The most prolific ethnographic filmmaker in the world, a pioneer of
cinéma vérité and one of the earliest ethnographers of African
societies, Jean Rouch (1917-) remains a controversial and often
misunderstood figure in histories of anthropology and film. By examining
Rouch's neglected ethnographic writings, Paul Stoller seeks to clarify
the filmmaker's true place in anthropology.
A brief account of Rouch's background, revealing the ethnographic
foundations and intellectual assumptions underlying his fieldwork among
the Songhay of Niger in the 1940s and 1950s, sets the stage for his
emergence as a cinematic griot, a peripatetic bard who recites the story
of a people through provocative imagery. Against this backdrop, Stoller
considers Rouch's writings on Songhay history, myth, magic and
possession, migration, and social change. By analyzing in depth some of
Rouch's most important films and assessing Rouch's ethnography in terms
of his own expertise in Songhay culture, Stoller demonstrates the inner
connection between these two modes of representation.
Stoller, who has done more fieldwork among the Songhay than anyone other
than Rouch himself, here gives the first full account of Rouch the
griot, whose own story scintillates with important implications for
anthropology, ethnography, African studies, and film.
