Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin

Chronicle of a Summer

Chronicle of a Summer

Few films can claim as much influence on the course of cinema history as Chronicle of a Summer. The fascinating result of a collaboration between filmmaker-anthropologist Jean Rouch and sociologist Edgar Morin, this vanguard work of what Morin termed cinéma- vérité is a brilliantly conceived and realized sociopolitical diagnosis of the early sixties in France. Simply by interviewing a group of Paris residents in the summer of 1960—beginning with the provocative and eternal question “Are you happy?” and expanding to political issues, including the ongoing Algerian War—Rouch and Morin reveal the hopes and dreams of a wide array of people, from artists to factory workers, from an Italian émigré to an African student. Chronicle of a Summer’s penetrative approach gives us a document of a time and place with extraordinary emotional depth.

Film Info

  • France
  • 1961
  • 90 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.37:1
  • French
  • Spine #648

Special Features

  • New 2K digital master from the 2011 Cineteca di Bologna restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
  • Un été + 50 (2011), a seventy-five-minute documentary featuring outtakes from the film, along with new interviews with codirector Edgar Morin and some of the film’s participants
  • Archival interviews with codirector Jean Rouch and Marceline Loridan, one of the film’s participants
  • New interview with anthropology professor Faye Ginsburg, the organizer of several Rouch retrospectives
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: A new essay by scholar Sam Di Iorio

    New cover by Rodrigo Corral

Purchase Options

Special Features

  • New 2K digital master from the 2011 Cineteca di Bologna restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
  • Un été + 50 (2011), a seventy-five-minute documentary featuring outtakes from the film, along with new interviews with codirector Edgar Morin and some of the film’s participants
  • Archival interviews with codirector Jean Rouch and Marceline Loridan, one of the film’s participants
  • New interview with anthropology professor Faye Ginsburg, the organizer of several Rouch retrospectives
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: A new essay by scholar Sam Di Iorio

    New cover by Rodrigo Corral
Chronicle of a Summer
Cast
Marceline
Featuring
Mary Lou
Angelo
Jean-Pierre
Jacques
Jean
Régis
Céline
Jean-Marc
Nadine
Landry
Raymond
Simone
Henri
Madi
Catherine
Sophie
Credits
Director
Jean Rouch
Director
Edgar Morin
Photographed by
Roger Morillère
Photographed by
Raoul Coutard
Photographed by
Jean-Jacques Tarbès
Photographed by
Michel Brault
Sound
Guy Rophe
Sound
Michel Fano
Sound
Barthélémy
Production director
André Heinrich
Editing
Jean Ravel
Editing
Néna Baratier
Editing
Françoise Colin
Produced by
Anatole Dauman
Produced by
Philippe Lifchitz

Current

Vive la Vérité!
Vive la Vérité!
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—get…
Chronicle of a Summer: Truth and Consequences
Chronicle of a Summer: Truth and Consequences

When an ethnographic filmmaker and a sociologist joined forces, they helped change the course of nonfiction cinema.

By Sam Di Iorio

Dennis Lim’s Top 10
Dennis Lim’s Top 10

In the spirit of a double-feature series at Film at Lincoln Center currently underway, the venerable institution’s director of programming has put together ten pairings that highlight thematic and stylistic parallels throughout our collection.

Lessons in Vérité with Damien Chazelle
Lessons in Vérité with Damien Chazelle

The Oscar-winning director talks about drawing inspiration from the intimacy and naturalism of the documentary masterpiece Chronicle of a Summer.

Explore

Raoul Coutard

Cinematographer

Raoul Coutard
Raoul Coutard

Perhaps the most famous cinematographer of the nouvelle vague, Raoul Coutard shot more than seventy-five films during his forty-three-year career. A war photographer (in Indochina) turned freelance photojournalist (his images appeared in Paris Match and Look), Coutard turned to film, hesitantly, only in the late fifties. After fumbling his way through a few film assignments (he was inexperienced with a movie camera), he was hired by producer Georges de Beauregard to shoot the debut film of a young critic named Jean-Luc Godard. His ragged, incisive shooting style on Breathless became iconic in modern cinema, and Godard kept him on board for the rest of the sixties and beyond, while other directors, like François Truffaut, Jacques Demy, Jean Rouch, and Costa-Gavras, also called upon his skills. His exacting images, which vary from rich and luxurious to gritty and documentary-like, can be seen in countless indelible films, including Shoot the Piano Player, Jules and Jim, Contempt, Alphaville, Pierrot le fou, and Z.