Italian-born Mario Ruspoli helped to pioneer direct cinema in France, along with Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, just as D.A. Pennebaker and the Maysles brothers did in the United States. All of these directors, with the exception of David Maysles (1931-1987), appear in Florence Dauman's newly-translated 2011 documentary to offer their impressions of the late filmmaker's life and work. If Ruspoli isn't as well known in the States, it's probably because his films are short (under 53 minutes) and haven't been widely available, and not because they aren't of equal interest or quality. This Metrograph release includes eight restored films, all of which reveal his intense curiosity about the world, especially the hidden corners of Europe, like the Portuguese fisherman of 1958's Les Hommes de la Baleine ("The Whalers"), a collaboration with Chris Marker, or the French psych ward patients of 1962's Regard sur la Folie ("A Look at Madness"), a collaboration with Antonin Artaud.
Unlike many recent non-fiction profiles, Ruspoli doesn't speak for himself through interviews and audio recordings. In fact, his voice is completely absent, though Dauman (Hollywood Mavericks) has rounded up an admirable array of speakers, including friends and family, to construct a vivid portrait of a unique artist. For one thing, Ruspoli lost an eye to cancer, and yet it only spurred his desire to become a director. If it slowed him down in any way, no one seems to have noticed. He was also a widely-traveled lecturer, an entomologist who collected beetles, a gastronomist who released a collection of Etruscan and Roman recipes, a photographer who painstakingly captured the cave paintings of Lascaux under low-light conditions for a book, and an avid collector of antique knives, Jew's harps, 78 rpm jazz-club records, and African hairdresser signs. Even his films took unexpected forms, like the two he made about French humorist Yvan Francis Le Louarn, aka Chaval, 1971's Chaval and 1972's Le Chavalanthrope, which incorporate still images, animated sequences, and witty footage shot by Chaval himself.
When the artist took his life in 1968, it was Ruspoli who discovered his body (Dauman neglects to note that the blatant antisemitism of Chaval's early years has contributed to the decline of interest in his work). Just after Ruspoli enlisted famed anthropologist Yves Coppins, who discovered the fossil "Lucy," to write an introduction to 1986's Cave of Lascaux, he died. Dauman's profile ends without any explanation as to how he died or why he retired from filmmaking in the 1970s. They're odd omissions, since she gives no indication of any mental or physical decline, and he was active until the end. Dauman knew Ruspoli through her father, Anatole Dauman of Argos Films, who produced Chavalanthrope and other notable pictures, including Hiroshima Mon Amour and Wings of Desire. These are minor complaints in light of a career that encompassed pioneering documentary work in addition to more experimental projects, like 1972's essay film Vive la Baleine ("Three Cheers for the Whale"), Ruspoli's heartfelt plea against industrial whaling. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P.