BSA 106 French new wave

French New Wave (Nouvelle Vague)

As a film movement, French New Wave started in the late 1950's. Many new wave film directors had been film critics and believed that the director should express a personal vision of the world, and often showed realistic Parisian street life and had themes of distrust of both authority and romantic commitment. The genre was influenced by Italian Neorealism.

French New Wave arose as a result of film making being expensive, but the film making equipment becoming cheaper and portable. Due to the accessible nature of filming equipment, lower budget films encouraged innovation and improvisation and gave directors more control. The first New Wave feature film is considered to be And God Created Woman (1956).

French New Wave is characterised by it's on-location shooting, little-known actors and small crews. The films were often shot silent and then dubbed in post, and their plots are often built around chance events and have open ended narratives. Many scenes were unrehearsed, had natural lighting and incorporated jump shots which jumped to and fro from different points in time.

Apparently the French New Wave spawned the Auteur Theory among film critics- where a director's body of work has a distinct style and recurring themes- in order to contrast the Studio-driven products of Hollywood. Auteur Theory has been criticised for minimising or ignoring the collaborative aspect of a film. For more details, see episode two of Lindsay Ellis' The Whole Plate Youtube series, where she discusses the Auteur Theory in terms of Michael Bay's Transformers series (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srk-tPbQVcs)

Directors:

Francois Trauffaut

A film critic prior to his directorial debut, his early films have zoom shots, choppy editing and bursts of violence or humour
directed The 400 Blows (1959), which brought the world's attention to the New Wave movement. He also directed Shoot the Piano Player (1960) and Jules and Jim (1962)

Jean-luc Godard

 

 Was also a film critic before becoming a director, Godard's films had a more abrasive style of editing. He often juxtaposed staged scenes with documentary material (ads, comic strips etc.), usually with little connection to the narrative.
Directed Breathless (1959), which broke traditional Hollywood storytelling conventions (used jumpcuts, handheld camera, disjointed narrative, improvised score etc.)