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ROUCH

AFRICAJEAN ROUCH (1917-2004) was one of the 20th-century’s most important documentary filmmakers, and a revolutionary force in the fields of cultural and visual , and colonial and post-colonial African studies.

After working as a civil engineer in West Africa during World War II, between 1946 when he made his first film in , and his death in 2004, Rouch made more than 100 films, most of them on African subjects. In France he taught for more than 50 years at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, helped launch the cinéma vérité movement, and exerted a profound influence on the young filmmakers of the . In 1968, would say that “Rouch is the force behind all French cinema of the past ten years.” The six films being released now represent the most sustained flourishing of his practice of “shared anthropology,” a process of collaboration with his subjects that he described as a “type of participatory research.” Astonishing on their own terms, these six films are essential in understanding the development of ethnography and of cinema as a whole, as well as the powerful cross- currents of colonialism in Africa and post-colonial social change. THE MAD MASTERS (Les Maîtres fous) MOI, UN NOIR A film by Jean Rouch A film by Jean Rouch

“A remarkable documentary, which The most controversial of Rouch’s films, THE MOI, UN NOIR marked Rouch’s break with tradi- “In principle, an African could have ideally should be seen by anyone MAD MASTERS depicts a possession ritual of the tional ethnography, and his embrace of the collab- made it, but none of us were in a connected with anthropology.” Hauka religious sect using the delirious tech- orative and improvisatory strategies he called position to do so at the time.” — Jean Claude Muller, American niques of “ciné-trance.” “shared ethnography” and “ethno-fiction.” —Ousmane Sembène The film opens on the bustling streets of Accra, The film depicts an ordinary week in the lives of “MOI, UN NOIR is, in effect, the most “An anthropological classic…widely the capital of the Gold Coast (modern day Ghana), men and women from Niger who have migrated to daring of films and the humblest.” considered to be one of the most a major British colonial port city that serves as a Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire for work. “Edward G. —Jean-Luc Godard profound explorations of an African stage for the collision of the traditional and the Robinson”—Omarou Ganda, who like the film’s “Obliterates the boundaries between view of the colonial world.” modern. Among the many groups who populate other subject-collaborators plays himself under the fact and fiction, documentary and —Senses of Cinema the city are members of the Hauka religious name of a Western movie star—narrates the film, story, observation and participation, 1957 Venice movement. recreating dialogue and providing freewheeling objectivity and subjectivity.” Biennale commentary on his experiences. —Paul Stoller, 28 minutes | color | 1955 From Accra, THE MAD MASTERS takes us to the Review Sale/DVD (chaptered): $298 rural compound that is the site for an annual Hauka Robinson describes the bitter reality of life in 1958 Prix ceremony. Here, Hauka mediums nominate initiates Treichville, a poor inner suburb populated largely Louis Delluc and listen to penitents, before leading them all in a by migrants, and his work as a day laborer (bozori) 1958 Mannheim dizzying, spectacular trance ritual. The spirits who in the ports, which contrasts harshly with the rich Film Festival possess the Hauka are figures associated with the fantasy life he also shares. 70 minutes | color | 1958 Gold Coast’s British colonial rulers, giving the ritual MOI, UN NOIR captures both the sorrows and the Sale/DVD (chaptered): $375 an element of political critique. occasional joys of these migrants’ experience in all After the ceremony, Rouch returns us to Accra, their psychological complexity. where we see the Hauka in their daily lives as laborers, low-ranking soldiers, or pickpockets. BUY ALL SIX Rouch suggests that the ritual serves in part as a JEAN ROUCH FILMS psychological release from the dehumanizing AND SAVE powers of colonization. see page 7 for details! 2 IcarusFilms.com CALL TOLL FREE: 800 876 1710 3 JAGUAR LITTLE BY LITTLE A film by Jean Rouch A film by Jean Rouch

“Infused with what Italo Calvino JAGUAR follows three young Songhay men from In LITTLE BY LITTLE, Rouch’s Nigerien collabora- “A truly mesmerizing, frequently called the brilliance of “lightness”... Niger—Lam Ibrahim, Illo Goudel’ize, and the tors Damouré Zika and Lam Ibrahim travel to hilarious, and provocative master- Rouch forces us to confront a wide legendary performer Damouré Zika—on a journey and end up performing a reverse ethnogra- piece.”—Eric Kohn, Cineaste array of colonialist assumptions: that to the Gold Coast (modern day Ghana). phy of French culture. “A film of tremendous insight into the in their “backwardness” Africans have Drawing from his own fieldwork on intra-African When we re-join Zika and Ibrahim in Ayorou, nature of identity and selfhood in the no sense of the wanderlust; that in migration, Rouch collaborated with his three Niger, they are running a large import-export colonial and postcolonial context.” their “backwardness” Africans do not subjects on an improvisational narrative. The four company. Hearing that a competitor is building —Michael Laramee, Three extract wisdom from their journeys. filmed the trip in mid-1950s, and reunited a few a multistory building in , the directors of Documentary Filmmakers: Errol Morris, With great humor, JAGUAR shatters Ross McElwee, Jean Rouch years later to record the sound, the participants the company decide they must construct their own our expectations.”—Paul Stoller, remembering dialogue and making up in Ayorou. 1970 Venice Visual Anthropology Review commentary. Biennale 88 minutes | color | 1967 Zika flies to Paris to study the city’s skyscrapers 92 minutes | color | 1969 Sale/DVD (chaptered): $398 Driven by Rouch’s notion of “shared ethnography”, and meet with architects for advice. However his Sale/DVD (chaptered): $398 JAGUAR offers a more complex portrait of African mission quickly broadens into a full-fledged inves- life than most Western films. The collaboration tigation of French life, using methods which begin between filmmaker and subjects reveals a wide to resemble those of European anthropology, and range of ethnic, geographic, and cultural differ- give a darkly comic charge to the proceedings. ences within just a small piece of the African conti- Ibrahim eventually joins Zika in France, and the nent, as well as the social changes and patterns of pair fall into their own version of contemporary migration that shaped mid-century African life. European life, along the way picking up a Senegalese clothing designer, a white French typist, and a hobo, all of whom return with them to Niger to work for the company. BUY ALL SIX The most cutting of Rouch’s films, LITTLE BY JEAN ROUCH FILMS LITTLE playfully satirizes the history of European- AND SAVE African relations. see page 7 for details! 4 ICARUS FILMS SEE PAGE 7 FOR ORDERING INFORMATION 5 MAMMY WATER A film by Jean Rouch

On the coast of Ghana, in the shadows of the “In MAMMY WATER (1955), after a Portuguese slave forts, lies the Gulf of Guinea. This ritual sacrifice is held to appease the sea is home to the “surf boys,” teams of fisherman angry ocean spirits, fishermen return who paddle into the ocean in large canoes, some- to shore with a copious catch, young times staying at sea for one or even two nights. boys play in the gentle waves of a now-tranquil ocean, and the voice In MAMMY WATER, Rouch depicts the surf boys declines to comment as the images of the coastal village of Shama, at the foot of the are left to communicate the relaxed Pra River. Their success is governed by water joy of the moment.” spirits (‘Mammy Water’). When the catch is bad, —Senses of Cinema THE LION HUNTERS villagers must honor the spirits with a ceremony if A film by Jean Rouch 18 minutes | color | 1956 they wish to change their fortunes. Sale/DVD (chaptered): $248

“A film with great ethnographic Filmed along the border between Niger and Mali, The film captures one such ceremony. The whole detail...In THE LION HUNTERS Rouch THE LION HUNTERS is Rouch’s documentation of village takes part in a procession that concludes with is not content merely to challenge us the lion hunt performed by the gow hunters of the a series of offerings to the sea. Afterwards, surf boys with profound questions of human Songhay people. pile into their canoes and head back into the ocean. existence. His film also forces us to Opening on the Niger River, the film travels north to More strictly observational than most of Rouch’s reflect on how we categorize experi- “the bush that is farther than far.” Here, Fulani cattle films, MAMMY WATER takes an intimate look at ence, how we re-create our sociocul- herders have requested the help of the gow in elimi- the spiritual traditions and the wider life of one tural universe.” nating a lion, nicknamed “The American” for his West African fishing village. —Paul Stoller, The Cinematic Griot: cruel cunning, which has been killing their cows. The Ethnography of Jean Rouch These six films by Jean Rouch were produced by ORDERING INFORMATION Golden Lion Award, 1965 As the Songhay society’s designated hunters, the (1905-1990), a central figure in Please refer to Order Numbers Venice Film Festival gow have developed a series of rituals to precede the French cinema since the 1920s. Rouch and Braunberger on all Orders. hunt. We see them fashioning their bow and arrows met at the famous “Festival du Film Maudit” organized 1965 London SALES: DVDs are “leased for the Film Festival in 1949 by Jean Cocteau in Biarritz. from tree branches, and preparing the Boto poison life of the DVD.” 1965 New York with which they will coat the arrows, a process PREVIEWS: DVDs may be Film Festival accompanied by a series of dances and incantations. BUY ALL SIX pre ­viewed for purchase consider- 77 minutes | color | 1965 JEAN ROUCH FILMS Sale/DVD (chaptered): $398 The gow lay traps, and test the poison on a hyena TOGETHER ation by established video libraries. and a civet cat, but even these measures are not ORDERING: Submit all orders enough to prepare us for their confrontation with and Save 30%! by purchase order, on official the ferocious “American.” Discounted price: $1475. To qualify for this discount, institutional letterhead, or pay you must cite Special Order # ROUCH6 in advance of shipping. THE LION HUNTERS portrays the immediacy of the hunt, but it also explores the complex social organization that underlies it, and the difficult 32 Court Street, 21st Floor EMAIL: [email protected] questions entailed by its representation. Brooklyn, NY 11201 WEB: www.IcarusFilms.com TEL: (718) 488-8900 | (800) 876-1710 FAX: (718) 488-8642 6 IcarusFilms.com 7 PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID RIPON PRINTERS 32 Court Street, 21st Floor Brooklyn, NY 11201 www.IcarusFilms.com (800) 876-1710

JEAN ROUCH – AFRICA

SIX CLASSIC FILMS ON DVD FOR THE FIRST TIME!