Film 🎥 & Media Studies: The French New Wave – A Sparkling Cinematic Makeover: Part 1

While rummaging through my archives I found more of my past ASU coursework. This included the first assigned paper I wrote about my impressions of this unconventional cinematic style. This course opened up new, intriguing cinematic experiences I was mostly unfamiliar with. Here is what I wrote back then, in 2012 based on required film viewings for this course: The French New Wave: A Sparkling Cinematic Makeover.

For anyone starting to dabble into viewing foreign films or desiring more in depth study of them, the French New Wave is great choice to begin with. It offers a significant departure from traditional rules of filmmaking and standard Hollywood fare. Even for those untrained in the aesthetics of New Wave or (La Nouvelle Vague) as the French beguilingly called it, just one or two viewings of a film by Jean-Luc Godard or Francois Truffaut from the 1959-1963 period will definitely give the impression that they present a more relaxed if not a completely laid back viewing experience. Unlike more typical films from the 1950s and 60s (and the same is true today) narratives of the New Wave period tend to unroll in a more leisurely fashion and are not intensely plot driven or goal-oriented in nature.

The stories (such as they are) usually feature fairly ordinary characters and situations, not particularly interested in being grand or epic in scope. Another primary aspect of New Wave is for the settings to be about contemporary French society — very much about the here and now, as it was in the late 1950s and 60s. Delving into the past was not a serious consideration. Perhaps the most noteworthy element that typifies virtually all of the New Wave films is the generous use of natural lighting and real locations. These stories were largely freed from the artificiality of pre-constructed sets and sound stages. The majority of these narratives make freer use of dialogue, and besides a couple of rare exceptions are not overly scripted. Laxity and spontaneity are more characteristic of New Wave productions than would be the norm with most filmmaking endeavors.

With all of the above elements considered it also stood to reason that these films were created on quite small budgets. Today we would use the cute term “micro-budget”. In any case, these productions used small numbers of crew, usually unknown performers, and were mostly shot in black & white. As with any other type of film “movement” and the various genres and subtypes…there are all manner of pretentious “eye-roller” discussions that could be zeroed in on. Sometimes with thematic elements like sex and romance, uses of violence, the hero/anti-hero, etc. too much is overthought and this can detract from the enjoyment of viewing New Wave films. Naturally, auteur theory and stylistic manners or the uses of cinematography and editing are also vital components to any serious film studies.

This is all well and good, but these studies can still carom into deathly tedious places! However, where the French New Wave is concerned, the most outstanding aspect to discuss for this article is how it focuses directly on experimentation. First and foremost, the breaking of traditional so-called “tried and true” methods of filmmaking got largely tossed out the window — by the small group of French directors (Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, and Alan Resnais. They pioneered a radical departure away from much of the same old thing that came before. Of course, lots of feathers in the French film world got severely ruffled. This resulted in a huge kerfuffle as these young upstarts (Truffaut in particular) made their contempt for the old-style French cinematic establishment abundantly clear.

Truffaut not only had a loud bark—he had substantial bite in his critique of the traditional, well established directorial cabal. These included such illustrious names Claude Autant-Lara, Rene Clement, Yves Allegret, etc. To illustrate this point somewhat humorously, renowned writer of everything pertaining to New Wave, Michel Marie quoted the harshly critical Truffaut from Cahers du Cinema magazine as early as 1954 (well before French New Wave took off). In his attack on the old-school directors on the so-called “cinema of quality” and how they treated the characters in many of their narratives with this stinging quote: “In the films of ‘psychological realism’ there are nothing but vile beings, but so inordinate is the author’s desire to be superior to their characters that those who, perchance, are not infamous are, at best infinitely grotesque.” [Italics mine].

Truffaut’s incendiaries hit their marks over and over again. He did not refrain from adding more caustic remarks about the aging, directorial elite maintaining an arrogant attitude towards the protagonists of their films as being “only puppets manipulated by their directors”. Truffaut let a few more shells and mortars fly by declaring that the aforementioned directors were blasphemous and profane. He declared that they were hypocrites for being anti-clerical…but not blatantly so. Truffaut believed they were behaving more in the vein of a back-handed compliment with their filmic critiques of French society.

Not surprisingly, such intellectual assaults against the establishment did not go unchallenged and the French cinematic community was spun into an uproar. The two sides went to battle (we could say trench warfare!) and the accusations of artistic irreverence went back and forth. In any event, rather than just taking over the coals of the past, some examination of what set the “New Wave” apart from what came before is in order. A good place to start is with Alan Resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) which inaugurated the movement like the christening of a sleek, glamorous new ocean liner. More about that in Part 2, next week!