Though relatively unsung in the English-speaking world, Jean Rouch (1917–2004) was a towering figure of ethnographic cinema. Over the course of a fifty-year career, he completed over one hundred films, both documentary and fiction, and exerted an influence far beyond academia. Exhaustively researched yet elegantly written, The Adventure of the Real is the first comprehensive analysis of his practical filmmaking methods.

Rouch developed these methods while conducting anthropological research in West Africa in the 1940s–1950s. His innovative use of unscripted improvisation by his subjects had a profound impact on the French New Wave, Paul Henley reveals, while his documentary work launched the genre of cinema-vérité. In addition to tracking Rouch’s pioneering career, Henley examines the technical strategies, aesthetic considerations, and ethical positions that contribute to Rouch’s cinematographic legacy. Featuring over one hundred and fifty images, The Adventure of the Real is an essential introduction to Rouch’s work.

“Paul Henley’s rich, well researched book offers the interdisciplinary approach to Jean Rouch’s career we have needed all these years. Both intellectual history and formalist analysis, this vibrant set of readings is packed with detailed information about the theories and practices informing Rouch’s films. Henley illuminates the work of a complex director who remains vitally important to anyone interested in anthropology, film studies, or French culture.”

“This is a splendid book—well researched, original, and lucidly written. I have no doubt it will become a classic: the single indispensable book on Rouch and his work. Henley provides a vast amount of information, detailed analyses of many of Rouch’s films, and above all a subtle and probing discussion of Rouch’s ‘praxis.’ The book is particularly illuminating as to Rouch’s working methods, which only a practicing filmmaker with a gift for analysis and a fund of personal experience could have carried off—a rare combination.”