Forget about trashy reality TV and watch the birth of cinéma vérité in one of the most significant documentaries ever made. Simply by interviewing a group of Paris residents in the summer of 1960—beginning with the provocative and eternal question “Are you happy?” — sociologist Edgar Morin and anthropologist and filmmaker Jean Rouch, with the technical and aesthetic collaboration of Québécois director-cameraman Michel Brault, reveal the hopes and dreams of a wide array of people, from artists to factory workers, from an Italian émigré to an African student.