History MediaNotes / FrenchNewWave

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), Creator/AlainResnais' ''Film/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 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.

To say that they were influential is an understatement. Within a few years, other countries started to take notice - first came the UK (''Film/AHardDaysNight'' owes a lot to the French New Wave) and then it began to leak over to America, resulting in the UsefulNotes/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 Creator/TheCriterionCollection

* ''Film/BobLeFlambeur''

* ''Film/LesBonnesFemmes''
* ''Film/VivreSaVie''

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, Creator/MaxOphuls 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.

* Creator/AgnesVarda

* Jean-Pierre Leaud

* ''Film/LesBonnes Femmes''

* ''Film/PierrotLeFou''
* ''Les Bonnes Femmes''

* ''Film/MyNightAtMauds''

* ''Film/CelineAndJulieGoBoating''

* ''PierrotLeFou''

* Anna Karina

* TheFaceOfTheBand : FrancoisTruffaut initially and then Jean-Luc Godard, especially after the former's death.

To say that they were influential is an understatement. Within a few years, other countries started to take notice - first came the UK (''Film/AHardDaysNight'' owes a lot to the French New Wave) and then it began to leak over to America, resulting in the UsefulNotes/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

* GenreBusting : The FrenchNewWave believed and practiced this, their films combing styles and themes and motifs from different genres.

* {{Existentialism}} : Rougly contemporaries with Creator/JeanPaulSartre, he was a major influence on all their films, even a Catholic like Eric Rohmer.

* LeFilmArtistique: Most people have this genre in mind when they think of this trope.

* LastOfHisKind: With the death of Jacques Rivette in January, 29, 2016, Creator/JeanLucGodard and Creator/AgnesVarda are the last of the New Wave, having outlived all their friends. Partly to honour them and their movement while there's still time, both have become recipients of the Lifetime UsefulNotes/AcademyAward, with Varda set to be the first female director to receive this award in 2017.

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

* LastOfHisKind: With the death of Jacques Rivette in January, 29, 2016, Creator/JeanLucGodard and Creator/AgnesVarda are the last of the New Wave, having outlived all their friends.

* LastOfHisKind: With the death of Jacques Rivette in January, 29, 2016, Creator/JeanLucGodard and Agnes Varda are the last of the New Wave, having outlived all their friends.

* LastOfHisKind: With the death of Jacques Rivette in January, 29, 2016, Creator/JeanLucGodard is the last of the New Wave, having outlived all his friends.

* Jeanne Moreau

* Jacques Demy

* Agnes Varda

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' ''Film/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 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.

Whilst France was under German occupation during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, 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''."

* Claude Chabrol

* Jacques Rivette

* Eric Rohmer

* Alain Resnais