An experiment in documentary filmmaking: Chronicle of a Summer

Chronicle of a Summer (Paris 1960), directed by Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch, is considered a seminal work of "cinema verite," and w/ good reason - it's an unusual, experimental documentary, of course w/out actors, but also without conventional boundaries: we see not only the film that M&R are directing - a investigation into whether people in Paris at that moment in time consider themselves to be "happy" - but also we see the directors and crew planning the film, discussing the progress they're making along the way, and near the end we see those interviewed in the film gathered for a screening and then asked their opinions about the film - in which they're honest, finding some of the interviews (as did I) to be trivial and insincere - and finally we see the two directors in an ambulatory discussion about the project they've just completed - so there are many layers to this project, something much imitated in later movies and fiction from the '60s. As to the film itself, it begins w/ the hiring of a young woman (trained in sociology?) to help w/ interviews, and then we see her stopping people on a Paris street and asking "Are you happy?" Of course, she gets trivial responses and many brush-offs. Later we see longer sit-down interviews, though it's unclear how the directors chose their subjects (some seem to be their friends). As the French will do, we get much esoteric puzzling about what is happiness, plus some commentary on work and alienation - including some good footage inside a Renault plant. Other strands develop, including what all concur is the most powerful segment, two interviews w/ a young woman who's moved to Paris from Italy and feels frighteningly alone and alienated (Mary Lou, I think), plus one genre-breaking segment about the young woman helping w/ the film whom we learn had been imprisoned in a concentration camp - her story told in voice-over narration as we see shots of her walking near Concorde (Marceline, I think her name is). Viewers today will be struck by the apparent poverty rampant then in Paris - so few cars!, and no evidence of tourists, nor of lavish bistros, bars, shops (even in a sojourn to St Tropez). Though in its day the film was avant garde, oddly, today it feels like a time capsule.