When I started on working on my final part of my Mimesis project, I have started to work on the movie. For me, to be able to become someone else from a film has it's steps of progress. The character that I am going to act is named 'Nana' from Jean-Luc Godard's film 'Vivre Sa Vie'. However knowing the film and the character is not enough for me to build my own perspective of the character. So that I've made research on the term Cinema Vérité which affected The French New Wave. The French New Wave is the cinema movement which Jean-Luc Godard had significant contributions on it.
The term Cinema Vérité was first used by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin. Jean Rouch is an ethnographic filmmaker. Most of his earlier documentaries were filmed in Africa like; "La Pluie", "The Human Pyramid". Jean Rouch did a film with Edgar Morin who is a sociologist. The film called "Chronicle of a Summer" in 1961. Chronicle of a Summer is the first film that described itself as a work of Cinema Verite. Jean Rouch' s documentaries are often inspired by a specific context. In Human Pyramid which was shot in Africa; the issue of racism seen through the eyes of young black and white students. On the other hand in Chronicle of a Summer; the subject is the parisian society in the after math of algerian war.
Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin' s Chronicle of a Summer was recognized as a landmark in non fiction filmmaking. With the innovative cinematic techniques of Cinema Vérité, Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin was able to catch direct synchronized sound and extreme close-ups. The choice of scenario of Chronicle of a Summer is important in film history because that it depicts the rough, urban streets of Paris during a significant historical moment. There are four significant reasons why Chronicle of a Summer is important in film history is that; it's place in the film history, it's relation to the political history in france, it's contribution to french intellectual history and it's status as a source for charting a history of memory.
The chronicle of a summer was a social experiment of Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin on the Parisian society that they interviewed citizens from very different backgrounds. And in the end of the movie Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin showed the filmed material to the subject and filmed them again as they discussed their reactions to seeing themselves.
There is another term which is related to Cinema Vérité is "Direct Cinema". Both Cinema Vérité and Direct Cinema come from similar roots but they have different philosophies. The main difference is the function of the filmmaker. In Cinema Vérite there is a high level of involvement of filmmaker to the activities in the film. On the other hand in Direct Cinema, filmmakers act is to only observe the subject. Jean Rouch cited that Cinema Vérité; " Does not mean the cinema of truth but the 'truth of cinema'." For Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin the only possible truth was the one which included the filmmaker.
The sociological experiment of Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin with Cinema Vérité profoundly affected the "French New Wave". In French New Wave movement in cinema Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Eric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette and other's intention was desire to shoot more current social issues and experiment in cinema.
I have always been an admirer of Godard's work. As Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, he also was interested in sociological contemporary contexts and he was innovative with his camera techniques. In The French Wave movement, Godard and others used fragmented, discontinuous editing and long takes as filming techniques. So that Cinema Vérité and The French New Wave nurtured one another and formed a new way of cinematic language.
In my project 'Mimesis in Cinema', I am highly interested in Godard's films. The reason is that Godard have filmed his subject as if he is combining the two personas of the character in the movie with the person who is acting. In his film 'Vivre Sa Vie' we are able to observe Anna Karina character combined with the character Nana. Spectator is able to observe Nana from Anna Karina' s perspective. So when I decided to take a character from a movie and decided to act her life in mine, Nana from Vivre Sa Vie was the perfect choice. I am going to become Nana, and live her life from my point of view. When I observe Nana, I can relate the character to myself. I took Nana as my idol thus the mimesis I am going to create out of her is going to be my observation of Nana in my own life.
