He is considered one of the founders ofcinéma vérité in France. Rouch's practice as a filmmaker, for over 60 years in Africa, was characterized by the idea ofshared anthropology.[1][2] Influenced by his discovery ofsurrealism in his early twenties, many of his films blur the line between fiction and documentary, creating a new style:ethnofiction. TheFrench New Wave filmmakers hailed Rouch as one of their own.
Commenting on Rouch's work as someone "in charge of research for theMusée de l'Homme" in Paris, Godard said, “Is there a better definition for a filmmaker?".[3][4][5][6]
Rouch began his long association with Nigerien subjects in 1941, when he arrived inNiamey as a French colonial hydrology engineer to supervise a construction project inNiger. There he metDamouré Zika, the son of aSonghai traditional healer and fisherman, near the town ofAyorou, on theNiger River.[7] After ten Sorko workers were killed by lightning at a construction depot Rouch supervised, Zika's grandmother, a famouspossession medium and spiritual advisor, presided over a ritual for men, which Rouch later claimed sparked his desire to make ethnographic film.[8] He became interested inZarma and Songhai ethnology, filming Songhai rituals and ceremonies. Rouch sent his work to his teacherMarcel Griaule, who encouraged him to continue it.
Shortly afterward, Rouch returned to France to participate in theResistance. After the war, he did a brief stint as a journalist withAgence France-Presse before returning to Africa, where he became an influential anthropologist and sometimes controversial filmmaker.[9]
Zika and Rouch became friends. In 1950, Rouch started to use Zika as the central character of his films, registering the traditions, culture, and ecology of the people of theNiger River valley. The first film in which Zika appeared wasBataille sur le grand fleuve (1950–52), portraying the life, ceremonies and hunting of Sorko fishermen. Rouch spent four months travelling with Sorko fishermen in a traditionalpirogue.[10][11]
His early films, such asHippopotamus Hunt (Chasse à l'Hippopotame, 1946),Cliff Cemetery (Cimetière dans la Falaise, 1951), andThe Rain Makers (Les Hommes qui Font la Pluie, 1951), were traditional, narrated reports, but he gradually became more innovative.[12]
Rouch made his first films inNiger:Au pays des mages noirs (1947),Initiation à la danse des possédés (1948) andLes magicians de Wanzarbé (1949), all of which documented Songhai spirit possession rituals and the Zarma and Sorko peoples living along theNiger River. He is generally considered the father ofNigerien cinema.[13] Despite arriving as a colonialist in 1941, Rouch remained in Niger after independence and mentored a generation of Nigerien filmmakers and actors, including Zika.
During the 1950s, Rouch began to produce longer ethnographic films. In 1954 he cast Zika inJaguar as a young Songhai man traveling for work to theGold Coast. Three men dramatized their real-life roles in the film, and became the first three actors ofNigerien cinema. Zika helped reedit the film, originally a silent ethnographic piece, into a feature-length movie somewhere between documentary and fiction (docufiction), and provided dialogue and commentary for a 1969 release. In 1957 Rouch directedMoi, un noir in Côte d'Ivoire with the young Nigerien filmmakerOumarou Ganda, who had recently returned from French military service inIndochina. Ganda became the first great Nigerien film director and actor. By the early 1970s, Rouch, with cast, crew, and co-writing from his Nigerien collaborators, was producing full-length dramatic films in Niger, such asPetit à petit [fr] (Little by Little : 1971) andCocorico Monsieur Poulet [fr] ("Cocka-doodle-doo Mr. Chicken": 1974).
Many African filmmakers rejected Rouch's and others' ethnographic films produced in the colonial era for distorting reality. Rouch is considered a pioneer ofNouvelle Vague andvisual anthropology, and the father ofethnofiction. His films are mostlycinéma vérité, a termEdgar Morin used in a 1960France-Observateur article referring to theKino-Pravda newsreels ofDziga Vertov. Rouch's best-known film, one of the central works of the Nouvelle Vague, isChronique d'un été (1961), which he filmed with sociologistEdgar Morin and portrays the social life of contemporary France. Throughout his career, he reported on life in Africa. Over the course of five decades, he made almost 120 films.
In 1996, following the election of Nelson Mandela, Rouch visited the Centre for Rhetoric Studies at theUniversity of Cape Town atPhilippe-Joseph Salazar's invitation. He gave two lectures on his work and shot some footage in the Black townships with his assistant Rita Sherman.
Rouch died in a car accident in February 2004, 16 kilometres fromBirni-N'Konni, Niger.
In her 2017 essay "How the Art World, and Art Schools, Are Ripe for Sexual Abuse", contemporary artistCoco Fusco details an early encounter with Rouch: "I was sexually accosted by the renowned ethnographic filmmaker Jean Rouch, who is credited with having invented a better way to look at Africans."[14]
1969:Petit à Petit[22] [the title translates in English to "Little by Little"; in the film "Petit à Petit" is the name of an import-export company in Niamey, Niger]
1970:Sigui 1970: Les clameurs d'Amani
1971:Sigui 1971: La dune d'Idyeli
1971:Tourou et Bitti, les tambours d'avant (Tourou and Bitti: The Drums of the Past)
Rouch, Jean.Ciné-Ethnography, edited and translated by Steven Feld. University of Minnesota Press, 2003.
Rouch, Jean.La Religion et la Magie Songhay. Presses Universitaires de France, 1960. 2nd revised edition published by Éditions de l'Université de Bruxelles, 1989.
Rothman, William (editor).Jean Rouch : a celebration of life and film (Transatlantique 8). Fasano, Italy: Schena Editore, 2007.
Rothman, William (editor).Three Documentary Filmmakers: Errol Morris, Ross McElwee, Jean Rouch, State University of New York Press, 2009.
Rothman, William, “Jean Rouch’sCiné-Trance and Modes of Experimental Ethno-Fiction Filmmaking,” in David LaRocca and Timothy Corrigan, eds,The Philosophy of Documentary Film: Image, Sound, Fiction, Truth, Lexington Books, 2017
Rothman, William,Jean Rouch: The Camera as Provocateur, in Barton Palmer andMurray Pomerance, editors,Thinking in the Dark: Cinema, Theory, Practice, Rutgers University Press, 2016
Rothman, William,Jean Rouch as Film Artist, in William Rothman,Tuitions and Intuitions: Essays at the Intersection of Film Criticism and Philosophy, State University of New York Press, 2019, 203-332.
Stoller, Paul.The Cinematic Griot: The Ethnography of Jean Rouch. University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Jean Rouch – article by Matt Losada, Assistant Professor in the Department of Hispanic Studies at the University of Kentucky,Senses of Cinema, December 2010
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