ABSTRACT
“Cinema vérité is posited on the ability of the camera to record meaningful events, these events having structured themselves so that the camera can claim and recall their veracity. One does not have to assume that the events filmed have this sort of veracity, distinct from their presence in cinema — some examples make it perfectly obvious that what is being shown does not in a mystical sense pre-exist the cinema that produced it — the spaces shown, we are then informed, are there because of their place in the film. As in direct looks at the camera (Leaud in Godard, for example) moments are presented that show the role of the pro-filmic as literally ‘for the film’ which displays them (Godard) rather than as pre-cinematic with the cinema present as historical accident (cinema vérité)” (A. L. Rees, “Conditions of illusionism,” Screen, vol. 18, no. 3, 1977).
