Cinéma vérité (; ,
truthful cinema) is a style of
documentary filmmaking, invented by
Jean Rouch, inspired by
Dziga Vertov's theory about
Kino-Pravda and influenced by
Robert Flaherty’s films. It combines improvisation with the use of the camera to unveil truth or highlight subjects hidden behind crude reality. It is sometimes called
observational cinema, if understood as pure
direct cinema: mainly without a narrator's
voice-over. There are subtle, yet important, differences among terms expressing similar concepts. Direct Cinema is largely concerned with the recording of events in which the subject and audience become unaware of the camera's presence: operating within what
Bill Nichols, an American historian and theoretician of documentary film, calls the "observational mode", a
fly on the wall. Many therefore see a paradox in drawing attention away from the presence of the camera and simultaneously interfering in the reality it registers when attempting to discover a cinematic truth.