main Picture Within the Article 

message: I've moved a chunk of fictional films to their own subsection of the list. I personally think it's worthwhile to discuss films influenced by the style, but having both documentary and fictional films in there is quite confusing for people looking for examples of cinéma vérité films. It also contradicts the article, which states outright that cinéma vérité is a style of documentary film. The article and the list generally seem to be operating on entirely different definitions, and the list probably needs some cleaning up (and some better sources), but I don't really know enough about the subject to do that. krytton (a) 12:21, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fictional films