Chronicle of a Summer
Chronicle of a Summer • 1h 30m
Directed by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin • 1961 • France
Few films can claim as much influence on the course of cinema history as CHRONICLE OF A SUMMER. The fascinating result of a collaboration between filmmaker-anthropologist Jean Rouch and sociologist Edgar Morin, this vanguard work of what Morin termed cinéma- vérité is a brilliantly conceived and realized sociopolitical diagnosis of the early sixties in France. Simply by interviewing a group of Paris residents in the summer of 1960—beginning with the provocative and eternal question “Are you happy?” and expanding to political issues, including the ongoing Algerian War—Rouch and Morin reveal the hopes and dreams of a wide array of people, from artists to factory workers, from an Italian émigré to an African student. CHRONICLE OF A SUMMER’s penetrative approach gives us a document of a time and place with extraordinary emotional depth.
Up Next in Chronicle of a Summer
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Un été + 50
This 2011 documentary by Florence Dauman interweaves outtakes from CHRONICLES OF A SUMMER with new interviews with its subjects, including Marceline Loridan, and codirector Edgar Morin.
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Jean Rouch on CHRONICLE OF A SUMMER
In this interview, conducted by Louis Baissat and originally broadcast on the January 24, 1962, episode of the television program “Rhône-Alpes actualités,” director Jean Rouch discusses CHRONICLE OF A SUMMER and its relationship to the burgeoning French New Wave.
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Marceline Loridan on CHRONICLE OF A S...
In the following interview, conducted by François Chalais and originally broadcast on the May 7, 1961, episode of the television program “Reflets de Cannes,” Marceline Loridan, one of CHRONICLE OF A SUMMER’s main subjects, discusses her deportation to Auschwitz and the role that past played in th...
