Jean Rouch: 1917-2004

I first met Jean Rouch in the summer of 1976 in Niamey, the capital of the Republic of Niger, a place that he considered home, a place where, after the tragic car accident that killed him at the age of 86, he now rests. I had arrived in Niger to begin gathering data for a doctoral research project on the religion of the Songhay people, the very people depicted in Rouch's books and in his celebrated films. When we met several times that summer for coffee, he was always open and informal. In fact, he went out of his way to help someone who had just begun to walk the path of ethnography. I was very pleasantly surprised that such an important scholar would take so much time with a neophyte. During one of our encounters, Rouch said something that, though deceptively simple, had a profound impact on me. "I'm happy that you are here," he said. "It's important that the work goes on." With that he slapped me on the back and sent me on my way.

Jean Rouch was without question among the foremost documentary filmmakers in the world. What distinguished his films from those of other documentarians was the blending of artful narrative with scientifically grounded ethnography. This aesthetic fusion was magnificently realized in Rouch's films of what he termed "ethnofiction."

In his early films, Rouch documented Songhay social and ritual life in Niger and Mali, but these were documentaries with fascinating twists. Take, for example, Les magiciens de Wanzerbe (1948). In this film he presents a documentary of social life in Wanzerbe, the famed village of Songhay sorcerers. We see children playing as well as a sorcerer gathering materials central to his "science"--nothing extraordinary. And yet, in a sorcerer dance sequence, Rouch documents something not yet known to us--a dancer coughing up a sisiri, a metal chain that usually rests in the stomach of a few select sorcerers. How can a person live with a metal chain in his or her stomach? By indirectly posing this question in the film, Rouch compels us to wonder about "magical" possibilities. In subsequent films, made during 1950s and 1960s, Rouch used his camera to provoke philosophical and political debate about the deep roots of French racism. These films of ethnofiction included Jaguar (1957-67), Les maitres fous (1955), Moi, un noir (1958), and La pyramid humaine (1959). In the 1960s and 1970s, Rouch produced the provocative Chronique d'un ete (1960), the wonderfully humorous Petit a petit (1969) as well as a series of unforgettable films (1967-74) that documented the seven-year-long cycle of colorful and elaborate Dogon sigui rituals that occur every sixty years. These masterworks are Rouch's greatest legacy to anthropology and the cinema.

In all of his films, Rouch collaborated significantly with African friends and colleagues. Through this active collaboration, which involved all aspects of shooting and production, Rouch used the camera to participate fully in the lives of the people he filmed as well as to provoke them and, eventually, the viewers into experiencing new dimensions of socio-cultural experience. Many of the films of this period cut to the flesh and blood of European colonialism, compelling us to reflect on our latent racism, our repressed sexuality, and the tacit assumptions of our intellectual heritage. They also highlight the significance of substantive collaboration, a research tactic that Rouch called anthropologie partagee, in the construction of scholarly knowledge. Through these provocatively complex films, Rouch unveiled how relations of power shape our dreams, thoughts, and actions.

Rouch never stopped making films. He pioneered the technique of cinema verite, which became the hallmark of documentary filmmaking in the latter part of the twentieth century and which had a profound impact on such notable filmmakers as Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut. His films fused West African mythology to European realities. Throughout his life, Rouch continued to test the limits of his imagination and we are much richer for it.

In March of 2000, Rouch, then 82 years old, traveled to New York University to be the central participant in "Rouch 2000," a commemoration of his profound contributions to anthropology and ethnographic film. There were screenings of his renowned films on the Songhay of Niger and the Dogon of Mall. Following the screenings, he participated in panel discussions. Between screenings he made himself available to film and anthropology students who, like me a generation earlier, were impressed by his openness, his accessibility, and his unyielding commitment to the next generation of ethnographers and filmmakers.

During a break in the "Rouch 2000" program, I proposed that Rouch and Francoise Foucault, his associate at the Musee de l'Homme's Committee on Ethnographic Film, accompany me to Harlem, where I had been conducting research on West African immigrant life in New York City. After a long taxi ride, we stood at the portal of the Malcolm Shabazz Harlem market, a place where many West African traders, including traders from Niger, were conducting their business.