Clips from Conversations With Jean Rouch

A film by Ann McIntosh
Produced in collaboration with Documentary Educational Resources

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This intimate, revealing video of conversations between Jean Rouch and a number of filmmakers and friends, including John Marshall and Colin Young, was shot between 1978 and 1980 by Ann McIntosh, who taught video under Ricky Leacock at MIT. McIntosh gained Rouch’s trust while shooting informal cinéma vérité scenes of him at various locations: film seminars in New England (USA), Chateau Thierry in France (the WWII period for Jean), Monaco (where his father worked and died), Marcilly (the family homestead), Italy (at his vacation house with his first wife Jane), as well as to graduate seminars at the Sorbonne and the Cinémathèque Française. The video provides fascinating insights about Rouch as he discusses his methodology with students and colleagues, revealing the man at his most tender and most serious. Jean ’s extraordinary wisdom and sense of humor permeates McIntosh's work.

	Chateau Thierry: "A wonderful day in May..."
	Marcilly: "I know all the stones by heart..."
	My Father (Monaco): "Why not, I think it's a jolly good idea..."
	My Dream: "It's impossible to do what you have to do in one lifetime..."

Clips from Jean Rouch and His Camera in the Heart of Africa

By Philo Bregstein
In cooperation with Dutch Television

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Jean Rouch and His Camera in the Heart of Africa provides an in-depth look at the film work of Jean Rouch and his friends and collaborators from Niger, Damouré Zika and Lam Abrahima Dia. Most of the camera and technical work was accomplished by Niger filmmakers. Bregstein, Rouch, Damouré, Lam, their friend Tallou and others converse about filmmaking and filmmakers who have had historical influence in the field, while segments from several of Rouch's earlier film works are interspersed with the filming in Niger.

	Jean Rouch and His Camera in the Heart of Africa — clip 1
	Jean Rouch and His Camera in the Heart of Africa — clip 2

Clips from Rouch's Gang

By Steef Meyknecht, Dirk Nijland and Joost Verhey
Color, 70 minutes, 1998

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In 1991, Jean Rouch started work on his new feature film Madame l'Eau, much of which was shot in Holland. Rouch's Gang follows the film crew and provides a glimpse behind the scenes as Rouch and his four friends from Niger — Damouré Zika, Lam Ibrahim Dia, Tallou Mouzourane and Moussa Hamidou — make their film. By providing an outsider's view of Madame l'Eau, the documentary provides insight into how Rouch approaches his films. Most of his fiction films were shot with these four African friends, over a period of more than forty years. The bond between them is the theme of the documentary Rouch's Gang, a bond of friendship which has become increasingly complex and can no longer be described in a simple way.

	Rouch's Gang — clip 1 "We're all amateurs..."
	Rouch's Gang — clip 2 "If we're working on a film, we become completely obsessed.... and the result is beautiful."

Clips from Ciné-portrait de Margaret Mead
(Ciné-portrait of Margaret Mead)

Produced by CFE and American Museum of Natural History.
A film by Jean Rouch, with John Marshall.

Upon the occasion of the first Margaret Mead Film Festival, Rouch has an encounter with Margaret in her office, and in the workroom in the museum, where she speaks about her hopes for today's anthropology.

	Jean Rouch's introduction
	Jean Rouch speaks to Margaret Mead in her office
	Jean Rouch speaks to Margaret Mead outside (with a cameo appearance by John Marshall as sound recordist)

Clips from The Screening Room: Jean Rouch
Produced by Studio 7 Arts

The Screening Room was a 1970's Boston television series that offered independent filmmakers a chance to show and discuss their work on a commercial (ABC-TV) affiliate station. The series was developed and hosted by filmmaker Robert Gardner (Dead Birds, Forest of Bliss), who was Chairman of the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies and Director of the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts at Harvard for many years. In this edition of the program, Gardner's lively and engaging conversation with Jean Rouch was interspersed with screenings of Rouch's films, including Les Maîtres Fous, Death of a Priest, Rhythme de travail /Work Rhythms, and others.

"I remember vividly the time almost exactly 25 years ago when Jean came on my program at Channel 5, the ABC affiliate station in Boston. I had been on Television with Jean before, in Paris much longer ago, when I was mute with fear that my French was incomprehensible. All that I can remember is that we were talking about Flaherty, an appropriate subject for us both. Jean, as anyone who sees these clips can see, had no inhibitions or anxieties whatsoever but gave to my devoted audience of cinephiles his radiant and engaging self."

— Robert Gardner, September 2004

	Rouch on the early days of the French New Wave. Watching films at the Cinémathèque with Godard, Truffaut, and others.
	Jean Rouch speaks about the first film that he saw, Nanook of the North, and the impression it made on him.
	Excerpt from Death of a Priest, with comments by Rouch