Les Maîtres Fous (The Mad Masters) (1955) Directed by Jean Rouch Moi, Un Noir (1958) Directed by Jean Rouch Thursday - February 7 - 6:30 p.m. In the most controversial film by Jean Rouch, the bustling city of Accra sets the stage for a collision between traditional and modern. From Accra, we travel to a ceremony where music swells as participants are possessed sleepwalking, speaking in tongues, and eventually collapsing to the ground. Using a hand-held camera and quick cuts, Rouch creates an effect he later called “ciné-trance”. After the ceremony, it’s back to daily life in Accra as laborers, low-ranking soldiers, or pickpockets. Rouch suggests that the ritual serves as a psychological release from the dehumanizing powers of colonization. (DigiBeta. 28 min. Not Rated.) Moi, Un Noir marked Jean Rouch’s break with traditional ethnography, and his embrace of the collaborative and improvisatory strategies he called “shared ethnography”. The film depicts an ordinary week in the lives of men and women from Niger who have migrated to Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire for work. Narration is provided by one of its subjects, whose freewheeling commentary describes the bitter reality of life there, while leaving room for his richly detailed inner life. The film’s stylistic innovations had a profound influence on the French New Wave, and Jean-Luc Godard commented that it “…is, in effect, the most daring of films and the humblest.” (DigiBeta. 72 min. Not Rated.) 33 cinema.indiana.edu Tickets: (812) 855-1103 33 Jean Rouch