La Nouvelle Vague The French New Wave By

La Nouvelle Vague (The French New Wave) By Kevin Krasko

Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows)

Why is it important? • • The French New wave is the most influential movement in cinema ever. Some of Americas’ most influential directors were highly influenced By the French new wave. – Francis Ford Coppila • The Godfather • Apocalypse Now – Martin Scorsese • The Goodfellas – Brian De Plama • Scarface • Many Directors today are still personally influenced. – Quentin Tarantino • Pulp Fiction – Wes Anderson • Rushmore • The film theory put forth during this time is still used regularly in Hollywood and film classes.

How did it start? • It started with a group of critics who formed a film magazine. – Cahiers du Cinéma • These critics were very critical of the Films of the times. • Many of them started making there own films.

Cahiers du Cinéma • It was very critical of the new films of the times. – The Cahiers du Cinéma considered the films to be formulaic and unoriginal. • They celebrated certain director who they considered “auteurs. ” – Ex. Jean Renoir, Jean Vigo, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles. • The Cahiers du Cinéma had two main guidelines for movie making. – Mise en scene – the “Auteur” theory

Guidelines of “Cahiers du Cinéma” • Mise en Scène – Literally means "putting on stage. " – originally it was a theatre term but it was adapted to film during the French New wave. – Simple it is the degree of control the that the creator has over the object, locations and actors in the scene. • Auteur – What would be later called the Auteur theory, was the idea that every film should have one person who controls everything in a movie and also that he would leave his style on his movies. Auteur is French for author. The auteur is usually considered the director.

Key Directors • • François Truffault Jean-Luc Godard Claude Chabrol Jacques Rivette Eric Romer Agnés Varda Louis Malle – all of these directors started as critic except for Agnés Varda and Louis Malle

Key Characteristics • Loose story plots – many of the stories are vague and open end. • This give the viewer the feeling that anything can happen. • • • Large amounts of Improvisation in the dialogue. The characters are odd and many times act on a whim. Use of unnatural jump cuts. – A jump cut is cut in the film from one shot to a different shot. • An unnatural jump cut could be accomplished by placing two shots next to that have a person in one position and in the next shot have a person in a different position. – The effect of this can be jarring and make the editing extremely noticeable. – The Artistic effect is a jump that can increase tempo and heighten emotion. • A good example of the use of this type of jump cut is in the movie “Breathless” by Goddard. A car scene were there is just a dialog between a car thief and girl is heightened by the removal of space between the conversation. • Truly good control over the visuals in the movie (mise en scène)

Cliché Characteristics (that aren’t always true, but can be use to simple define French new wave) • • • They speak French Its in black and white a lot of people smoking weird dialog. What appears to be no real plot. If it makes you say WTF!

John Cassavetes

Modern Hollywood (shot length) • The length of an average shot in a movie was rather long for today’s standard. – Citizen Kane- ASL (average shot length)10. 7 • The French new wave use some shorter scenes and faster cuts. • Nowadays the shot length of our cuts are even shorter than the French new waves shots. – Matrix ASL- 3. 3 seconds • The average length of a shot today is 3 -4 seconds and getting smaller.

The French New Wave’s impact • La Nouvelle Vague created many other movements in other countries and many new directors emerge using the teachings of French New wave. – This happened because the French new wave films were spread across the globe. • In Poland we find the emergence of Roman Polanski – who later left Poland to directed movies in Hollywood. • He directed “Chinatown” starring Jack Nicholson – It was rated in the top ten of America's best films of all time by the American Film Institute • In Germany in 1962 there was a push to create a new cinema that was highly influenced by La nouvelle vague

Impact (Part Deux) • Cinema Nôvo started in 1961– 1962 in Brazil with Glauber Rocha, “Barravento (1962), ” and Ruy Guerra"Os Cafajestes (1962). ” • other movements and directors appeared, heavly influenced by the wave, in countries such as Japan, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Finland, and many more. • Now to think that it all start with a small group of like minded critics that started a magazine and as the quote that Madame P. always likes to say. . .

References • www. filmreference. com: – New Wave • THE GLOBAL IMPACT OF THE FRENCH NEW WAVE • www. quotationspage. com • www. greencine. com • “A history of the French New Wave cinema” By Richard Neupert • The french New wave by Stephen Nottingham – http: //ourworld. compuserve. com/homepages/stephen_Nottingham/cintxt 2. htm • “Close up: The french New wave and the face” by Iain Morrisson – www. imagejournal. com • www. cinemetrics. lv