High School and Chronicle of a Summer Film - Essay Example

Introduction In this theme, we are going to take a look at the film industry in the 60's, covering two films, High School and Chronicles of a Summer. A documentary film is a nonfictional movie expected to report some aspect of reality, principally for the reasons of guideline or keeping up a chronicled record. High school is one of the first direct cinema documentaries by a filmmaker Frederick Wiseman and a founder of Zipporah Films. It takes the viewers inside Northeast High School as a fly on the divider to watch the educators and how they communicate with the students. Despite being shot over a five-week period, from March to April 1968 in Philadelphia, Wiseman was scared of a lawsuit, so the film was not shown in Philadelphia at the time of its release in October of 1968. Chronicle of a Summer directed by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin is a film where people talk about topics on the themes of French society and happiness in the regular workers among others and with those affirmations the movie producers make fictional moments taking into account their interviews. Later on, the people talk about the pictures made with their particular words and check whether the film got their level of reality. It is a French documentary shot during the summer of 1960, but the release date is October of 1961. The film starts with a discussion between Rouch and Morin on whether it is conceivable to act earnestly before a camera. Wiseman likes to pick institutions as his subjects this is because of its limitations to a geographical area providing the boundaries. He is very keen on observing the way organizations are run, the guidelines that they are controlled by the relationship between the general population who give services and the general population who receives services. In the chronicle of summer, Rouch wishes to capture the repercussions of the Algerian war and just before the blast of social mobs that came to dominate that decade in Paris. Chronicle of a Summer Chronicle of summer from the beginning of the motion picture, the interviewers put themselves on-screen, uncovering their part all through the film as influential members and shapers of the occasions that develop (Rothman 1997). It challenges both the indifference of artistic history and the oversight that prevails in French legislative issues and connected that test to the film's prime subject, singular bliss. The war in Algeria, which is the primary driver of French censorship at the time. The Paris massacre on 17 October 1961, amid the Algerian War (1954–62). Under requests from the leader of the Parisian police, Maurice Papon, the French National Police attacked a forbidden demonstration of some 30,000 Algerians. The massacre seems to have been deliberate, as has been exhibited by history specialist Jean-Luc Einaudi, who won a case against Maurice Papon in 1999 the latter was sentenced in 1998 on charges of violations against humankind for his role. The French Army torments Algerian detainees and, so far as that is concerned, French prisoners who sympathize with them and news of torture was censored by the French government. Clearly there was much racism in France in the 1960’s. According to Rothman (1997), Chronicle proposes whether the subjects are political or individual, sentimental or authentic not scared in light of the way that these domains can never really be secluded in the first place. Uniting cross-area of young Parisians to meet, talk and team up on the film during the summer of 1960. The members, meeting individuals on the road, offering the conversation starter: "Are you happy?" some respond while others shy away from the camera. They talk about their lives as students, laborers, youthful and newly married, and they contend about race, class and the present wars in Algeria and the Congo. The cinematic of Rouch and Morin was extraordinarily customized to make that disclosure. They fixated the film on the spoken word, which they captured finally by the method of technical innovation, the invention of Stefan kudelski of a convenient sync-sound recording device, the Nagra that could unite with a quiet and lightweight 16mm motion picture camera. Taking advantage of the new lightweight equipment that was available from the early 60’s to get closer to their subjects. Jean Rouch, a veteran of 10 years of ethnographic filmmaking in Africa (Rothman 1997). He endeavors to incite a "psychodrama" in the general population met. His way to deal with the documentary is to place his characters in a circumstance with sensational potential outcomes, let them ad lib, and after that film them. Rouch states that Chronique is an endeavor to join Vertov's hypothesis and Flaherty's strategy. Rouch was not without his pundits, some as imposing as the Senegalese author and producer Sembène Ousmane, who blamed him for filming Africans as though they are insects. High school The film High School incorporates Fredrick Wiseman's interest in contemporary organizations and the power dynamics they create. He captures the various strains that are instilling inside of the relationship between power, body, and the institution. These trades occur inside of Wiseman's 75-minute narrative occurring inside of Philadelphia's North East High School. He views this high school as an industrial facility in which understudies are formed, controlled and created, the results of institutions are exemplified (Grant 2006). This film is shot entirely in black and white without an explanatory narrative, using the editing and camera to create a structure instead. Wiseman challenges the spectator to derive meaning from the short takes that he uses to produce a sequence of images. The scenes inside of High School invite the viewer to approach this narrative from different viewpoints trying to infer a particular significance. Inside of the high school are the views of dialect classes, gym class, and also associations between understudies and figures of power. These scenes are regularly shots of parts of the body, this disjointing being established in the strain of the execution of authority inside of the bounds this foundation aimed at educating those within it. According to Grant (2006), Power to those in power is engaged through their hands, a device of embellishment and control. Though students discover power temporarily in their verbal protest, setting accentuation on their mouths. The utilization of the observational mode by Wiseman mirrors his perspective on his association with his subjects. Wiseman never features in the narrative stating that it is not his business to intercede, he needs to demonstrate the truth without evolving it. This absence of intercession makes a dependence on visual and sound images. The year Wiseman finishes High School is 1968. Amid this time, the US is profoundly involved in the Vietnam War and counterculture movements, this is why the themes are so potent. A scene in the film where a former student writes a letter to the school, stating that he is on a suicide mission and plans to leave the insurance money to the school. In the letter, he says that he is just a body doing a job after all (Grant 2006). Wiseman focuses back to the circumstances and ends results seen here. The institution and the dutifulness it breeds is the reason and the fighter strolling into his demise is the impact. Wiseman described his work as reality fictions as his film bases on real life events. The films of Wiseman are an excellent example of music being used, it helps in capturing of reality as it unfolds (French 2013). He tries exploration of gender and power within institutions, a female teacher teaching young ladies deportment while embarrassing them for their body shape is wrong. Leaders in schools should serve as role models for the young generations. Encouraging and leading them towards positivity and a brighter future. Conclusion To what extent, then, did the directors ultimately preserve reality? Rouch, the obvious choice due to Wisemans work, is most convincing and realistic. His films do not feel manipulative, but if they are as Wiseman claims, it is difficult to detect what makes them so. Support for Wiseman’s zealous effort to distance himself from what he is filming. Interviews are a major element of realism, it includes real people with real opinions creating an illusion that they are conserving with the audience. They both use interviews, but Jean Rouch is criticizing Frederick Wiseman’s film for lack of hope. I find this statement to be true from the story of the former student of the Philadelphia high school on a suicide mission. The films reveal issues that were facing the society in the 60’s namely racism, political issues due to Algerian war and social, the effects of the education system to young ones, the technology development as camera were capturing real images and social matters in the society, for example, the happiness of individuals. References Rothman, W 1997, Documentary Film Classics, Cambridge University Press, New York. Grant, BK 2006, Five films by Frederick Wiseman, University of California Press, Berkeley. Beattie, K 2004, Documentary Screens: Nonfiction, Palgrave Macmillan, London. French, P 2013, Available from: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jul/14/chronicle- summer-dvd-philip-french [12 November 2015]. Read More