Realism as a Style in Cinema Verite: A Critical Analysis of "Primary"

Abstract

Opening a Can of Worms. In March of 1961, Robert Drew announced what Broadcasting magazine would dub the three commandments of television's of storm and stress: determined to be there when the news happens. I'm determined to be as unobtrusive as possible. And I'm determined not to distort the situation.2 name school of storm and stress was a glib reference to Drew's preference for subjects wrapped up in their own affairs and apparently oblivious to camera and crew. I seek people driven by their own forces--forces so strong that they can forget about me, he said.3 And indeed, in 1960 Drew produced films on the candidates in the Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary, on the winner of the coveted pole position in the Indianapolis 500 race, on protestors in Havana's Plaza Civica after Cuba's expulsion from the Organization of American States, and on the parents of students in Louisiana schools during court-ordered desegregation.4 But the name school of storm and stress did not, as it turned out, stick. Neither did living camera, the title Drew Associates preferred. Their work finally came to be known as a decidedly pretentious term for which members of the group would endure much abuse, even though they seldom used it themselves.5 And it could, of course, have been worse: one critic referred to the style as manque and another as banalite.6 But cinema verite had as many champions as critics, and the work of Drew Associates inspired a feeling, for some, that cinema was only just beginning. The kind of documentary Mr. Drew describes is the purest documentary of all, declared John Secondari, Executive Producer at ABC-TV in 1963. When you can tell a story as it unfolds, with your camera and without very much need of words, you have documentary in the palm of your hands.7 Louis Marcorelles spoke of the work of Drew Associates as part of a revolution that would -be as important to the future of the cinema as Brecht was to the theater. Truth no longer lies in seeming to give a 'good performance,' a star turn, he wrote for Sight & Sound in 1963, but in seizing the individual unawares, rather as you may discover the real face of a woman in the early morning on the pillow beside you.8 With the emergence of cinema verite, something close to a modern religion was born, according to James Blue. Cinema verite has its

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