His fteenth lm, Chronique d’un été, is the rst he shot in France, in 1960. For this reason, Chronique d’un été is a land- mark piece, a transition between two peri- ods and two spaces of Rouch’s lm work. This lm, however, is the evolution of a paradox. It began as a French sociologi- cal study directed by Edgar Morin, while Rouch was only responsible for lming it. It was supposed to be a documentary for the eld of social sciences. (…) Ed- gar Morin, at the time interested in ap- plying to Parisians a new form of ethno- sociology, called upon Rouch for his way of observing and listening to Africans. (…) Hence, two distinct approaches are drawn upon in the making of this lm. On the one hand, the socio-ethnographic dis- course at work in Morin’s project which provides the footage with a framework in the form of a question asked to all partici- pants in the lm (“how do you live?”), on the other, the unexpected, or unplanned, role of Rouch’s lmmaking.

(…) In this lm, the editing completely reorganizes the ow of the images recorded during lming. The difference between the length of the rushes (twenty- ve hours) and the nal lm (an hour and a half) is a telling indication of the extent to which the editing reorganized the work. The lm is also the evolution of a com- parison between its two creators. Morin wanted a system of oppositions between general and speci c, creating a “struc- ture” for the different issues dealt with. Rouch favored the idea of “chronological editing of the lming rather than accord- ing to subject.” After production stepped in, Jean Rouch came to this interesting conclusion: “co-authoring (…) is a violent game where the only rule is disagreement, and the solution in the resolution of this disagreement. The referee (or the produc- er) must be free-spirited enough to follow the match, calling out only mistakes. Un- fortunately, the producer of a lm, stuck between being the patron of unbearable artists and nancial demands, cannot be impartial.”

Maxime Scheinfeigel, Jean Rouch, CNRS Editions, Paris 2008