History MediaNotes / FrenchNewWave

Whilst France was under German occupation during UsefulNotes/{{WWII}}, the screening of American movies was illegal. When the war was over, French cinemas were flooded with a backlog of films by directors such as Creator/AlfredHitchcock, Creator/JohnFord and Creator/OrsonWelles, and they were consumed eagerly by several young Frenchmen. The manner in which they saw films i.e. not as a periodic release followed by another one, but as essentially an ArchiveBinge made them look at these films with a keener eye for detail. In 1951, the film journal ''Les Cahiers du Cinéma'' was established. The authors of this journal - including Creator/FrancoisTruffaut, [[Creator/JeanLucGodard Jean-Luc Godard]], Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol and Eric Rohmer - would watch each of the films by one of the aforementioned directors, and identify common themes and stylistic choices within their opuses (for example, the recurring theme of an innocent man on the run in Hitchcock's films). Based on this, Truffaut published the article "''Une certaine tendance du cinéma français''" ("A certain tendency in French cinema") in ''Cahiers'' in 1954; in which he argued that, although films are generally made by huge teams of people (producers, screenwriters, cameramen, costumers, ETC...), the influence of the director generally overshadows that of everyone else. In other words, the director of a film can be considered its ''auteur'' (Author). Thus was born '''[[UsefulNotes/TheAuteurTheory auteur theory]]''', which Truffaut and the others called "''politique des auteurs''."

In addition to this, these critics writing in ''Cahiers'' tended not to look too fondly on the movies the French had been making since the end of the war - feeling that they were predictable and formulaic while also criticizing how many of them were just prestigious literary adaptations. The magazine's writers referred to them as ''cinéma de papa'' (Dad's cinema) favoring directors who were outside the system like Creator/JacquesTati, Creator/JeanPierreMelville, Creator/RobertBresson, Jean Cocteau, Max Ophüls and above all, Creator/JeanRenoir, who they called "[[TheAce le Patron]]"(''the Boss''). They also championed the likes of [[Creator/LuisBunuel Luis Buñuel]], Creator/RobertoRossellini and devoted attention to Japanese Cinema via directors like Creator/KenjiMizoguchi.

* ''PierrotleFou''

* ''Ma nuit chez Maud''

!! Films

Whilst France was under occupation by the Nazis during UsefulNotes/{{WWII}}, the screening of American movies was illegal. When the war was over, French cinemas were flooded with a backlog of films by directors such as Creator/AlfredHitchcock, Creator/JohnFord and Creator/OrsonWelles, and they were consumed eagerly by several young Frenchmen. The manner in which they saw films i.e. not as a periodic release followed by another one, but as essentially an ArchiveBinge made them look at these films with a keener eye for detail. In 1951, the film journal ''Les Cahiers du Cinéma'' was established. The authors of this journal - including Creator/FrancoisTruffaut, [[Creator/JeanLucGodard Jean-Luc Godard]], Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol and Eric Rohmer - would watch each of the films by one of the aforementioned directors, and identify common themes and stylistic choices within their opuses (for example, the recurring theme of an innocent man on the run in Hitchcock's films). Based on this, Truffaut published the article "''Une certaine tendance du cinéma français''" ("A certain tendency in French cinema") in ''Cahiers'' in 1954; in which he argued that, although films are generally made by huge teams of people (producers, screenwriters, cameramen, costumers, ETC...), the influence of the director generally overshadows that of everyone else. In other words, the director of a film can be considered its ''auteur'' (Author). Thus was born '''[[UsefulNotes/TheAuteurTheory auteur theory]]''', which Truffaut and the others called "''politique des auteurs''."

* Jean-Paul Belmondo

In addition to this, these critics writing in ''Cahiers'' tended not to look too fondly on the movies the French had been making since the end of the war - feeling that they were predictable and formulaic while also criticizing how many of them were just prestigious literary adaptations. The magazine's writers referred to them as ''cinéma de papa'' (Dad's cinema) favoring directors who were outside the system like Creator/JacquesTati, Creator/RobertBresson, Jean Cocteau, Max Ophüls and above all, Creator/JeanRenoir, who they called "[[TheAce le Patron]]"(''the Boss''). They also championed the likes of [[Creator/LuisBunuel Luis Buñuel]], Creator/RobertoRossellini and devoted attention to Japanese Cinema via directors like Creator/KenjiMizoguchi.

Whilst France was under occupation by the Nazis during UsefulNotes/{{WWII}}, the screening of American movies was illegal. When the war was over, French cinemas were flooded with a backlog of films by directors such as Creator/AlfredHitchcock, Creator/JohnFord and Creator/OrsonWelles, and they were consumed eagerly by several young Frenchmen. The manner in which they saw films i.e. not as a periodic release followed by another one, but as essentially an ArchiveBinge made them look at these films with a keener eye for detail. In 1951, the film journal ''Cahiers du Cinéma'' was established. The authors of this journal - including Creator/FrancoisTruffaut, [[Creator/JeanLucGodard Jean-Luc Godard]], Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol and Eric Rohmer - would watch each of the films by one of the aforementioned directors, and identify common themes and stylistic choices within their opuses (for example, the recurring theme of an innocent man on the run in Hitchcock's films). Based on this, Truffaut published the article "''Une certaine tendance du cinéma français''" ("A certain tendency in French cinema") in ''Cahiers'' in 1954; in which he argued that, although films are generally made by huge teams of people (producers, screenwriters, cameramen, costumers, ETC...), the influence of the director generally overshadows that of everyone else. In other words, the director of a film can be considered its ''auteur'' (Author). Thus was born '''[[UsefulNotes/TheAuteurTheory auteur theory]]''', which Truffaut and the others called "''politique des auteurs''."

* ShadowArchetype : To the BritishInvasion as well as artists like Music/BobDylan. They achieved in movies what TheBeatles, TheRollingStones and Dylan did in their music in the same time. Their works were widely seen and greatly influenced the same set. Marianne Faithfull made a cameo in a Godard film and Godard made a film documenting the recording of ''Sympathy for the Devil'' with the Stones.

* {{Existentialism}} : Rougly contemporaries with Jean-Paul Sartre, he was a major influence on all their films, even a Catholic like Eric Rohmer.

* ''Jules et Jim''

* ''Hiroshima mon amour''

These critics wanted movies that played with narrative conventions and defied audience expectations. Thus, they decided to try their own hands at directing, and thus, the '''French New Wave''' began. In 1958, Chabrol made what is debatably the first film of the movement; ''Le Beau Serge''. That one was a bit of sleeper, however. It was with Truffaut's ''[[Film/TheAdventuresOfAntoineDoinel The 400 Blows]]'' (1959), Alain Resnais' ''Hiroshima Mon Amour'' (1959) and Godard's ''Film/{{Breathless}}'' (1960), each of them a critical smash, that the movement really took off. Common techniques and themes of French New Wave movies include shaky hand-held cameras, long shots, rambling philosophical narration, [[ShoutOut references to other movies]], jump cuts and other revolutionary editing techniques, existentialism, improvised dialogue, and breaking the FourthWall. They usually wanted you to be aware at all times that you were watching a movie and to think about it while it was still running. Initially they were practically no-budget indies, but the movies ended up being a hit with TheSixties generation in France and the budgets started to go way up. The movement also took a great deal of advantage in the emerging technical equipment that was available at the time, they started using documentary techniques in live-action films, the portable Nagra recorder which made it possible to record sound directly on location ("direct sound") as well as the portable Eclair camera (first used by their hero Creator/OrsonWelles in ''Film/TouchOfEvil'') that helped a great deal in their experimental method of film-making. The movement died around the end of the Sixties at which point the original new wave moved on to different styles but they remained the dominating influence in artistic circles in France and Europe and continue to be touchstones to the present day.

-> ''When book reviewers read in Colin [=MacCabe=]'s biography of [[Creator/JeanLucGodard Godard]] that Cahiers du Cinema was "the most significant cultural journal of the twentieth century" they couldn't wait to jump on him for laying it on so thick. [[SmallReferencePools What do they know?]] There is film criticism before Cahiers du Cinema and film criticism after it. Because of the tremendous impact of the [[New Wave]], which sprang from its pages, there is visual culture (and the analysis of visual culture) before and after Cahiers du Cinema too...For them film criticism was a confrontation, its goal to change how films were viewed and how they were made. The magazine's polarizing "[[UsefulNotes/TheAuteurTheory auteur theory]]" was attacked with the vehemence that heralds artistic breakthrough. By the decade's end, the group's first films came out.''

-> ''Les Quatre Cents Coups'' and ''Les Cousins'' opened in 1959, ''A bout de souffle'' in 1960. After the war Paris had notoriously ceased to be the capital of modern painting, a position it had held for a century. But within the visual arts as a whole, it might be said that France recouped with brio in moving pictures. Or if, with equal plausibility, we regard film as the art that has taken the place of the novel as the dominant narrative form of the age, Godard might be seen as the contemporary equivalent of the great French writers of the past...punctuating the decade as once the latest volumes by Balzac or Proust. No other country, even Italy, came near the blaze of the French cinema in these years.''
-->-- '''[[http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n17/perry-anderson/degringolade Perry Anderson]]'''

* ViewersAreGeniuses : Major believers in this. Their narratives did not wrap everything neatly, and many of them expected their films be [[RewatchBonus seen twice]] to get the meaning and emotional force from their films.

To say that they were influential is an understatement. Within a few years, other countries started to take notice - first came the UK (''AHardDaysNight'' owes a lot to the French New Wave) and then it began to leak over to America, resulting in the NewHollywood era. Directors as diverse as Creator/MartinScorsese, Creator/FrancisFordCoppola, Creator/TerrenceMalick, Creator/QuentinTarantino, and Creator/WesAnderson, are incredibly indebted to the New Wave. Just as importantly, they changed how people ''look'' at movies - they shifted the focus of movie criticism from production values and acting to direction and thematic depth. Several of the movies from the movement often show up on lists of the greatest movies of all time and many of them are available on TheCriterionCollection

* FollowTheLeader: The directors of the new wave pioneered all kinds of production and editing techniques like the JumpCut which went on to inspire the NewHollywood and much of the film-school graduated professionals who worked in advertising and music videos.

These critics wanted movies that played with narrative conventions and defied audience expectations. Thus, they decided to try their own hands at directing, and thus, the '''French New Wave''' began. In 1958, Chabrol made what is debatably the first film of the movement; ''Le Beau Serge''. That one was a bit of sleeper, however. It was with Truffaut's ''[[Film/TheAdventuresOfAntoineDoinel The 400 Blows]]'' (1959), Alain Resnais' ''Hiroshima Mon Amour'' (1959) and Godard's ''Film/{{Breathless}}'' (1960), each of them a critical smash, that the movement really took off. Common techniques and themes of French New Wave movies include shaky hand-held cameras, long shots, rambling philosophical narration, [[ShoutOut references to other movies]], jump cuts and other revolutionary editing techniques, existentialism, improvised dialogue, and breaking the FourthWall. They usually wanted you to be aware at all times that you were watching a movie and to think about it while it was still running. Initially they were practically no-budget indies, but the movies ended up being a hit with TheSixties generation in France and the budgets started to go way up. The movement died around the end of the Sixties at which point the original new wave moved on to different styles but they remained the dominating influence in artistic circles in France and Europe and continue to be touchstones to the present day.

To say that they were influential is an understatement. Within a few years, other countries started to take notice - first came the UK (''AHardDaysNight'' owes a lot to the French New Wave) and then it began to leak over to America, resulting in the NewHollywood era. Directors as diverse as Creator/MartinScorsese, Creator/FrancisFordCoppola, Creator/TerrenceMalick, Creator/QuentinTarantino, and Creator/WesAnderson, are incredibly indebted to the New Wave (Tarantino is a very vocal fan of Godard in particular). Just as importantly, they changed how people ''look'' at movies - they shifted the focus of movie criticism from production values and acting to direction and thematic depth. Several of the movies from the movement often show up on lists of the greatest movies of all time and many of them are available on TheCriterionCollection

In addition to this, these critics writing in ''Cahiers'' tended not to look too fondly on the movies the French had been making since the end of the war - feeling that they were predictable and formulaic while also criticizing how many of them were just prestigious literary adaptations. The magazine's writers referred to them as ''cinéma de papa'' (Dad's cinema) favoring directors who were outside the system like Creator/JacquesTati, Creator/RobertBresson, Creator/JeanCocteau, Max Ophüls and above all, Creator/JeanRenoir, who they called "[[TheAce le Patron]]"(''the Boss''). They also championed the likes of [[Creator/LuisBunuel Luis Buñuel]], Creator/RobertoRossellini and devoted attention to Japanese Cinema via directors like Creator/KenjiMizoguchi.

* ''Film/CleoFrom5to7''

* ''Film/LesQuatreCentsCoups

Whilst France was under under occupation by the Nazis during UsefulNotes/{{WWII}}, the screening of American movies was illegal. When the war was over, French cinemas were flooded with films by directors such as Creator/AlfredHitchcock, Creator/JohnFord and Creator/OrsonWelles, and they were consumed eagerly by French film critics. In 1951, the film journal ''Cahiers du Cinéma'' was established. The authors of this journal - including Creator/FrancoisTruffaut, [[Creator/JeanLucGodard Jean-Luc Godard]], Creator/JacquesRivette, Creator/ClaudeChabrol and Creator/EricRohmer - would watch each of the films by one of the aforementioned directors, and identify common themes and stylistic choices within their opuses (for example, the recurring theme of an innocent man on the run in Hitchcock's films). Based on this, Truffaut published the article "''Une certaine tendance du cinéma français''" ("A certain tendency in French cinema") in ''Cahiers'' in 1954; in which he argued that, although films are generally made by huge teams of people (producers, screenwriters, cameramen, costumers, ETC...), the influence of the director generally overshadows that of everyone else. In other words, the director of a film can be considered its ''auteur'' (Author). Thus was born '''auteur theory''', which Truffaut and the others called "''politique des auteurs''."

In addition to this, these critics writing in ''Cahiers'' tended not to look too fondly on the movies the French had been making since the end of the war - feeling that they were predictable and formulaic while also criticizing how many of them were just prestigious literary adaptations. The magazine's writers referred to them as ''cinéma de papa'' (Dad's cinema) favoring directors who were outside the system like Creator/JacquesTati, Creator/RobertBresson, Creator/JeanCocteau, Max Ophüls and above all, [[TheAce Jean Renoir]], who they called "le Patron"(''the Boss''). They also championed the likes of [[Creator/LuisBunuel Luis Buñuel]], Creator/RobertoRossellini and devoted attention to Japanese Cinema and directors like Creator/KenjiMizoguchi.

These critics wanted movies that played with narrative conventions and defied audience expectations. Thus, they decided to try their own hands at directing, and thus, the '''French New Wave''' began. In 1958, Chabrol made what is debatably the first film of the movement; ''LeBeauSerge''. That one was a bit of sleeper, however. It was with Truffaut's ''[[Film/TheAdventuresOfAntoineDoinel The 400 Blows]]'' (1959), Alain Resnais' ''HiroshimaMonAmour'' (1959) and Godard's ''Film/{{Breathless}}'' (1960), each of them a critical smash, that the movement really took off. Common techniques and themes of French New Wave movies include shaky hand-held cameras, long shots, rambling philosophical narration, [[ShoutOut references to other movies]], jump cuts and other revolutionary editing techniques, existentialism, improvised dialogue, and breaking the FourthWall. They usually wanted you to be aware at all times that you were watching a movie and to think about it while it was still running. Initially they were practically no-budget indies, but the movies ended up being a hit with TheSixties generation in France and the budgets started to go way up. The movement died around the end of the Sixties at which point the original new wave moved on to different styles but they remained the dominating influence in artistic circles in France and Europe and continue to be touchstones to the present day.

To say that they were influential is an understatement. Within a few years, other countries started to take notice - first came the UK (''AHardDaysNight'' owes a lot to the French New Wave) and then it began to leak over to America, resulting in the NewHollywood era. Directors as diverse as Creator/MartinScorsese, Creator/FrancisFordCoppola, Creator/TerrenceMalick, Creator/QuentinTarantino, and Creator/WesAnderson, are incredibly indebted to the New Wave (Tarantino is a very vocal fan of Godard in particular). Just as importantly, they changed how people ''look'' at movies - they shifted the focus of movie criticism from production values and acting to direction and thematic depth. Several of the movies from the movement often show up on lists of the greatest movies of all time.

* FollowTheLeader: The directors of the new wave pioneered all kinds of production and editing techniques like the JumpCut which went on to inspire the NewHollywood and much of the film-school graduated professionals who worked in advertising and music videos.