essay about the French New Wave

The term French New Wave or La Nouvelle Vague emerged with the creation of a group of French film-makers between the years 1958 to 1964 which played a big part in the artistic French revolution of the 60’s. Together they created the Dziga Vertov Group composed of the 5 main film-directors of the French New Wave period: François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette and Eric Rohmer. Before creating the Dziga Vertov Group the members were all film critics for the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma which give them high qualifications and experiences in the film industry.

The Dziga Vertov Group changed the notion of how a film could be made and were driven by a desire of artistic and cinematographic revolution. These directors were considered as auteurs because of the characteristic themes that could be detected through their work. The French New Wave directors were collaborating and assisting each other and so developed a distinct and common use of form, style and narrative, which make their work immediately recognizable. The way films were made reflected an interest in questioning cinema itself, by drawing attention to the conventions used in film-making. In this reflection, the French New Wave directors were seeking to present an alternative to the cinema from Hollywood, by breaking its conventions. The French New Wave directors took advantage of the new technology that was available to them in the late 1950s, their films were shot quickly and cheaply with the use of new equipment, which permitted experimentation and improvisation (www.moviemaker.com), and generally gave the directors more artistic freedom over their work and more especially Jean-Luc Godard; he was the most criticised director of the French New Wave. Godard was seeking a social and artistic revolution, he rejected the conventions and rules adopted by the cinema “bourgeois”, and he wanted the audience to participate fully in the film by letting them think about the scenes. The audience was going from passive viewers to active viewers. His films are highly inspired by the German writer and director Brecht. Like Brecht and his epic theatre, Godard and the director from the French New Wave wanted to go against the conventions of the commercial cinema and had a high desire to break illusion and destroy romantism. Using Brecht’s techniques, the editing often drew attention by being irregular, reminding the audience that they were watching a film, for example by using jump cuts or new editing techniques for the montage.(Nottingham.S) The films were usually composed of improvised dialogue, with many unpredictable elements, jump cuts, digressions, quotes and addresses to the viewers; by doing that, the film-makers wanted to challenge the viewers in order to disturb and maybe seduce them.(MacCabe) Their approach to the audience or viewers was to confront them with a new reality, a reality that they haven’t experience by watching a movie before, they wanted the audience to participate fully in the film by letting them think about the scenes and let their imagination fill the missing bits of the scene. The directors wanted to show and demonstrate a more personal cinema; they were searching for human stories and exploring real life issues. Comparing to the Brecht’s theatre rules, the French New Wave directors were influenced in many other way: Brecht’s theatre demonstrates attitude rather than feeling it. He developed a new way of working with and for the actors; it was really common for them to play all characters, but without putting any feeling in them and just using a demonstrative way. His approach to the audience was also different; he wanted the audience to think rather that to feel, he considered the viewers as scientist observers. Brecht was seeking the theatrical truth by using these techniques and by implementing commentary to encourage the audience’s own reflection. (Willett.J) The main idea was to transform the society by transforming the theatre, and, in the French cinematographic revolution, by transforming the cinema.
Jean-Paul Sartre’s philosophy was also a major influence to the New Wave. His notion of individual and existentialism, the absence of any rational thinking and actions and the absurdity and non-realism in human life were explored. For example, the film-makers were fighting against the predictable roles dictated by society. Their characters were often representing young and marginalised anti-heroes with no family ties who often immorally and against authority. (Nottingham.S)

To conclude I would say that the French New Wave film-makers and more particularly Jean-Luc Godard introduced a new way of filming by breaking with the conventions of traditional filmmaking. They used a new kind of storytelling with the use of jump cuts, digressions, quotes and addresses to the viewer. In a statement about Godard, Georges de Beauregard, the producer of Breathless, says, "French cinema was suffocated by conformity. Films were made according to a fixed routine." Godard wanted to make "the sort of film where anything goes.(Cerisuelo.M) I think that this statement applies to all film-makers of the French New Wave, they were fighting against the traditional and commercial cinema with the will to transform the society by creating artistic and social changes. Those directors revolutionised the cinematographic rules of editing. Although the films represented a radical change from the traditional cinema and have been highly criticised at the time, many of them are now recognised as classic films and many of their techniques are now used by directors in the editing and shooting of their movies.