NOTES/SUMMARY: THE FRENCH NEW WAVE

The late 1950s and early 1960s saw the rise of a new generation of filmmakers around the world. some trained in film schools, many allied with specialized film magazines, most in revolt against there elders in the industry. The most influential of these groups appeared in France.

In the mid-1950s, a group of young men who wrote for the Paris film journal Cahiers du cinema made a habit of attacking the most artisitically respected French filmmakers of the day. "I consider an adaption of value," wrote Francois Truffaut, "only when written by a man of the cinema. Aurenche and Bost are essentially literary men and i reproach them here for being contemptuous of the cinema by underestimating it."

Jean Luc Godard criticized 21 major directors saying, "your camera movements are ugly because your subject are bad, your casts act badly because your dialogue is worthless; in a word, you don't know how to create cinema because you no longer know what it is." Truffaut, Godard, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer and Jacques Rivette praised other directors.

An auteur usually did not write scripts but managed nonetheless to stamp his or her personality on studio products, transcending the constraints of Hollywood's system. These directors also loved commercial Hollywood. Many of the Hollywood directors these critics and filmmakers championed have become recognized as great artists.

Writing criticisms fueled these men to also make films. They borrowed money from friends and filmed on location, each started to shoot short films. With their patience and persistence these directors led journalists to nickname them la nouvelle vague or the New Wave. The most obviously revolutionary quality of the French New Wave was their casual look. They admired Neorealists, they took their mise-en-scene in actual locales in and around Paris. Shooting on location became the norm, available light and simple supplemental sources were used.

The New Wave camera moves a great deal of panning and tracking to follow character or trace out relations within a locale. Eclair developed a lightweight and flexible camera that could be hand-held. One of the most salient features of the New Wave films is their casual humor. It also pushed further the Neorealist experimentation with plot construction. The films also lacked goal-oriented protagonists. The New wave film typically ends ambiguously, it leads the film to an open and uncertain ending.

In 1957, cinema attendance fell off drastically, mainly because television became more widespread. But the French industry supported the New Wave through distribution, exhibition and eventually production. even though the New Wave had their own production company, they were absorbed by the film industry.