Maitres Fous - Jay Ruby Interview

Jamie S.-Berthe: What distinguishes Jean Rouch’s films from other ethnographic films?
Jay Ruby: Rouch’s accomplishments center on three ideas – reflexivity as seen in Chronicle of a Summer, “Shared anthropology” or collaborative film as seen in Jaguar and ethnographic fiction or anthropological docu-drama as seen in The Human Pyramid. He was truly a man ahead of his time and as Stoller suggested “a premature postmodernist.” Rouch was never trapped into the false problems of objectivity or passive voice or any of the mistaken notions of scientific objectivity that plagued the social sciences until the 1980s.

JSB: What, in your opinion, is the “truth” of cinema vérité?
JR: Cinema Verite is a French translation of Dziga Vertov’s theories of film entitled kino pradva. Vertov as Rouch believe that the act of filming transformed people so that they were in a cine-trance. In this state they performed their culture in a way revealing to the anthropologist.

JSB: What accounts for Rouch’s relative obscurity in the United States?
JR: The majority of Rouch’s films were never distributed in the U.S. They are still impossible to locate. Second, too few American academics read French and were unaware of his writings and the writings of other French intellectuals about him.

JSB: What impresses you most, as an anthropologist, about the prolific career of Jean Rouch?
JR: I discussed that above but in addition, Rouch’s willingness to train and assist young filmmakers particularly from Africa has had a lasting influence.

JSB: How has Rouch affected your work within the field of anthropology?
JR: He is partially responsible for my 35 year old interest in ethnographic film and in particular in my work on reflexivity.

JSB: Why do we not see more of Rouch’s methods, such as “shared anthropology” and reflexivity, within the field of ethnographic filmmaking?
JR: U.S. ethnographic filmmakers have by and large blindly followed the canons of the documentary and broadcast journalism – both of which assumed that objectivity, passive camera and observational style were the only acceptable ethnofilm style. While many anthropologist pay lip service to being reflexivity, they seldom do it.

JSB: Which of Rouch films, in your opinion, best represent his cinematic and anthropological endeavors? Why?
JR: An impossible question to answer as Rouch has produced well over 150 films but Chronicle of a Summer, the 4 part series beginning with Jaguar and ending with Madame l’Eau, and Mad Masters are among the films I know best and admire.

JSB: As an anthropologist, can you explain how Rouch’s participatory methods are able to enhance, as opposed to taint the ethnographic “objectivity” of his films?
JR: Easy. All you need to do is realize that objectivity as a manifestation of positivism is a discredited ideology. It is morally wrong to appear to be objective as it gives producers God-like powers to represent others.

JSB: Are there people within the field of ethnographic filmmaking whom you consider to be continuing the work of Jean Rouch? Who? How?
JR: There is no one person that comes to mind but his influence can be seen in a number of works.

JSB: Can you please define what you understand by “ciné-trance”? Do you believe it to be part of a valid methodology within the field of visual anthropology?
JR: When people are filmed they transform themselves. They are in a trance. Cine-trances are recorded with a cine-eye to produce cine-truth. This is a transformative process not the mere recording of reality.

JSB: Rouch has described what he does as “ethnography in the first person” – how was he ahead of his time with this concept?
JR: To be reflexive the producer must reveal his/her persona, intentions and methods. Rouch discovered this approach in the 1950s. It took anthropologists who write another 30 years to catch up.

JSB: Would you consider Rouch a post-modern ethnographer? Why or why not?
JR: Yes for all the reasons stated above.

Jay Ruby, was formerly a professor of Anthropology at Temple University in Philadelphia and has been exploring the relationship between cultures and pictures for the past thirty years. His research interests revolve around the application of anthropological insights to the production and comprehension of photographs, film, and television. Among his single authored works are Secure The Shadow: Death and Photography in America, (1995, MIT Press), The Photographic World of Francis Cooper: Not A Bad Shot, a book length study of Francis Cooper, a nineteenth century Pennsylvanian photographer (1999,Pennsylvania State University Press) and Picturing Culture: Essays on Film and Anthropology (2000, University of Chicago Press). Current research involves a study of the social costs of maintaining diversity in Oak Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. For a complete biography, a comprehensive list of articles and other information regarding Professor Ruby please visit his website: http://astro.temple.edu/~ruby/ruby/