Entries from a trip home

Abstract

Cinema verite is distinguished from other genres by its refinement of means to make spontaneous revelations of character and situation. Because cinema verite can reveal extemporaneous behavior more easily and more acutely than other filmmaking techniques, its subjects are inherently more vulnerable to exposure than are subjects in directed or rehearsed films. Consideration of vulnerability as a key element characterizing the form and affecting audience response.to cinema verite opens up criticism of the form in a number of ways: It explains more fully audience discomfort with cinema verite, because it suggests that in cinema verite the audience's affiliations shift between filmmaker and film subject. It underpins discussion of the cinema verite film maker's responsibility to and relationship with the film's subjects. It suggests a perspective from which to examine humor in cinema verite. Finally, it is one explanation of the particular force of this form, a force that can be used or abused.