Chronicle of a Summer (Chronique d'un été) is a 1961 film from France, directed by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin.
It is a loosely constructed documentary—in fact, the phrase "cinema verite" was apparently coined by Edgar Morin for this movie. Rouch and Morin set out to document ordinary life in Paris. The film starts out with one of their friends, Marceline Loridan, approaching random strangers in the streets of Paris and asking "Are you happy?" From there the filmmakers move to more structured interviews with people they know: a Renault factory worker named Angelo, secretary Marilù Parolini, a student named Jean-Pierre, Loridan, and others. From this Rouch and Morin try to get a sense of what 1960 Paris is like.
Tropes:
- Answer Cut: As the group is discussing current events they turn to the Algerian War, one young man hopes "that in the end the people can squash that war." This is followed by some Spinning Paper shots showing that in 1960 the war was still very much an ongoing thing.
- Beastly Bloodsports: Towards the end of the film a couple of Rouch's friends go to a bullfight.
- Deliberately Monochrome: Shot in the no-frills black and white that was typical of the independent cinema of the era.
- Documentary: Ordinary people in France talking about their lives. (Much of the film, including Loridan's dramatic monologue as she walks through the Place de la Concorde, was scripted.) The hand-held camera work would be much imitated in other "cinema verite" documentaries to follow.
- Failure Montage: Marceline Loridan's "are you happy?" interviews start with a montage of people blowing her off. Eventually some folks are shown engaging.
- Fanservice Extra: The cameras catch a curvaceous swimsuit model identified only as "Sophie" doing a photo shoot on a boat. Afterwards she is briefly interviewed.
- The Ken Burns Effect: The film opens with a camera pan over a still photo of Cannes as titles pop up recounting the prizes the film won there.
- No Plot? No Problem!: Even documentaries usually tell a story of some sort, but not this one, which is basically a series of interviews of people talking about their lives in 1960 Paris.
- Reveal Shot: A long interview has a young man named Jean-Pierre talk about how he feels "impotent" (metaphorically) because his life isn't working out how he wants it. After he whines for a while the camera pans to Marceline, next to him; they are in a relationship which apparently isn't working out. As she talks about how she'd hoped his 20s would be happier than hers, the camera pans down...to show a Nazi concentration camp tattoo on her arm. Later she talks about meeting her father in Auschwitz.
- Shout-Out: One of the African students says he knows about concentration camps because he saw Night and Fog.
- Speech-Centric Work: A bunch of people talking about their lives. That's it.
- Spinning Paper: A comment about hoping the people can end the war in Algeria is followed by a lot of Spinning Paper headlines about that ongoing war.
