Chronicle of a Summer (Criterion Collection)

Few films can claim to be as influential to the course of cinema history as Chronicle of a Summer. The fascinating result of a collaboration between filmmaker-anthropologist Jean Rouch (-Moi, un noir) and sociologist Edgar Morin, this vanguard work of what Morin would term cinma verit is a brilliantly conceived and realized sociopolitical diagnosis of the early sixties in France. By simply 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 migr to an African student. Chronicle of a Summer's penetrative approach gives us a document of a time and place with extraordinary emotional depth.