- "Nouvelle Vague" redirects here. For the music
group of the same name, see Nouvelle Vague .
The
New Wave ( ) was a
blanket term coined by critics for a group of
French filmmakers of the late 1950s
and 1960s, influenced by
Italian
Neorealism and
classical
Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement,
the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious
rejection of classical cinematic form and their spirit of youthful
iconoclasm and is an example of
European art cinema. Many also engaged
in their work with the social and political upheavals of the era,
making their radical experiments with editing, visual style, and
narrative part of a general break with the conservative
paradigm.
Origins of the movement
Some of the most prominent pioneers among the group, including
François Truffaut,
Jean-Luc Godard,
Éric Rohmer,
Claude Chabrol, and
Jacques Rivette, began as critics for the
famous film magazine
Cahiers
du cinéma. Co-founder and theorist
André Bazin was a prominent source of
influence for the movement. By means of criticism and
editorialization, they laid the groundwork for a surge of concepts
which was later coined as the
auteur
theory (or, more correctly, "La politique des auteurs"
("The policy of authors")).
Cahiers du cinéma writers
attacked the classic "literary" style of
French Cinema.
Auteur theory holds that the
director
is the "author" of his movies, with a personal signature visible
from film to film.
They praised movies by Jean Renoir and Jean
Vigo, and made then-radical cases for the artistic distinction
and greatness of Hollywood
studio directors such as John
Ford, Alfred Hitchcock and
Nicholas Ray. The beginning of
the New Wave was to some extent an exercise by the
Cahiers
writers in applying this philosophy to the world by directing
movies themselves.
Apart from the role that films by
Jean
Rouch have played in the movement, Chabrol's
Le Beau Serge (1958) is traditionally but
arguably credited as the first New Wave feature. Truffaut, with
The 400 Blows (1959) and
Godard, with
Breathless (1960) had unexpected
international successes, both critical and financial, that turned
the world's attention to the activities of the New Wave and enabled
the movement to flourish. Techniques and portrayed characters not
readily labeled as protagonists in the classic sense of audience
identification.
French New Wave was popular roughly between 1958 and 1964, although
New Wave work existed as late as 1973. The
socio-economic forces at play shortly after
World War II strongly influenced the movement. A politically and
financially drained France tended to fall back to the old popular
traditions before the war. One such tradition was straight
narrative cinema, specifically classical
French film. The movement has its roots in rebellion against the
reliance on past forms (often adapted from traditional novellic
structures), criticizing in particular the way these forms could
force the
audience to submit to a
dictatorial
plot-line. New Wave
critics and directors studied the work of these and other classics.
They did not reject them, but rather found a new outlet for the
same creative energies. The
low-budget approach helped filmmakers get at
the essential art form and find what, to them, was a much more
comfortable and honest form of production.
Charlie Chaplin,
Alfred Hitchcock,
Orson Welles,
Howard
Hawks,
John Ford, and many other
forward-thinking
film directors were
held up in admiration while standard
Hollywood films bound by traditional
narrative flow were strongly criticized.
Many of the directors associated with the new wave continued to
make films into the 21st century.
Film techniques
The movies featured unprecedented methods of expression, such as
seven-minute
tracking shots (like the
famous traffic jam sequence in Godard's 1967 film
Week End). Also, these movies
featured
existential themes, such as
stressing the individual and the acceptance of the
absurdity of human existence.
Many of the French New Wave films were produced on tight budgets;
often shot in a friend's apartment or yard, using the director's
friends as the cast and crew. Directors were also forced to
improvise with equipment (for example, using a shopping cart for
tracking shots). The cost of film was also a major concern; thus,
efforts to save film turned into stylistic innovations: for
example, in
Jean-Luc Godard's
Breathless (
À
bout de souffle). After being told the film was too long and
he must cut it down to one hour and a half he decided to remove
several scenes from the feature using
jump
cuts. As they were filmed in one long take: parts that didn't
work were simply cut right from the middle of the take, a practical
decision and also a purposeful stylistic one.
The cinematic stylings of French New Wave brought a fresh look to
cinema with improvised dialogue, rapid changes of scene, and shots
that go beyond the common 360º axis. The camera was used not to
mesmerize the audience with elaborate narrative and illusory
images, but to play with and break past the common expectations of
cinema. The techniques used to shock the audience out of submission
and awe were so bold and direct that Jean-Luc Godard has been
accused of having contempt for his audience. His stylistic approach
can be seen as a desperate struggle against the mainstream cinema
of the time, or a degrading attack on the viewer's naivete. Either
way, the challenging awareness represented by this movement remains
in cinema today. Effects that now seem either trite or commonplace,
such as a character stepping out of her role in order to address
the audience directly, were radically innovative at the time.
Classic French cinema adhered to the principles of strong
narrative, creating what Godard described as an oppressive and
deterministic aesthetic of plot. In contrast, New Wave filmmakers
made no attempts to suspend the viewer's disbelief; in fact, they
took steps to constantly remind the viewer that a film is just a
sequence of moving images, no matter how clever the use of light
and shadow. The result is a set of oddly disjointed scenes without
attempt at unity; or an actor whose character changes from one
scene to the next; or sets in which onlookers accidentally make
their way onto camera along with extras, who in fact were hired to
do just the same.
At the heart of New Wave technique is the issue of money and
production value. In the context of social and economic troubles of
a post-World War II France, filmmakers sought low-budget
alternatives to the usual production methods. Half necessity and
half vision, New Wave directors used all that they had available to
channel their artistic visions directly to the theatre.
Lasting effects
As with most art-film movements, the innovations of the New Wavers
trickled down to the
American cinema. Beginning with
the heavily evident stylistic similarities in
Arthur Penn's
Bonnie and Clyde (1967), the
following generation of American young, studio-hired filmmakers
referred to as
New Hollywood, such as
Altman,
Coppola,
De
Palma and
Scorsese of the late
1960s and early 1970s all claim and display influence from the
French tradition of the previous decade.
Bob Rafelson, a member of the
New
Hollywood movement (
Five Easy
Pieces), claimed that the
Marx
Brothers and the French New Wave influenced his vision for the
television series
The Monkees,
which he created and oversaw. Rafelson, with
Jack Nicholson, went on to direct the
Monkees' feature film, the surrealistic
Head which displays a strong New Wave
influence.
Likewise, the influence of the movement was seen in a number of
other national cinemas globally - beginning in the 1960s, and
continuing to the present day. Similar movements arose in a number
of European countries, and a large
nuberu
bagu arose in Japan during the early 1960s, which was somewhat
different in its origins, but similar in techniques and
trajectory.
Many contemporary filmmakers, including
Quentin Tarantino,
Wong Kar Wai, and
Wes
Anderson, claim influence from the New Wave. Quentin Tarantino
dedicated
Reservoir Dogs to
Jean-Luc Godard and named his production company
A Band Apart, a play on words of the Godard
film
Bande à part. Wes
Anderson's sardonic comedies are known to carry influence from the
French New Wave. Additionally, the 2004 film
Eternal Sunshine of the
Spotless Mind was filmed using techniques borrowed from
Godard.
Left Bank
The Left Bank, or
Rive Gauche, group is a contingent of
filmmakers associated with the French New Wave, first identified as
such by
Richard Roud. The corresponding
"right bank" group is constituted of the earlier, more famous and
financially successful New Wave directors associated with
Cahiers du Cinéma
(
Claude Chabrol,
François Truffaut, and
Jean-Luc Godard). The two groups, however,
were not in opposition;
Cahiers du Cinéma advocated Left
Bank cinema.
Left Bank directors include
Chris
Marker,
Alain Resnais, and
Agnès Varda. Roud described a
distinctive "fondness for a kind of
Bohemian life and an impatience with the
conformity of the Right Bank, a high degree of involvement in
literature and the
plastic arts, and a
consequent interest in
experimental
filmmaking", as well as an identification with the political
left. The filmmakers tended to collaborate
with one another.
Jean-Pierre
Melville,
Alain
Robbe-Grillet and
Marguerite
Duras are also associated with the group. The
nouveau roman movement in literature was also
a strong element of the Left Bank style, with authors contributing
to many of the films. Left Bank films include
Hiroshima Mon Amour,
La Jetée,
Last Year at Marienbad, and
Trans-Europ-Express.
Influential names in the New Wave
Cahiers du Cinema Directors
Left Bank Directors
Other Directors associated with the movement
Other Contributers
Actors & Actresses
Theoretical influences
See also
Notes and references
- http://www.brynmawrfilm.org/08_French_Cinema_NEW.html
- A. O. Scott,
"Living for Cinema, and Through It," New York Times, June 25, 2009,
[1] Access date: June 30, 2009.
- Desser, David, Eros Plus Massacre: An Introduction To
Japanese New Wave Cinema, Indiana Univ. Press, 1988
- Oshima, Nagisa & Annette Michelson, Cinema, Censorship
And The State: The Writings Of Nagisa Oshima, M.I.T. Press,
1993
- John Pavlus, "Forget Me Not: Eternal Sunshine of the
Spotless Mind, shot by Ellen Kuras, ASC, explores a man's
fight to retain his romantic memories", American
Cinematographer, April 2004
- "The Left Bank Revisited: Marker, Resnais, Varda", Harvard
Film Archive, [2] Access date: August 16, 2008.
- Jill Nelmes, An Introduction to Film Studies, p. 44.
Routledge.
- Donato Totaro, Offscreen, Hiroshima Mon Amour
review, August 31, 2003. [3] Access date: August 16, 2008.
- New Wave Film.com, "Where to Start Guide",
section outlining directors. Accessed 30 Apr 2009.
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