Stephen Nottingham
The term French New Wave or La Nouvelle Vague refers to the work of a group of French film-makers between the years 1958 to 1964. The film directors who formed the core of this group, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette and Eric Rohmer, were once all film critics for the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. Other French directors, including Agnés Varda and Louis Malle, soon became associated with the French New Wave movement. This essay examines what was distinctive about the early films of these directors.
During the late 1950s and early 1960s young film-makers in many countries were creating their own "new waves", for example the working-class cinema of the "angry young men" in Britain, but the new wave movement in France turned out to be the most influential. The French New Wave directors' background in film theory and criticism was a major factor in this. They changed notions of how a film could be made and were driven by a desire to forge a new cinema. The Cahiers du Cinéma critics were highly critical of the glossy, formulaic and studio-bound French cinema of the 1940s and 1950s, but praised the work of 1930s French film-makers Jean Renoir and Jean Vigo and the work of the Italian neo-realists, including Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica. They also championed certain Hollywood directors, for example, Alfred Hitchcock, Nicholas Ray and Howard Hawks, who they saw as auteurs (authors) of their films, despite the fact that they worked within studio systems making genre pictures. These directors were labelled auteurs because of distinctive themes that could be detected running throughout the body of their work. Through their writings the Cahiers du Cinéma critics paved the way for cinema to become as worthy of academic study as any other art form.
In the late 1950s the Cahiers du Cinéma critics took the opportunity to become film auteurs themselves, when film subsidies were bought in by the Gaullist government, and they put their theories into practice. The core group of French New Wave directors initially collaborated and assisted each other, which helped in the development of a common and distinct use of form, style and narrative, which was to make their work instantly recognizable.
The unique experience of French film-makers was evident in their films. During the war France was an occupied country, unlike say England or the USA, and the experience of austerity and internal tensions, created by a population that in part resisted and in part collaborated with the Nazis, left a mark on the country's psyche. A distinctive philosophy - existentialism - evolved in France in the post-war years. This philosophy, associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and other French intellectuals, was a major influence on La Nouvelle Vague. Existentialism stressed the individual, the experience of free choice, the absence of any rational understanding of the universe and a sense of the absurdity in human life. Faced with an indifferent world an existentialist seeks to act authentically, using free will and taking responsibility for all their actions, instead of playing pre- ordained roles dictated by society. The characters in French New Wave films are often marginalized, young anti-heroes and loners, with no family ties, who behave spontaneously, often act immorally and are frequently seen as anti-authoritarian. There is a general cynicism concerning politics, often expressed as a dis-illusionment with foreign policy in Algeria or Indo-China. In Godard's A Bout de Souffle (1959) the protagonist kills and shows no remorse, while in Varda's Cléo de 5 á 7 (1961) the protagonist stops playing the roles others expect of her, when she discovers she has cancer, and starts to live authentically.
The French New Wave directors took advantage of the new technology that was available to them in the late 1950s, which enabled them to work on location rather than in the studio. They used lightweight hand-held cameras, developed by the Eclair company for use in documentaries, faster film stocks, which required less light, and light-weight sound and lighting equipment. Their films could be shot quickly and cheaply with this portable and flexible equipment, which encouraged experimentation and improvisation, and generally gave the directors more artistic freedom over their work.
The films had a casual and natural look due to location filming. Available light was preferred to studio-style lighting and available sound was preferred to extensive studio dubbing. The mise-en-scène of Parisian streets and coffee bars became a defining feature of the films. The camera was often very mobile, with a great deal of fluid panning and tracking. Often only one camera was used, in highly inventive ways; following characters down streets, into cafes and bars, or looking over their shoulders to watch life go by. Eric Rohmer's La Boulangère Du Monceau (1962) opens by establishing the action in a specific location in Paris, and is almost entirely filmed in the streets, cafes and shops of this area. In A Bout de Souffle (1959), the cinematographer Raoul Coutard, who worked on many of the French New Wave films, was pushed around in a wheelchair - following the characters down the street and into buildings. Innovative use of the new hand-held cameras is evident, for example, in Truffaut's Les Quatre Cent Coups (1959), where a boy is filmed on a fairground carousel.
The way the films were made reflected an interest in questioning cinema itself, by drawing attention to the conventions used in film-making. In this manner, the French New Wave directors strove to present an alternative to Hollywood, by consciously breaking its conventions, while at the same time paying homage to what they regarded as good in Hollywood cinema. Godard's A Bout de Souffle set the tone for La Nouvelle Vague, by telling a simple story about a relationship in a convention-challenging style with numerous references to previous cinema. In addition to telling a love story, the film can also be seen as an essay about film-making.
French New Wave films had a free editing style and did not conform to the editing rules of Hollywood films. The editing often drew attention to itself by being discontinuous, reminding the audience that they were watching a film, for example by using jump cuts or the insertion of material extraneous to the story (non-diegetic material). Godard, in particular, favoured the use of the jump cut, where two shots of the same subject are cut together with a noticeable jump on the screen. In a Hollywood film this would be avoided by either using a shot/reverse shot edit or cutting to a shot from a camera in a position
Stephen Nottingham
The term French New Wave or La Nouvelle Vague refers to the work of a group of French film-makers between the years 1958 to 1964. The film directors who formed the core of this group, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette and Eric Rohmer, were once all film critics for the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. Other French directors, including Agnés Varda and Louis Malle, soon became associated with the French New Wave movement. This essay examines what was distinctive about the early films of these directors.
During the late 1950s and early 1960s young film-makers in many countries were creating their own "new waves", for example the working-class cinema of the "angry young men" in Britain, but the new wave movement in France turned out to be the most influential. The French New Wave directors' background in film theory and criticism was a major factor in this. They changed notions of how a film could be made and were driven by a desire to forge a new cinema. The Cahiers du Cinéma critics were highly critical of the glossy, formulaic and studio-bound French cinema of the 1940s and 1950s, but praised the work of 1930s French film-makers Jean Renoir and Jean Vigo and the work of the Italian neo-realists, including Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica. They also championed certain Hollywood directors, for example, Alfred Hitchcock, Nicholas Ray and Howard Hawks, who they saw as auteurs (authors) of their films, despite the fact that they worked within studio systems making genre pictures. These directors were labelled auteurs because of distinctive themes that could be detected running throughout the body of their work. Through their writings the Cahiers du Cinéma critics paved the way for cinema to become as worthy of academic study as any other art form.
In the late 1950s the Cahiers du Cinéma critics took the opportunity to become film auteurs themselves, when film subsidies were bought in by the Gaullist government, and they put their theories into practice. The core group of French New Wave directors initially collaborated and assisted each other, which helped in the development of a common and distinct use of form, style and narrative, which was to make their work instantly recognizable.
The unique experience of French film-makers was evident in their films. During the war France was an occupied country, unlike say England or the USA, and the experience of austerity and internal tensions, created by a population that in part resisted and in part collaborated with the Nazis, left a mark on the country's psyche. A distinctive philosophy - existentialism - evolved in France in the post-war years. This philosophy, associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and other French intellectuals, was a major influence on La Nouvelle Vague. Existentialism stressed the individual, the experience of free choice, the absence of any rational understanding of the universe and a sense of the absurdity in human life. Faced with an indifferent world an existentialist seeks to act authentically, using free will and taking responsibility for all their actions, instead of playing pre- ordained roles dictated by society. The characters in French New Wave films are often marginalized, young anti-heroes and loners, with no family ties, who behave spontaneously, often act immorally and are frequently seen as anti-authoritarian. There is a general cynicism concerning politics, often expressed as a dis-illusionment with foreign policy in Algeria or Indo-China. In Godard's A Bout de Souffle (1959) the protagonist kills and shows no remorse, while in Varda's Cléo de 5 á 7 (1961) the protagonist stops playing the roles others expect of her, when she discovers she has cancer, and starts to live authentically.
The French New Wave directors took advantage of the new technology that was available to them in the late 1950s, which enabled them to work on location rather than in the studio. They used lightweight hand-held cameras, developed by the Eclair company for use in documentaries, faster film stocks, which required less light, and light-weight sound and lighting equipment. Their films could be shot quickly and cheaply with this portable and flexible equipment, which encouraged experimentation and improvisation, and generally gave the directors more artistic freedom over their work.
The films had a casual and natural look due to location filming. Available light was preferred to studio-style lighting and available sound was preferred to extensive studio dubbing. The mise-en-scène of Parisian streets and coffee bars became a defining feature of the films. The camera was often very mobile, with a great deal of fluid panning and tracking. Often only one camera was used, in highly inventive ways; following characters down streets, into cafes and bars, or looking over their shoulders to watch life go by. Eric Rohmer's La Boulangère Du Monceau (1962) opens by establishing the action in a specific location in Paris, and is almost entirely filmed in the streets, cafes and shops of this area. In A Bout de Souffle (1959), the cinematographer Raoul Coutard, who worked on many of the French New Wave films, was pushed around in a wheelchair - following the characters down the street and into buildings. Innovative use of the new hand-held cameras is evident, for example, in Truffaut's Les Quatre Cent Coups (1959), where a boy is filmed on a fairground carousel.
The way the films were made reflected an interest in questioning cinema itself, by drawing attention to the conventions used in film-making. In this manner, the French New Wave directors strove to present an alternative to Hollywood, by consciously breaking its conventions, while at the same time paying homage to what they regarded as good in Hollywood cinema. Godard's A Bout de Souffle set the tone for La Nouvelle Vague, by telling a simple story about a relationship in a convention-challenging style with numerous references to previous cinema. In addition to telling a love story, the film can also be seen as an essay about film-making.
French New Wave films had a free editing style and did not conform to the editing rules of Hollywood films. The editing often drew attention to itself by being discontinuous, reminding the audience that they were watching a film, for example by using jump cuts or the insertion of material extraneous to the story (non-diegetic material). Godard, in particular, favoured the use of the jump cut, where two shots of the same subject are cut together with a noticeable jump on the screen. In a Hollywood film this would be avoided by either using a shot/reverse shot edit or cutting to a shot from a camera in a position
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