The theoretical issues that the use of image in the form of anthropological representation poses to Anthropology range from the validity of the use of image as a means of production of anthropological knowledge to image confronted with the widespread prominence of the written word in the construction of knowledge in these disciplines. Also the fitting of images and cinema, the discourse of a discipline of scientific character, part of the social and human sciences, and its proclaimed distinction in relation to the same type of images integrated in other contexts, as news articles, journalism, tourism, travel literature, even art and documentary. The reflection proposed places these questions under the theme of Visual Anthropology and as a pretext to illuminate the path of this branch of Anthropology and ethnographic film.

Jean Rouch explored the fortuitous, as well as dreams and the imagination of his actors in creating his films. These features identify him as one of the heirs of Surrealism. This article analyzes how his films tackle the ideas of the movement that agitated France in the 1920s. Thus, it presents the discourse constructed by Rouche’s analysts on the relations between his work and Surrealism. It then proceeds to analyse the films La Punition, 1960, and Gare du Nord, 1965. This article proposes that Rouch is not guided by the most famous surrealist images denaturalizing daily life. On the contrary, he will create another kind of surrealist images.

full version of DOC On-line n.3 Documentary and Anthropology

From two interviews with Jean Rouch in 1992 and in 1995 we organized some notes for the students. Later these conversations were edited on DVD and used in multiple contexts, such as the 12a Mostra Internacional do Filme Etnográfico do Rio de Janeiro. Continued demand for these materials led us to edit and publish those notes. We are convinced that the conversations with Rouch deserve wider discussion and the appraisal of other authors. We will leave that assignment for a later publication. We are are pleased to make available Jean Rouch’s lessons, a filmmaker who has become an inevitable reference in ethnographic film.

In 1954, Jean Rouch, who at the time was studying the migration system in West Africa, invited three Nigerian friends - Lam, Illo and Damouré - to undertake an excursion up to the Gold Cost (presently Gana) the same way as thousand of young men did during the drought months. Rouch filmed that experience, mixing documentary with fiction, thereby introducing a whole new element in the relation movie maker/observed citizens. In fact, until then these subjects were under the gaze of the camera and urged to show aspects of their reality in the most natural possible way. In contrast, in Jaguar, the film resulting from the afore mentioned experience, Rouch shows subjects who constructed themselves through the fílmic record and act upon a likewise constructed reality. In this way, he sought an "induced-truth", an expression he used to define the procedure through which the freedom he gave to the characters to create or to create themselves could lead to the truth of the film. The aim of this article is to reflect on this procedure and its unfolding in the field of contemporary documentary.