LIMITE ENTRE DOCUMENTAIRE ET FICTION
Et cette fin c'est la présentation d'une réalité.
Deux avis majeurs pour réflexion; le premier sur la position actuelle des festivals et le second du père du cinéma direct francais:
La position du (FID) Festival International de Documentaire de Marseille
"Ainsi que la 18ème édition du FID l'avait inauguré, nous vous rappelons que
les compétitions internationales et nationales sont désormais ouvertes aux
films de fiction comme aux documentaires. Nous le disions alors, nous le
répétons aujourd'hui: il ne s'agit pas d'opposer stérilement le véridique au
fabriqué, mais d'apprécier un film comme un producteur de sens, de vérité,
d'intelligence de notre monde. De cela, il n'y aura jamais trop."
Jean-Pierre Rehm
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La position de Jean Rouch? père francais du cinéma direct et ethnographique
Ethno-fiction: Rouch did not believe in a strict delineation between fiction and non-fiction films. He writes, "For me, as an ethnographer and filmmaker, there is almost no boundary between documentary film and films of fiction"(Ciné-Ethnography, 185). Rouch recognized that cinematic objectivity was ephemeral; a camera was bound to change the kind of interactions he could have with the world around him. Given this necessity, Rouch saw nothing contradictory in the idea of employing narrative techniques in his ethnographic films. This practice has come to be known as ethno-fiction.
In films like Jaguar (1955) and Moi, un noir (1958), Rouch used fiction techniques in order to bring out certain truths. Through loosely constructed narratives the "characters" in his films could "act" out scenes that were true to the feel of their lives. This method gives his viewers glimpses into a reality that is incontestable and access to a "truth" that is both poignant and present. Paul Stoller writes, "In this way Rouch uses creative license to 'capture' the texture of an event, the ethos of lived experience" (The Cinematic Griot, 143).
Rouch also used narrative techniques to impose some sort of structure on the huge amounts of information contained in his images. In this way he was able to render the ethnographic data that his films contain both digestable and poetic, as opposed to pedantic. If we take The Lion Hunters (1965), for example, we see that Rouch organized the film into a narrative structure much like a bedtime story for children. Through this technique Rouch preserves the mystic quality of the hunt for the viewer and enables us to stand in awe of what we are witnessing.