Jean Rouch spent most of his youth moving around Europe and Africa due to his father’s career as a naval officer. Rouch graduated from a high school in Paris and joined the Cinémathèque Français. It was during this time that he also drew inspiration from Surrealism and jazz. Jean Rouch had to stop school during the start of World War II, when Germany invaded France. Rouch witnessed firsthand to the destruction of war. In 1941, Rouch decided to return to the continent where he worked as a civil engineer in the French colony. He was sent to the French West African territory of Niger, where he built structures in service for the French colonial empire. He was “an empire-builder’—of roads and bridges—and structured by the rapidly deteriorating …show more content…
Unlike Mead, it is clear from Rouch’s writings and the chosen subject matter of his films that he was aware of his colonial position, but his experiences during World War II, as well as part of the colonial enterprise in Africa affected the way he wanted to create films. Rouch was aware of the Hauka persecution by the colonial administration and wanted to create film that would tackle those issues. When the first signs of the Hauka cult emerged back in 1927, the colonial administration was opposed to them and wasted no time in banning the rituals as causing disorder. The persecution of the Hauka, like all religious persecution, merely augmented the prestige of the new gods, who thereby became gods recognized (in this sense only) by the French and British who, in proscribing them, gave them letters patent. So I quickly realized the importance of doing this film (1995: