Cinéma Vérité: Defining the Moment (1999)

Director:

Peter Wintonick

Writer:

Kirwan Cox (writer)

Genre:

Documentary

Tagline:

The Revolution That Changed Filmmaking. Forever.

Plot:

This is a documentary about direct-cinema from its very beginnings (Nanook of the North) to the fake-direct-cinema of the Blair Witch Project...

Plot Keywords:

Direct Cinema | Interview | Film Industry | Handheld Camera | Film Making

Awards:

3 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Jean-Pierre Beauviala
Michel Brault
Gillian Caldwell
Robin Cowie
Robert Drew
Jennifer Fox
William Greaves
Gregg Hale
Wolf Koenig
Roman Kroitor
Barbara Kopple
Richard Leacock
Doug Leiterman
Terrence McCartney Filgate
Albert Maysles

Also Known As:

Cinéma vérité - Le moment décisif (Canada: French title)

Runtime:

193 min | Germany:105 min (Berlin Film Festival)

Country:

Canada

Language:

French | English

Color:

Black and White | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Hong Kong:IIA

Company:

National Film Board of Canada (NFB)

Movie Connections:

References Petit à petit (1971)

flawed but interesting talking heads

This movie is full of terrific interviews with important documentary directors and some fascinating clips from their films, but it's rather poorly constructed. First off, it implies that previous to the cinema verite movement documentaries were pretty much nothing more than civil defense training shorts. There's no attempt to give an idea of what good documentaries were like in the 40s, so while we are told there was a film revolution we don't see what came before. The film loves to trot out little bits of really bad old documentaries and thinks it's cute doing so, but it's really just distracting and unnecessary.

In the last part the film loses structure as it dips into things like shaky camera TV series and MTV videos. Yes, cinema verite influenced those things, but it was also influencing the work of people like Richard Lester back in the 1960s, so why act like this is a new thing?

On the other hand, the people interviewed are thoughtful and intelligent and if your a film buff you'll want to see what they have to say. Here the director seems to do a good job, as one hears telling comments about key scenes. The only interview handled poorly is with Wiseman; they show almost none of his footage and chop up his interview in what I suppose they think is a funny fashion. Perhaps they were uncomfortable with his attitude; he spends a lot of time questioning the whole "verite" concept. Seems like a very smart, thoughtful guy; I wish they'd let him speak.

Worth watching, but could have been much better.