French New Wave Cinema: Radical Experiments with Editing, Visual Style and Narrative
The New Wave (French: La Nouvelle Vague) 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.
The New Wave filmmakers were linked by:
their self-conscious rejection of classical cinematic form
their spirit of youthful iconoclasm
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
André Bazin, the founder of the famous film magazine Cahiers du cinéma, was a prominent source of influence for the movement.
Prominent pioneers of the movement are François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Éric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, and Jacques Rivette.
Truffaut also credits the American director, Morris Engel and his film "Little Fugitive" with helping to start the French New Wave, when he said "Our French New Wave would never have come into being, if it hadn't been for the young American Morris Engel who showed us the way to independent production with (this) fine movie."
The auteur theory
The auteur theory holds that the director is the "author" of his movies, with a personal signature visible from film to film.
Some hollywood studio directors with artistic distinction :
Orson Welles
John Ford
Alfred Hitchcock
Nicholas Ray
Chabrol's “Le Beau Serge” (1958) is traditionally (but debatably) 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. Part of their technique was to portray characters not readily labeled as protagonists in the classic sense of audience identification.
The New Wave filmmakers were linked by:
their self-conscious rejection of classical cinematic form
their spirit of youthful iconoclasm
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
André Bazin, the founder of the famous film magazine Cahiers du cinéma, was a prominent source of influence for the movement.
Prominent pioneers of the movement are François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Éric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, and Jacques Rivette.
Truffaut also credits the American director, Morris Engel and his film "Little Fugitive" with helping to start the French New Wave, when he said "Our French New Wave would never have come into being, if it hadn't been for the young American Morris Engel who showed us the way to independent production with (this) fine movie."
The auteur theory
The auteur theory holds that the director is the "author" of his movies, with a personal signature visible from film to film.
Some hollywood studio directors with artistic distinction :
Orson Welles
John Ford
Alfred Hitchcock
Nicholas Ray
Chabrol's “Le Beau Serge” (1958) is traditionally (but debatably) 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. Part of their technique was to portray characters not readily labeled as protagonists in the classic sense of audience identification.