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Background to the French new wave cinema Essay The New Wave (French: LA Nouvelle Vague was a term coined by critics for a group of French Filmmakers that existed in the late 1950s and 1960s. these set of filmmakers were actually influenced by Italian Neorealism, (New form realism). Although, this group of people was not well organized filmmakers, they were however connected through their self conscious rejection of classical cinematic form and their spirit of youthful iconoclasm. Many of them never had the social and political upheavals of that period separated from their work. Their experience which came up in a radical movement experimented with editing/visual style, and narrative part as a way of breaking from the old tradition of conservation. So many filmmakers were actually involved in this movement; however, the most prominent pioneers among them include Jean – Luc Goddard, Fancois Truffaut, Eric Rohmer, Claude Charbroil, and Jacques Rivelte among others. Through criticism and editorialization, they laid the groundwork for a surge of concepts which was later termed as the auteur theory, the French version of which is â€Å"La Politique des auteurs† meaning (â€Å"the policy of authors†). This policy holds that the director is the author of his movies, with a personal signature which must be seen from film to film. The beginning of New Wave was an exercise by the cahiers writers in applying his philosophy to the world by directing movies themselves. Chabrol’s Le Beau Serge (1958) is seen as the first New Wave feature. Truffaut achieved great success in the 400 Blows (1959) and Godard, with Breathless in 1960. The movement flourished immensely due to the success it recorded in the area of criticism and financing. This turned the world’s attention to the innovation of the New Wave and enabled the movement to flourish the more. New Wave Cinema is a common term in Film studies as a way of bringing together series of films and personnel that represent a change of direction or a break with the past. It is important to note that New Wave is an era usually referred to as a historical moment within a National Cinema. The most popular example of the French New Wave (Nouvelle Vague); essentially a group of young critics who broke away from the earlier or olden tradition and resorted to producing films that are highly exciting, experimental and innovating. The question then, is what the nature of French Cinema before this innovation was. The French were the pioneers of early Cinema through the silent films of Auguste and Louis Lumiere and Georges Melies. These filmmakers represent the polar opposites of cinematography; a realistic documentary approach for the Lumiere brothers. During the late 30s, France experience a period of increased political awareness that encouraged the development of poetic realism (i. e. realisme poetique) which characterized French Cinema during this period. The intended effect of poetic realism was to project an ambivalent image, a romanticized vision of the world, as well as an atmosphere of fatalism reflecting the spirit of time. French Cinema was seriously affected by the Second World War during the Nazy German occupation which also dominated the world of film making. Even though the Cinema industry was ruined, the French people needed entertainment and as the result and in the early fifties, French production started thriving again. The films were marked by distinctive features that were considered very quality oriented. (LA tradition de qualite). At the origin of the New Wave was a Cinema journal called Cahiers du Cinema and the development of a critical notion La Politique des auteurs, which both grew increasingly influential in the 1950s as a reaction to the mainstream quality tradition on the one hand, and to enthusiastic cinephilic interest in a few distinctive directors working in Hollywood on the other. Even though it has been permanently established today, the French New Wave was not originally conceived as a Cinema movement or a school, but rather was the result of specific socio-cultural circumstances. A number of important technical developments for example, (New lighter cameras; faster, more light sensitive film; synchronous sound equipment and the advent of television) took place in the second half of the 1950s which coincided with the emergence of a new generation of critics, actors and directors. The group of new young directors who were included under the umbrella phrase of the New Wave (Jean – Luc Godard, Eric Rohmer, Alain Resnais, Claude Charbol and Francois Truffant) brought in new ideas, the enthusiasm of youth and a sense of freedom into French Cinema. Goddard was the intellectual of the group interested in formal experiment, and later became politically involved; Truffaut’s film combined humanism, emotion and sensitivity; New Wave directors work together, exchange ideas, screenplays, technicians and even actors. This collaboration certainly helps explain some common characteristics in the films that were, and still are, associated with the New Wave. These and many more are the crux of the New Wave. A FOCUS ON FRANCOIUS TRUFFAUT Francois Truffaut was born in Paris on the 6th February, 1932. He attended Lycee Rollin, Paris. He was later enlisted into the army, but later escaped on the eve of departure for Indochina. He was later released for character instability. Francois was married to Madeleine Morgenstern and got divorced around 1957; he actually had two daughters from her. He was the founder of Cine – club in Paris; he was jailed at a point due to his inability to pay his debt and was later released. He was briefly employed by the service of Cinematographique of the Ministry of Agriculture in 1953. He became a writer on film for Cahiers du Cinema, arts from 1953, including seminal article, â€Å"Une certain Tendance du Cinema Francois† in 1954; he directed his first – feature, Les Quatre Cents Coups, and wrote script for Godard’s â€Å"A bout de souffle. He had won so many awards; these include Best Director, Cannes Festival, for Les Quatres Cents Coup, 1959; Prix Louis Delhic, and Best Director, New York Film Criticism and British Academy Award for Best Direction, for Day for Night, 1973. He died of cancer in Paris on the 21st October, 1984. However, before his death, he achieved great fit in the world of Cinema in France. He was one of the five young French film critics, writing for Andre Bazin’s Cahiers du Cinema in the early 1950s. He was the one that first formulated the politique des auteurs, a view of film history and film art that defended those directors who were â€Å"true men of the Cinema. These include Renoir, Vigo, and Tati in France; Hawks, Ford, and Welles in America – rather than those more literary, script – oriented film directors and writers associated with the French â€Å"tradition of quality†. In his first feature in 1959 of Les Quatre Cent Coups, he put his ideas of Cinema spontaneity into practice with the study of an adolescent, Antoine Doinel, who breaks free from the constrictions of French society to face an uncertain but open future. Since this debut, Truffaut’s career has been dominated by an exploration of the Doinel character’s future. In Truffaut’s 25 years of making films, the director, the Doinel character, and Leaud all grew up together. THE FILM, LES QUATRE CENTS COUPS (THE FOUR HUNDRED BLOWS) BY FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT The rebellious teenager of Less quatre cent coups becomes a tentative, shy, sexually clumsy suitor in â€Å"Antoine et Colette† episode of Love Love at Twenty. In Baisers Voles, Antoine is older but not much wiser at either love or money making. In Domicile conjugal, Antoine has married but is still on the run toward something else – the exotic lure of other sexual adventures. And in L’ Amour en fuite, Antoine is still running sequence that concludes Les Quatre Cent Coups. Although Antoine is divorced, the novel which he has finally completed has made his literary reputation. That novel, it turns out, is his life itself, the entire Doinel Saga as filmed by Truffaut, and Truffaut deliberately collapses the distinction between written fiction and filmed fiction, between the real life of humans and the fictional life of characters. The collapse seems warranted by the personal and professional connections between Truffaut the director, Doinel the character, and Leaud the actor. Truffaut in his film making remained consistently committed to his highly formal themes of art and life as can be seen in the â€Å"Four Hundred Blows†. He also concentrated on film and fiction and youth education, rather than venturing into radical politics as was the case with Jean – Luc Godard. While stating his position in Le Dermer Metro, one of his most political film, which examines a theatre troupe in Nazified Paris. The film director appeared to confess that, like those actors in that period, he could only continue to make art the way he knew how, that his commitment to formal artistic excellence would eventually serve the political purposes that powerful art always serves, and that for him to betray his own artistic powers for political, lead to his making bad art, and load political statements. In this rededication to artistic form, Truffaut was probably restating his affinity with Jean Renoir. He wrote about for Cahiers du Cinema. Renoir like Truffaut, progressed from making more rebellious black-and-white films in his youth to more accepting colour films in his adult age; he played major roles in most of his own films as was the case with Renoir. FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT AND FILM THEORY THE AUTEUR THEORY According to Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia, in film criticism, the auteur theory of 1950s holds that a director’s films reflect his personal creative vision, as if they were the primary â€Å"auteur† (the French word for â€Å"auteur†). In some cases, film producers are considered to have a similar â€Å"auteur† role for the films that they have produced. In law the auteur is the creator of a film as a work of art and is the original copyright holder. Under the European Union law, the film director shall always be considered the author or one of the authors of a film. Auteur theory by Francois Truffaut has had a major impact on film criticism ever since it was advocated in 1954 by the same Francois. â€Å"Auteurism† is the method of analyzing films based on this theory, or, alternatively, the characteristics of a director’s work that makes her or him an auteur. Either the auteur theory or, alternatively, the characteristics of a director’s work that makes him an auteur (author) Both the auteur theory and the Auteurism method of film analysis are closely tied to the French New Wave and the film critics who wrote for the influential French film review periodical â€Å"Cahiers du Cinema. † Auteur theory draws on the work of Andre’ Bazin, co-founder of the Cahiers du Cinema, who argued that films should reflect a director’s personal vision. Bazin championed film makers such as Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock and Jean Renoir. Although Bazin provided a forum for Auteurism to flourish, he remained wary of its excesses. Another person who this theory can be traced to is Alexandre Astrucx, who notion of the camera – stylo or â€Å"Camera pen† and the idea that directors should wield their cameras like writing use their pens and that they should not be prevented by any form of traditional storytelling. Traffaut and the other members of the Cahiers recognized that moviemaking was an industrial process. To this end, they proposed an ideal to strive for; thus, the director should use the commercial apparatus the way a writer uses pen and, through the mise en scene, imprint their vision on the work. What this means is that the role of screen writer was minimized in their eyes. They also understood and realized that not many directors could reach this ideal; they however value those that attempt to draw close to the ideal. In his further explanation on his theory, Truffant asserts that there are no good or bad films or movies, rather only good or bad directors exist. Invariably, he tends to say that a director makes the film and not the story line or the script per – say. This is the more reason why the director of a film should be the writer of the script. Much of Truffaunt’s writing of this period and his colleagues at the film criticism magazine cahiers du Cinema, was specially designed to ridicule or criticize post-war French Cinema, especially the big production films of the Cinema de qualite (â€Å"Quality films†) Truffaunt in his theory referred to these films with disdain or sterile, old fashion or archaic. The theory essentially maintains that all good directors and many bad ones have such a distinctive style or consistent theme that their influence is unmistakable in the body of their work. Traffaunt was equally appreciative of both directors with a marked visual style such as Alfred Hitchcock, and those whose visual style was less pronounced but who had nevertheless consistent in their theme, throughout their movies such as Jean Renoir’s humanism. The auteur theory has created a lot of impact on directors of the New Wave Movement of French Cinema in the 1960s; many of such were the critics of the Cahiers du Cinema. One of the ironies of the auteur theory is that when Truffant was writing, the break-up of the Hollywood Studio System during the 1950s was ushering in a period of uncertainty and conservation in American Cinema, with the result that very few films of Truffant admiration were actually being made. The impact of the theory did not just stop in France. It was adopted in English – Language film criticism in the 1960s. In the UK, movie adopted Auteurism, while in the US; Andrew Sarris introduced it in the essay, â€Å"Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962. † This essay is where the Half-French, Half-English term, â€Å"auteur theory†, originated. To be classified as an â€Å"auteur†; according to Sarris, a director must accomplish technical competence in their technique, personal style in terms of how the movie looks and feels the interior meaning. Later in the decade, Sarris published American Cinema; Directors and Directions, 1929-1968, which without delay turned out to be the unofficial Bible of Auteurism. A FOCUS ON A BOUT DE SOUFFLE BY JEAN – PAAL BELMONDO; AN ANALYSIS WITH PARTICULAR FOCUS ON VISUAL ELEMENTS USED IN THE MAKING OF THE FILM In our analysis, we shall see how Godard created the New Wave style by using production techniques to achieve some visual show. These techniques include location shooting, hand-held camera, natural lighting, casual acting and subversion of rules of classical editing. All these techniques cannot be found in tradition of quality, turn the film into spontaneous and improvised performances, rather than being the mere representation of the script, which exists before the film – making process begins. About de Souffle begins with Michael Pioccard (Jean – Paul Belmondo) stealing a car to drive him to Paris. However, two Policemen on motorcycles chase him. He turns off the road, but is followed by one of the Policemen. Michael shoots the Policeman and runs off. What makes this part of the film unusual and innovative is the way it is filmed. There is therefore every need to analyze the film based on the shots; it is only with that that a vivid understanding of the visual elements can be clearly understood. The first 17 shots last just 44 seconds, which makes an average a change of shot every 2. 6 seconds. (The first shot lasts 14 seconds). All the innovative production techniques mentioned above are apparent in this series of shots. The scene is shot on location, on the highway. The rest of the scene is also shot on location patricianly on the street of Paris. The camera is very mobile and shaky. The pans in shot 3 and 4 are very quick, creating blurred images. The Lighting is natural in shot 7, the sun shines directly into the lens, creating a bloomer. Belmondo is renowned and often initiated for his casual acting style in this film. He seems to improvise most of the time. Finally, this series of shots subvert the rules of continuity editing. The cut from shot 3 to shot 4 is less than 30 degrees and, therefore creates a Jump cut. In shot fire, Michael’s car is traveling from screen left to screen right. But in shot 6, the Police are shown traveling in different or opposite direction, from screen right to left. The Cameraman has crossed the road after filming the car to film the motorcycles. Such a swift change of direction creates a confusion of screen space. Almost in the same vein, when Michael stops the car, he looks screen left at the Police passing by. But after he picked up the gun, he looks screen right at the Policeman, instead of screen left, as the viewers screen left, as the viewers would expect. The cut from 15 to 16, the shot of Michael’s hand to the shot of the gun, created another jump, because there is very little difference between the two shots. The use of shaky, hand-held camera, together with the use of location shooting and natural lighting, jump cuts and discontinuous editing, do not aim to show the action clearly; instead, it offers a fragmentary and partial vision of the scene. These â€Å"imperfect† techniques represent the auteur’s presence and serve as a clear mark of the way he or she writes his or individual vision into the film. The effect these production techniques create is one of spontaneity and improvisation. However, what is interesting is the use of these techniques to give the film a documentary feel. The blurred pans, the shaky camera movements and abrupt editing testify to the difficulty the camera man faces in the situation which he found himself and his physical interaction with the event. It is imperative to note that the stylistic choices made by French New Wave directors were not simply determined by aesthetic considerations, but also y economics. The French New Wave is a low budget film making practice. Filming on location with natural lighting decreases production costs, just as the emphasis on spontaneity defrays pre-production cost such as script writing. Nevertheless, far from being deponent by the lack of finance, the French Wave directors identified low production costs with artistic freedom. They saw that a close relationship exist between the size of the budget and artistic freedom for visual creation and effect. Hence, they believed that the higher the budget, the lower the artistic freedom as one may not be allowed to improvise since every technicality would be in place. This is not the case in the Hollywood Film making. The direct opposite is the case here. To this end, a sharp contrast is noticeable while comparing the Hollywood Wave Film making with the French New Wave. FRENCH NEW WAVE CINEMA AND HOLLYWOOD FILM MAKING: JUXTAPOSITION Contrary to what we saw in the French New Wave Cinema, the Hollywood film making has taken a different dimension. Many of the initial conventions of the French Wave are beginning to go into extinction today. Jump cuts were used so much to cover mistakes as they were an artistic convention. Jean – Luc Godard certainly appreciated the dislocating feel a jump cut conveyed. The use of location shooting, natural lighting and improvisational acting by Midvale Claude Chabrol and Francois Truffaut as well as Jean – Luc Godard has been visited with an innovation with the emergence of Hollywood and its dominance in the film making in the world; as accurate and appropriate measures are often taken to curb any attitude of copying the incomplete and quick production of the French Wave Cinema. It is against this background that it has become necessary to say that since the advent of commercial Cinema of a century ago, the costs and complexity of film making have encouraged producers to develop a factory-oriented approach to production. This is the case of the Hollywood film making. The benefit of such approach includes the centralization of both production and management; the division and detailed subdivision of labor. This is not the case with the French New Wave Cinema as they upheld the director as the only competent artist without any form of division of labor. Contrary to the French New Wave Cinema, where standardized production is often questionable, Hollywood film production often yearns for standard. This, they do through putting all they can to ensure that the production is of standard. This stern from film style, product type, cost efficiencies derived from economies of scale, consistent production values; and the cultivation of a brand name in the movie market place. This was not the case in the French New Wave Cinema. Their major target was artistic freedom which should not be restricted by high budget. But in the case of Hollywood, artistic freedom is not emphasized, what is emphasized is the quality of the film to be produced which is often encouraged or motivated through huge budgeting and division of labour. The idea of proper film making set into Hollywood in 1910 in California; when the locale became the centre of commercial film production in the United States. The dominant firms referred to their facilities as â€Å"studios†, which invoke the more artistic aspects of film making, although operations on the kind of model that Henry Ford (1963-1947) was introducing to the auto industry at the time. In the larger global context, Hollywood has been the dominant force throughout motion future history due to the studio’s collective control of distribution as well as production. This control diminished considerably in post war era. This was due to the rise in independent production and freelance talent as well as the threat of television and other new media. Yet, the Hollywood studios are the strongest shaping forces in movie industry, and their operation today is the fundamental extension of the system that they established at their inception. It is against this background that it has become obvious that the current trend in the Hollywood film making is better off than the French New Wave Cinema and that is why some of the French New Wave Directors realized themselves that the Hollywood Cinema is something to write home about. To buttress our point and to clearly back up this juxtaposition without any form of prejudice, a cursory examination of some prominent Hollywood film makers such as John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock and Nicholas Ray would be taken into consideration. JOHN FORD AND THE HOLLYWOOD FILM MAKING There is nobody after having gone through his profile would doubt his greatness in the American movie making. Even among great film makers, the greatness of John Ford is often observed. This is why Welles much quoted Matra was â€Å"John Ford, John Ford and John Ford†. The road to Citizen Kane and Xanadu. A John Ford film was a visual gratification; this was not the case during the French New Wave Cinema. His method of shooting was characterized with clarity and apparent simplicity. Frank Capra called Ford â€Å"pure great† and Elian Kazan confessed that, even after half-a-dozen films, he studied Ford’s oeuvre to learn how to become more cinematic. She says ‘Ford taught me to tell it in pictures. . . Jack taught me to trust long shots. This is a clear indication that Ford as a filmmaker of the Hollywood believed and upheld the issue of technicality and visual elements in the making of his films. This is contrary to what was in vogue during the New Wave of French Cinema. Ford’s greatness in the Hollywood film making manifests again when Fredrick Fellini says â€Å"When I think of Ford, I sense the smell of barracks of horses, of gunpowder, . . The amending trips of his heroes. But, above all, I feel a man who liked motion picture, who lived for the Cinema, who has made out of motion pictures a fairly tale to be told to everyone, but in the first place a fairly tale to be lived himself . . . For all this, I esteem him, I admire him and I love him. † Ford made more than 60 silent films, about 130 movies in all. John Ford has to a great extent contributed immensely to the development of film in the world. Nicholas Ray was born on August 7th 1911 and died June 16 1979. Coming from a radio background, Ray directed his first and only Broadway production, the Duke Ellington Musical Beggar’s Holiday, in 1946. After a year he went into directing films, and he directed his first film, The Live by Night. This film though was visited with a lot of criticism, for its extreme empathy, The New York Times gave the film a positive review and acclaimed Ray for â€Å"good, realistic production and sharp direction. Ray has an eye for action details. His staging of the robbery of a bank, all seen by the lad in the pick-up car, makes a fine clip of agitating film. One of his prominent films ‘Rebel Without a Cause† distilled much of the essence of Rays Cinematic vision; expressionistic use of colour, dramatic use of architecture and empathy for those who struggle to fit in to mainstream society. Ray had been praised by most French New Wave Cinema, such as Jean – Luc Godard who referred to him as the Cinema. Thus he says â€Å"The Cinema is Nicholas Ray†. This at attests to the fact that Ray has contributed greatly to the field of Cinema. Having studied and researched in Hollywood Studio directors as can be seen above, it is important to juxtapose the French New Wave Cinema with their works in the field of film making. The way the films of the French New Wave were made reflected and interest in questioning Cinema itself, by drawing attention to the conventions used in film making. In this manner, the French New Wave directors strove to present an alternative to Hollywood by consciously breaking its conventions, while at the same time paying homage to what they regarded as good in Hollywood Cinema. French New Wave films had a free editing style and did not conform to the editing rules of Hollywood films. The editing often drew attention to itself by being discontinuous, reminding the audience that they were watching a film for example by using jump cuts or the insertion of material extraneous to the story (non-dugetic material). Godard in particular, favored the use of the jump cut, where two shots of the same subject are cut together with a noticeable jump on the screen. In a Hollywood film, this would be avoided by either using a sot/reverse shot edit or cutting to a shot from a camera in a position over 300 from the preceding shot. In Godard’s first full length film A Bout de Souffle, jump cuts were used during a lengthy conversation. Irrelevant shots were sometimes inserted for ironic or comic effect. The acting in the French New Wave Cinema was a marked departure from much that had gone before. They were encouraged to improvise their lines, or talk over each others lines as would happen in real life. In A Bout de Souffle, this leads to lengthy scenes of inconsequential dialogue, in opposition to the staged speeches of much traditional film acting as the case of Hollywood. Women were often given strong parts that did not conform to the archetypal roles seen in most Hollywood Cinema, for example Jeanne Moreau in Truffaut’s Jules ET Jim (1962) To this end, the reason why the French New Wave filmmakers praised a style so very different from their own has been obviously established and in this regard, one now understands that the excellent and perfect production of the Hollywood Cinema cannot in anyway be overemphasized. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1) http:/en. wikipedia. org/cinematic New Wave 2) Gerald Mast http://www/filmreference. com/Directors-st-ve/Truffaut-Franois. html