Unscripted: The Art of Direct Cinema
[Venue] CS Yamagata Citizens’ Hall (Small Hall)
In 1960, global image culture was rocked by the emergence of Direct Cinema, a new style that touched every mode of documentary. That year, Jonas Mekas wrote of “a feeling in the air that cinema is only just beginning.” Eschewing screenwriting, formal interviews, and Voice-of-God narration, these filmmakers never reenacted scenes. They liberated the camera from the tripod and entered the world, open to its complexity and possibilities. This was the birth of “observational cinema.” This aesthetic revolution was connected to larger currents in American culture. Their faith in individual perception, discovery of the profound in everyday reality and authentic nonconformity was in tune with American pragmatism and transcendentalism. At the same time, the imprint of the budding counterculture is palpable in nearly every film. Its “direct” representation of our world enabled filmmakers to indirectly deal with the most pressing problems of modern life, including democracy, voting rights, immigration, refugee rights, poverty, violence, race and diversity. As scholar Dave Saunders has pointed out, this body of films “engages in a substantial and compelling dialogue with America, about America in an epoch best defined by upheaval.” We look back at American Direct Cinema in a new period of disruption.
- Program 1
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WWII Combat Cameraman Footage
Photography: Richard Leacock / 1945 / 9 min
The Young Fighter (The Young Fighter: A Reality Film)
Dir: Leo Hurwitz / 1953 / 30 min
Jazz Dance
Dir: Roger Tilton / 1954 / 22 min
On the Bowery
Dir: Lionel Rogosin / 1956 / 65 min
- Program 2
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Les raquetteurs
Dirs: Gilles Groulx, Michel Brault / CANADA / 1958 / 14 min
The Days Before Christmas
Dirs: Terence Macartney-Filgate, Stanley Jackson, Wolf Koenig / CANADA / 1958 / 29 min
Emergency Ward
Dir: William Greaves / CANADA / 1959 / 30 min
Wrestling (La lutte)
Dirs: Michel Brault, Marcel Carrière, Claude Fournier, Claude Jutra / CANADA / 1961 / 27 min
- Program 3
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Primary
Producer: Robert Drew / 1960 / 53 min
Yanki, No!
Producer: Robert Drew / 1960 / 53 min
- Program 4
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Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment
Executive Producer: Robert Drew / 1963 / 52 min
Faces of November
Executive Producer: Robert Drew / 1964 / 12 min
- Program 5
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The Chair
Executive Producer: Robert Drew / 1962 / 58 min
Happy Mother’s Day
Dirs: Joyce Chopra, Richard Leacock / 1963 / 26 min
- Program 6
- Dont Look Back
Dir: D.A. Pennebaker / 1967 / 96 min
- Program 7
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Cicero March
Production Company: Film Group / 1966 / 8 min
Law and Order
Dir: Frederic Wiseman / 1969 / 81 min
Chiefs
Dirs: Richard Leacock, Noel E. Parmentel, Jr. / 1968 / 18 min
- Program 8
- Home For Life
Dirs: Gordon Quinn, Gerald Temaner / 1966 / 82 min
- Program 9
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Meet Marlon Brando
Dirs: Albert Maysles, David Maysles / 1966 / 29 min
Just Doin’ It (A Tale of Two Barber Shops)
Dir: William Greaves / 1976 / 28 min
- Program 10
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Breaking it Up at the Museum
Dir: D.A. Pennebaker / 1960 / 8 min
You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You
Dir: D.A. Pennebaker / 1964 / 12 min
Cut Piece, 1964/1965
Producers: Albert Maysles, David Maysles / 1965 / 9 min
Monterey Pop
Dir: D.A. Pennebaker / 1968 / 78 min
The House at Pooneil Corners (excerpt from 1 P.M.)
Film by: D.A. Pennebaker / 1971 / 8 min
- Program 11
- Gimme Shelter
Dirs: Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin / 1970 / 91 min
- Program 12
- Grey Gardens
Dirs: David Maysles, Albert Maysles, Ellen Hovde, Muffie Meyer / 1976 / 95 min
- Program 13
- Harlan County, USA
Dir: Barbara Kopple / 1976 / 103 min
*Harlan County, USA was preserved in 2004 by the Women’s Film Preservation Fund of New York Women in Film and Television and the Academy Film Archive.
- Program 14
- Forest of Bliss
Dir: Robert Gardner / 1986 / 90 min
- Program 15
- Seventeen
Dirs: Joel DeMott, Jeff Kreines / 1983 / 120 min
- Program 16
- The War Room
Dirs: Chris Hegedus, D.A. Pennebaker / 1993 / 96 min