French new wave research

What is it?

The French New Wave was a group of trailblazing directors who exploded onto the film scene in the late 1950s; revolutionising cinematic conventions by marrying the rapid cuts of Hollywood with philosophical trends. Lindsay Parnell explores how this group of young directors reshaped cinema.

With an emphasis on invigorating cinematic narrative, French New Wave Cinema rejected traditional linear tropes of storytelling and created a new language of film. Inspired by both depictions of the common, lower class workers of Italian Neorealism and Hollywood’s beloved ‘Golden Age’, the French New Wave became a vibrant influence on international cinema which is still being felt today.


What does this approach allow for?

A greater sense of flexibility

Erasing the boundaries between professional and amateur cinema/fiction and documentary

Creativity in filmmaking - creation of narrative is unrestricted

Low budgets

An exploration of the contemporary

Digression and subversion

Techniques

Alternative framing

Making mistakes - Chabrol famously looked into a bolt when asked to look through the eyepiece on his first film

Collaboration with cinematographers

Natural lighting - sharp contrast between b&w

Liberation of the camera from the tripod

Reportage - the hidden camera

Self reference - the appropriation of certain cinematic techniques and director styles


I will be focusing on creator Jean Luc-Goddard


Over a decade later, why does the new wave still matter?





It has now been more than half a century since the directors of the New Wave (in French, "Nouvelle Vague") electrified the international film scene with their revolutionary new way of telling stories on film. The New Wave itself may no longer be "new", but the directors and their films are still important. They are the progenitors of what we have come to think of as alternative cinema today, and they had, and continue to have, a profound influence on cinema and popular culture throughout the world. Without the Nouvelle Vague there may not have been any Scorsese, Soderbergh, or Tarantino (or Wenders, or Oshima, or Bertolucci), and music, fashion and advertising would be without a major point of reference.


The directors of the Nouvelle Vague, and those of their like-minded contemporaries in other countries, created a new cinematic style, using breakthrough techniques and a fresh approach to storytelling that could express complex ideas while still being both direct and emotionally engaging. Crucially, these filmmakers also proved that they didn't need the mainstream studios to produce successful films on their own terms. By emphasizing the personal and artistic vision of film over its worth as a commercial product, the Nouvelle Vague set an example that inspired others across the world. In every sense they were the true founders of modern independent film and to watch them for the first time is to rediscover cinema.


French New Wave


“Tidal wave” would have been a more appropriate name for this explosion of vibrant, innovative, and highly self-conscious films by young French directors in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The informal movement was spearheaded by a handful of critics from Cahiers du cinéma—Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, and Jacques Rivette—whose incisive writings were matched by their films: bold, modern takes on classical masters that reworked genres like noir and the musical, and experimented with techniques antiquated and discovered. While Godard’s Breathless and Truffaut’s The 400 Blows remain the twin groundbreaking events of the movement, films such as Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima mon amour and Agnès Varda’s Cléo from 5 to 7were watersheds as well, finding excited audiences hungry for a new, energetic, political cinema opposed to the stuffy “cinema of quality,” as Truffaut put it, of the old guard. Though the movement quickly dissipated, filmmakers like Godard, Rivette, Varda, and Rohmer continue to pioneer today.

Bristol Planning

12 HNC students have been split into 4 groups of 3 to produce a promotional video for Bristol. The promotional video we will be producing will be for people ages 16 years to 30 years.

Each group have a task to produce recordings of certain landmarks and small questionnaires to ask the tourists and residents of Bristol.

Each group will have 2 cameras, SD cards and a tripod (In each group) to produce the recordings we will need to produce the end result. Each group will also record footage of when we go out at night for food. (To show the nightlife) There are also Banksy art around the city, so which ever group is around the place of the art will have the role to go and record the art for the video.

We will then come altogether, share footage and all individually create our own promotional videos.

Group 1: 

Cabot Tower
College Green
Banksy - Blackbeard to banksy


Group 2: 

Millennium Square
Arnoifini
Thekla


Group3: 

Clifton Bridge
Observatory
Banksy - The girl with the pierced ear drum / you don't need planning permission

Group 4: 

Bear pit
Christmas Steps
Park Street
Banksy - Take the money and run / The mild mild west / Rose Trap / Naked Man

New wave research

Jean-Luc Godard

Perhaps the French New Wave’s most notable international figure is Jean-Luc Godard, a visionary of film both in France and abroad. In addition to being an accomplished screenwriter and director, Godard was also a highly respected critic of film.

Admired for his inventive experimentation with both technical and thematic aspects of film (a passionate rejection of ‘traditional’ French cinema’s stories of the aristocracy), Godard’s film career started with his involvement with Cahiers du Cinéma as one of the publication’s first and most celebrated contributing writers. His full-length feature debut came with 1960’s À Bout de Soufflé (Breathless); a pop-culture inspired narrative told in a truly revolutionary style.
Breathless is a metropolitan romance (between a recent murderer on the run with a girl) set within the urban landscape of Parisian streets. The feature film introduced Godard as a truly innovative force within film. His films emphasize the presentation of story, more than the story itself, much like Bazin’s notes on audience perception of a film. 1964’s Band of Outsiders (Bande à Part), a mischievous and flirtatious turn for Godard, is the story of a trio of hopeless crooks planning a heist. Weekend, released in 1967, features the often bizarre occurrences that plague a married couple in what they thought would be a peaceful weekend to the countryside.
Godard’s most recent release, 2010’s Film Socialisme, is a cinematic orchestra of sorts, featuring various characters, narrative strands and themes beautifully interwoven in a story interrogating equality and intimacy of the human condition.

The works of all the French New Wave directors remain fresh and potent today, displaying a postmodern playfulness, and a surfeit of ideas which other filmmakers still struggle to replicate. Although there had been many classic French films made before the New Wave, it was these directors who established France as the centre for cinematic innovation and art house film, something which remains true even today.

https://theculturetrip.com/europe/france/articles/the-french-new-wave-revolutionising-cinema/