Journal De France

Acclaimed photojournalist Raymond Depardon has been shooting documentaries for over 50 years.

In this film essay, Claudine Nougaret dives into his archive while the man himself tours France, taking photos through an ancient-fashioned view camera.

The framing device is charming but slight; we learn little about Depardon beyond his passion for descriptions, but his back catalogue teems with riveting glimpses of history: recording civil wars and hostage crises or observing a hilarious courtroom stand-off.

Even in fragments, the humanism of Depardon’s stare moves and inspires.