Jean Rouch
Jean Rouch
31.05.1917 - 18.02.2004 (86 years)
Jean Rouch (French: [ʁuʃ]; 31 May 1917 – 18 February 2004) was a French filmmaker and anthropologist. He is considered to be one of the founders of cinéma vérité in France. Rouch's practice as a filmmaker, for over sixty years in Africa, was characterized by the idea of shared anthropology. Influenced by his discovery of surrealism in his early twenties, many of his films blur the line between fiction and documentary, creating a new style: ethnofiction. He was hailed by the French New Wave filmmakers as one of their own. His seminal film Me a Black (Moi, un noir) pioneered the technique of jump cut popularized by Jean-Luc Godard. Commenting Rouch's work, someone "in charge of research for the Musée de l'Homme" in Paris, Godard questioned: “Is there a better definition for a filmmaker?".