The Criterion Collection

Chronicle of a Summer, a sui generis 1961 collaboration between sociologist Edgar Morin and documentary filmmaker and anthropologist Jean Rouch, is considered a pioneering work of cinéma-vérité. That term—coined by Morin himself—gets thrown around a lot, but what does it really mean? In this clip from a new video interview for Criterion’s release of Chronicle, NYU professor of anthropology Faye Ginsburg explains cinéma-vérité, how it differs from the concurrent movement known as Direct Cinema, and how Morin and Rouch, after meeting on a festival jury in Florence in 1959, decided to work together to use filmmaking as a tool for exploring the truth.