Brazza, Chronicle of a Wasteland

Ethnographer-filmmaker Jean Rouch and sociologist-film critic Edgar Morin interview people on the streets of Paris during the summer of 1960. Assisted by Marceline, Angelo, Marilou and Jean Pierre, the team talks with factory workers Jean and Jacques; students Regis, Celine, Jean-Marc, Nadine, Landry and Raymond; office workers Jacques and Simone; artists Henri, Madi and Catherine; and a model, Sophie.

"With a strong sense of irony and a deadpan visual style" (Janet Maslin, The New York Times), Chronicle of a Disappearance unfolds in a series of seemingly unconnected cinematic tableaux, each of them focused on incidents or characters which seldom reappear later in the film. Among the many unrelated scenes, there is a Palestinian actress struggling to find an apartment in West Jerusalem, the owner of the Holy Land souvenir shop preparing merchandise for incoming Japanese tourists, a group of old women gossiping about their relatives, and an Israeli police van which screeches to a halt so several heavily armed soldiers can get off the car and urinate.

Chronique d'un été (Chronicle of a Summer) is a documentary film made during the summer of 1960 by sociologist Edgar Morin and anthropologist and filmmaker Jean Rouch, with the esthetic collaboration of director cameraman Michel Brault. The film begins with a discussion between Rouch and Morin on whether or not it is possible to act sincerely in front of a camera. A cast of real life individuals are then introduced and are led by the filmmakers to discuss topics on the themes of French society and happiness in the working class. At the end of the movie, the filmmakers show their subjects the compiled footage and have the subjects discuss the level of reality that they thought the movie obtained.

Ethnographer-filmmaker Jean Rouch and sociologist-film critic Edgar Morin interview people on the streets of Paris during the summer of 1960. Assisted by Marceline, Angelo, Marilou and Jean Pierre, the team talks with factory workers Jean and Jacques; students Regis, Celine, Jean-Marc, Nadine, Landry and Raymond; office workers Jacques and Simone; artists Henri, Madi and Catherine; and a model, Sophie.