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Jean Rouch

Jean Rouch

Birthday: 1917-05-31 | Place of Birth: Paris, France

Jean Rouch (French: [ʁuʃ]; 31 May 1917, Paris – 18 February 2004, Niger) was a French filmmaker and anthropologist. He is considered to be one of the founders of cinéma-vérité in France, which shared the aesthetics of the direct cinema. Rouch's practice as a filmmaker for over sixty years in Africa, was characterized by the idea of shared anthropology. Influenced by his discovery of surrealism in his early twenties, many of his films blur the line between fiction and documentary, creating a new style of ethnofiction. He was also hailed by the French New Wave as one of theirs. His seminal film Me a Black (Moi, un noir) pioneered the technique of jump cut popularized by Jean-Luc Godard. Godard said of Rouch in the Cahiers du Cinéma (Notebooks on Cinema) n°94 April 1959, "In charge of research for the Musée de l'Homme (French, "Museum of Man") Is there a better definition for a filmmaker?" Along his career, Rouch was no stranger to controversy.

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Known For

Acting

Year
Title

Role

2013
The Lovely Month of May

as    Self (uncredited)

2012
Maya Deren, Take Zero

as    Himself

2011
Jean Epstein, Young Oceans of Cinema

as    Self (archive footage)

2004
Portrait de Jean Rouch

as    Self

1992
Letter to Jean Rouch

as    Self

1991
1977
Samba the Great

as    Narrator

1966
World Without a Game

as    Himself

1964
1961
Chronicle of a Summer

as    Self

1955
The Mad Masters

as    Narrator

1
Rouch's Gang

as    Self

1
Work(ing Together) in Process

as    Self, the filmmaker before the filmmakers (in 240p)