CinÉma VÉritÉ : Defining The Moment (1999)
|
* Special Jury Award
|
A feature documentary about the living history and contemporary legacy of the Cinéma Vérité revolution, the most important and defining moment in non-fiction filmmaking. Lively interviews with the original and current filmmakers are imaginatively combined with the generous use of some of the most important non-fiction films of all time.
Produced by the National Film Board of Canada.
Narrative
The revolution had many names: Free Cinema, Direct Cinema, Candid Eye, Cinéma Vérité. And it broke out simultaneously in England, France, the US and Canada. Wherever it appeared, the form marked a completely new way of understanding film, the audience and the world.
Part road movie, part history, part celebration, part nod to the future, Cinéma Vérité: Defining the Moment travels across North America and Europe in search of the greats who changed the way we see the world — and changed the world we see. We follow director Peter Wintonick and his crew (cameraman Francis Miquet, writer/researcher Kirwan Cox) on their own quest for truth: the truth of what really happened during the vérité revolution.
The world of cinéma vérité filmmaking was created by a group of driven, dedicated rebels. All the key players, including Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, Al Maysles, Donn Pennebaker, Hope Ryden, Wolf Koenig, Jean Rouch and Michel Brault, are featured in Cinéma Vérité: Defining the Moment. Their use of lightweight, hand-held cameras and portable sound equipment, along with their unfailing commitment to recording reality as they saw it, revolutionized not only the documentary, but all forms of movie-making. Set against the stilted, lecture-style documentary that preceded them, their works are still timeless: as fresh and original today as when they were first released.
Rich in footage from vérité classics, Defining the Moment looks at some of the most exciting and influential films made in the 20th century. Films like Primary (JFK on the campaign trail), Lonely Boy (Canadian superstar Paul Anka in Vegas), Jane (as in Fonda, before her Broadway debut), Don't Look Back (with Bob Dylan), Salesmen (door-to-door with Bible hustlers), Pour la suite du monde (For Generations to Come, on beluga fishermen in Quebec) and Chronique d'un été (Chronicle of a Summer, the story of one summer in Paris).
From music videos, to The Blair Witch Project, to docu-soaps, to Webcams, the influence of vérité is everywhere these days. We meet two-time Oscar winner Barbara Kopple, who has directed episodes of Homicide bearing a strong vérité influence; Floria Sigismondi, one of the world's most sought-after music video directors; and Gillian Caldwell of Witness, an organization that promotes use of digital technology and the Internet to document human rights abuses around the world.
Truly international in scope, Cinéma Vérité: Defining the Moment, also reclaims the role of the National Film Board in launching cinéma vérité. In many ways, the NFB was the living laboratory of the movement. It's a role that has been largely ignored in the history books — in much the same way that the range of the vérité movement's enormous influence on popular culture has never been acknowledged — until this film.
One of this generation's master documentarists and a practitioner of what he terms neo-vérité, director Peter Wintonick (Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media; The QuébeCanada Complex) — pays homage to the brilliant filmmakers who created reality-based documentary. The result is classic Wintonick: fascinating material presented with a light touch; masterful use of archival footage; lively and perceptive interviews. And, of course, Cinéma Vérité: Defining the Moment is on the cutting edge technologically: it's shot à la vérité, with lightweight equipment, in Widescreen Digital Video Pro.
Clip
Credits
Director: Peter Wintonick
Cinematographer: Francis Miquet
Writer, Researcher & Associate Producer: Kirwan Cox
Archival Researcher: Elizabeth Klinck
Editors: Marlo Miazga, Peter Wintonick
Sound: Peter Wintonick
Producers: Éric Michel, Adam Symansky
Executive Producers: Sally Bochner, Doris Girard
Distribution
102 minute feature documentary and TV cut-downs
English and French versions with appropriate sub-titles;
Original Professional Digital Format, Digital Beta and Beta SP release
35mm festival and semi-theatrical prints
Asia Pacific and Latin America
National Film Board of Canada
International program
3155 Cote de Liesse Road
Saint-Laurent, Québec
Canada H4N 2N4
Phone number: (514) 283-9439
Fax number: (514) 496-1895
E-mail: AsiaPacific [at] nfb [dot] ca and LatinAmerica [at] nfb [dot] ca
France/ Europe/ Africa
National Film Board of Canada
5, rue de Constantine
75007, Paris, France
Phone number: 01.44.18.35.40
International: + 33 1 44.18.35.40
Fax number: 47.05.75.89
E-mail: Paris [at] nfb [dot] ca
USA
National Film Board of Canada
350, Fifth Avenue, Suite 4820
New York, NY 10118
USA
Phone number: (212) 629-8890
Fax Number: (212) 629-8502
E-mail: NewYork [at] nfb [dot] ca
All Other Territories, Markets, and Media
Necessary Illusions
24 Avenue du Mont-Royal Ouest, Suite 1008
Montréal, Québec, Canada H2T 2S2
Téléphone: (+1) (514) 287-7337
Télécopieur (Fax): (+1) (514) 287-7620
E-mail: info [at] necessaryillusions [dot] ca