Un Lion Nomme l’Americain / Les Tambours d’Avant, ou, Tourou et Bitti

2 shorter documentaries from Jean Rouch
Un Lion Nomme l’Americain (1972, ’20); seemingly outtakes from the lion-hunt footage, a slightly different editing technique is adopted here. With less focus on the dialogue, and no voiceover, a much calmer, obviously quieter, serene phenomenology is garnered. Add to this the much longer takes than usual, and the willingness to stay in locations where the people drift away. A change of technique that revealingly discloses a different experience from Rouch’s normally sharper technique, making a value judgement either way would be unwise.
Tambours d’Avant, ou, Tourou et Bitti (1972, ‘9); closely linked to ‘Les Maitres Fous’, here we have longer takes, with the camera in a very verite-style (i.e. shaky, changes of angle and slant) weaving around the scenes. This is less explicit, less shocking than that other work, with perhaps a dryer manner. The voiceover may be similar, but with these images it seems now informative, rather than revealing. Again, interesting to see how different techniques lead to different feelings of presentation of the object of study.