Wild Water Women Redux
In 1961 Jean Rouch made a film called Chronique dún été (trans. Chronicle of a Summer). This is a particularly important film in the history of cinéma vérité and also, a very early example of reflexivity. In the film Rouch and sociologist, Edgar Morrin follow the lives of a number of characters living in Paris who are asked a simple question, “are you happy?” Aside from the revolutionary first use of hand held sync sound equipment, the film used a self-reflexive technique of filmming the participants watching the rushes and critiqueing the film. I write about this because Llyn DeDanaan and I are working on a project for the Visual History Archive that reconsiders this technique. Except in this instance we filmmed the participants of a wild water raft trip involving women facutly and staff watching a film of their adventure 30 years ago. And interviewed some of these women for this new project that will combine the original 20 minute film (shot on Super 8 with stills, soundtrack is appropriated music and field interviews) with new footage from the reunion in October 2008. Some of these women had not seen each other for decades. Llyn and I began the editing of the reflexive frame for the piece on Thursday. The final edit will be about 30 minutes and available on line. I put aside my personal film for now and am enjoying this opportunity to finish this piece in the next few weeks. The project was selected because the Wild Water Women trip represented a genuine instance of collaboration between faculty and staff, a practice or value that informed early years at Evergreen. We believe that these kinds of collaborations are reasons why Evergreen has been sustainable against very problematic odds.