Direct Cinema Research Paper

Direct Cinema, or Cinéma Vérité, presents somewhat of a constant and ongoing paradox as to what a film’s criteria should be. Some say Direct Cinema is a specific style of filmmaking and others will say the complete opposite. This is what makes the genre so interesting because there doesn’t seem to be a definitive answer as to what makes something strictly a Direct Cinema film. Is it something that attempts to be unbiased by showing individual moments that aren’t affected by the camera, or is it something that encapsulates a specific emotion in a specific time and place with as little bias as possible?
The technique of it all is very much up to the filmmaker’s style and I think that is good because it gives a certain freedom to the filmmaking …show more content…
I argued in class once that Primary, the film about JFK and Humphry’s campaign, seemingly broke these ethical rules when it used a voice over. I learned that there isn’t exactly a criterion that makes something Direct Cinema or not. There is a loose outline of what the genre needs to be and from that point there is a lot of leeway to do what you want. While this is good to have that kind of freedom, it can be dangerous to the final product at times. When a director goes too far to prove a point or tell the audience something about themselves instead of creating an unbiased view of the world, then something is wrong with what the genre is supposed to be. I am not saying that making films like that are bad, they just aren’t what I would define as Direct Cinema. For example, even though this may be very debatable, I do not think Frederick Wiseman is a full on Direct Cinema director. His material is too argumentative and that isn’t what I look for in that genre. So the question that this all boils down to is can a filmmaker ever be truly objective? The answer is no, but they can be somewhere in between. The Maysles films captured an emotion in a certain time of the world and I could feel that coming right off the screen. I feel that this is what makes the films so interesting to watch and feel attached to because emotional response is an easy thing to feel no matter what culture. If a film were to truly be objective, we would sit in a theatre for 24 hours through the view of a single camera shot that never changes. This doesn’t sound like something anyone would watch. Film is supposed to take us out of our daily lives and let us see something new whether that is a simple documentary or a Sci Fi action flick. Making something completely objective betrays the very thing film is supposed to