Classic US Cinema Verite

By Betsy A. McLane, Ph.D.

Halfway through the first decade of the 21st Century is it still valid to talk about the merits, the drawbacks, the ethics, the essence of cinema verite?

This short essay focuses on the relationships among the films and the ideas of the “classic” US originators of verite and the ways that we approach documentary today. We know that the impulse toward telling a truth is one of the main principles of documentary. Since the workers walked out of the Lumiere factory-and then walked out again and again for subsequent takes-people behind the camera have sought ways to capture life as it naturally unfolds. Even John Grierson, against whose form of documentary many early practitioners of verite positioned themselves, stated in his essay “First Principles of Documentary” that cinema’s potential for observing life could be exploited in a new art form; that the “original” actor and “original” scene are better guides than their fiction counterparts to interpreting the modern world; and that materials “thus taken from the raw” can be more real than the acted article. Of course, Grierson’s didacticism and his need to force a particular conclusion on his audiences are at odds with what the filmmakers under consideration here tried to achieve.

For better or worse, the phrase that has stuck to unscripted observational filmmaking is cinema verite. The Internet search engine Google turns up over Wednesday, May 25, 200,518,000 hits for the term. It is a common part of every pundit’s vocabulary.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English language says:

Wordnet at Princeton University says:

Betsy McLane moderates a discussion with legendary cinema verite filmmakers Ricky Leacock, Bob Drew and Al Maysles at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, November 2004. Not pictured, but also on the panel: Fred Wiseman and Joan Churchill. Photo by Anne Drew.

The number of hours and the reams of paper devoted to defining and debating verite seems infinite. Why go at it again? The sheer number of documentaries made now, the ease with which they are shot and edited, the bastardizations of the form that proliferate in reality television and fiction film, and the carelessness of so many practitioners of the form demands a revisitation of the tenets of verite.

Both of the definitions above beg more questions than they answer. For our discussion let us simply note the following: in classic cinema verite and its descendants the filmmaker does not interject themselves visually or aurally into the film. In classic direct cinema and its descendents, the filmmaker’s presence is seen or heard in the film. Today, most films that are called verite do not make this distinction. There is relatively little pure verite made, perhaps because it is so difficult and time consuming to achieve. Fred Wiseman makes classic verite films. The early Drew Associates films are classic verite. Maysles films have tended to be verite. As early as Monterey Pop, Pennebaker includes direct questions from the filmmaker in his work. Joan Churchill is seen onscreen in Soldier Girls receiving a hug from a subject. The self-reflexivity (or the direct cinema aspect) of the filmmaker’s presence in documentaries in general increased throughout the 1970s, 80s and 90s. This is not necessarily a bad thing, nor a good one, but it is a distinction that allows us to examine what is at the heart of the verite tradition.

It is impossible to lump together the work of the people represented here, Joan Churchill, Robert Drew, Ricky Leacock, Al and David Maysles, D.A. Pennebaker and Frederick Wiseman into one category; each has pursued their own path. Yet certain shared experiences, characteristics and beliefs allow consideration of these disparate individuals as a group. They are the original heart of verite.

To look into that heart, consider three countervailing forces that operate in the making of any documentary. These might best be considered as the points of an isosceles triangle.

1. Artistry/creativity/aesthetics
2. Money/funding/economic and political milieu
3. Technology/invention/science

Like the points of a moving triangle there is an ever-shifting balance among these factors. Sometimes money is the driving force of a film. Sometimes it is available technology, and just sometimes, it is art. When one point becomes the more weighted force in any production (or a film movement in general), the others shift in response. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, when cinema verite began, the confluence of these factors was particularly dynamic.

Technology/invention might be seen as the most weighted point of the development of verite, although the importance of technology was driven by an artistic desire. This desire, to film life as it unfolded, was longstanding, particularly for Leacock, but there would be no push to this artistic goal with out technological revolution. 16mm cameras and film stock had been available since the 1920s, but the cameras were cumbersome, the film stock needed lots of light for exposure, and synchronous sound on location was an impossibility without huge, expensive and unreliable equipment. Then, in what seems now to be an almost magical simultaneous alchemy, the technology changed dramatically. In the reality, that push for change was the result of painstaking experimentation by a variety of individuals in Canada, France and the United States. This history has been documented in many sources, each with its own interpretation of who did what when (and with whom.) It is in some sense ironic that the mode of documentation called “film truth” has its own origins misted by so many versions of its beginnings. Then again, perhaps this is only appropriate. (Please refer to the bibliography/filmography.)

The revolutions in technology were hard-won, but can be summarized simply: lighter, smaller cameras, portable synchronous sound, and faster film stock. These technological developments allowed a range of production experiments. Camera movement with a lightweight rig changed viewer perspectives and gave a visual intimacy. Portable synch sound combined ambient noise and dialogue seamlessly. Fast film stock gave the ability to shoot in low-light conditions, eschewing cumbersome lights and the look of studied artifice. The aesthetic result was audience acceptance of a sometimes-shaky camera, overlapping sounds and dialogue in incomplete sentences, and a grainy picture.

The role of economics was also important. Eastman Kodak’s films stock and the processing of it was relatively cheap, so shooting and developing reams of film did not present the cost hurdle that it does today. This led to a greater reliance on the skill of film editors than ever before. Television, with its immediacy and intimacy was the initial funder for much of this work. Drew’s persuasion of Time-Life to provide funding, and Wiseman’s long relationship with PBS (just then beginning), made the experimentation possible. Early cinema verite also reflected cultural and political attitudes, a leap into personal and social freedoms that characterized the early 1960s and the Kennedy Presidency.

Beyond these practical factors of technology, money, and artistry lie the great ethical questions of cinema verite. Key among these are: respect for the film subjects vs. a need to capture a story; acknowledgement of points of view, for film makers, their subjects, and for audiences; responsibility for the historical record created by films; and not least, the need to pass on lessons learned and the preservation of the films themselves for future audiences. This festival provides us all a chance to pursue this last point. It is up to documentarians working now to fully consider the others. I suggest that we begin by looking at the forces that are at play in our triangle today. Insert your own problems and answers into the points in play and discover where are new questions of ethics arising.