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
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
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