#648: ROUCH, Jean & MORIN, Edgar: Chronicle Of A Summer (1961)

ROUCH, Jean & MORIN, Edgar (France)

Chronicle Of A Summer [1961]

Spine #648
Blu-ray

Few films can claim as much influence on the course of cinema history as Chronicle of a Summer. The fascinating result of a collaboration between filmmaker-anthropologist Jean Rouch and sociologist Edgar Morin, this vanguard work of what Morin termed cinéma-vérité is a brilliantly conceived and realized sociopolitical diagnosis of the early sixties in France. Simply by interviewing a group of Paris residents in the summer of 1960 — beginning with the provocative and eternal question "Are you happy?" and expanding to political issues, including the ongoing Algerian war — Rouch and Morin reveal the hopes and dreams of a wide array of people, from artists to factory workers, from an Italian émigré to an African student. Chronicle of a Summer's penetrative approach gives us a document of a time and place with extraordinary emotional depth.

90 minutes
Black & White

Monaural

in French

1:37:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2013

Directors

Jean Rouch was 44 and Edgar Morin was 40 when they directed Chronicle of a Summer.

The Film

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

The Booklet

Forty-page booklet featuring an essay by scholar Sam Di Iorio.

Commentary

None.

Un été + 50 (2011)

A seventy-five-minute documentary featuring outtakes from the film, along with new interviews with codirector Morin and some of the film’s participants.

Archival interviews

With codirector Rouch and Marceline Loridan, one of the film’s participants.

Interview

With anthropology professor Faye Ginsburg, the organizer of several Rouch retrospectives.

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

99

By Director
By Spine #