..the FRENCH NEW WAVE
(or La Nouvelle Vague) was a term coined in the 1950-60s for a group of French film-makers, influenced (in part) by the Neo-Realism movement in post-war Italy (just below you'll see a still from the quintessential Italian Neo-Realist film from this era, 'Bicycle Thieves'). Originally they were just a bunch of film critics who wrote for the film magazine called 'Cahiers du Cinema', founded by film theorist Andre Bazin. The modern-day equivalent of 'Cahiers du Cinema' would be the film magazines 'Empire' or 'Film Ink'.
Although never a truly formal movement, the New Wave film-makers were young, brash, controversial and keen to challenge old ways of thinking. They despised the predictable Hollywood formulas and rejected the boring and unadventurous style of classical French cinema which was wasting its time adapting uninspiring novels for the big screen. Many of these individuals were also engaged in the social and political upheaval of the era, making their radical experiments with editing, visual style, and narrative part of a general break with traditional and conservative thinking.
Some of the most prominent pioneers among this group included François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Éric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol and Jacques Rivette. By means of critiquing films and writing editorials, they laid the groundwork for a surge of concepts which was later coined as “auteur theory” - that the director is the "author" of his movies, with a distinctive signature that is recognisable from film to film, in some ways, like a stamp of his/her individual personality over the process.
Above you'll notice a still from a typical example of (dull, uninspiring) traditional French cinema.
Origins of the movement
For a nation famous for its spirit of revolution, the men behind the French New Wave certainly rebelled against old traditional methods, criticizing in particular the way classical cinema forced the audience to simply submit to a dictatorial narrative structure. Instead, they sought to bring a true sense of realism to cinema.
Their idea of realism was to liberate themselves from the restrictions of filming inside a controlled studio environment and record in real, live locations, using natural light, improvised scripts and lightweight, handheld cameras. Films were notably shot in the grimy gutters and amidst the markets and bustling boulevards of Paris. It was rough, unpolished, earthy... real!
It was about being spontaneous and staying true to the very nature of film as a medium for expression. For example, in Jean Luc Godard's film 'A Bout de Souffle' (Breathless), there is a scene with Jean Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg walking down a street, Seberg selling copies of the New York Herald Tribune. This was filmed entirely as it happened, using a concealed camera, with ordinary members of the public unknowingly walking into frame and even interacting with the characters. It made for very 'random' filming conditions - they certainly couldn't afford to pay the local council to have the set cordoned off.
A very raw and stripped-down process...
It wasn't just dialogue that was improvised either - often, the entire plot was being written and re-written during the shoot, often between the very scenes being shot that day. It's claimed the plot of Godard's film 'A Bout de Souffle' was hastily scrawled on a book of matches. It truly was a case of flying by the seat of their pants! Sure, to us today it may seem haphazard and reckless, but it certainly made for a vibrant, unpredictable and innovative process!
Films of the French New Wave featured unprecedented methods of expression, such as 7-minute tracking shots (like the famous traffic jam sequence in Godard's 1967 film ‘Week End’). These movies featured existential themes (pondering the absurdity of an individual's battle against fate, destiny & mortality).
Most French New Wave films had pitiful budgets, often shot in a friend's apartment, using the director's friends as the cast and crew. Directors improvised with equipment (eg: using a shopping cart for tracking shots). The cost of film was also a major concern, thus, efforts to scrimp and save on film turned into stylistic innovations. For example, in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (‘À bout de souffle’), several scenes feature jump cuts, as they were filmed in one long take: parts that didn't work were simply cut right from the middle of the take, a purposeful stylistic decision. The jump cuts are, in part, just a way of disguising the fact they had only one camera to work with.
A fresh, innovative look at cinema...
• improvised dialogue ("Forget about scripts!")
• rapid changes of scene ("Forget about establishing shots!")
• shots that go beyond the common 180º axis ("Forget about maintaining the illusion of reality!")
• jump cuts (non-naturalistic edits)... usually sections of a continuous shot were removed, creating an effect that was unhinged, illogical, disorienting
• shooting on location with natural lighting ("Enough with all the artificial stuff!")
• long takes ("Let's let reality take us somewhere! Who knows where the scene's going to end up?")
• direct sound recording ("If the truck driving past backfires and ruins the sound recording, who cares? It's all about honouring the realism that is unfolding!")
Forget about preserving the make-believe world...
The camera was used not to mesmerize the audience and attain that accursed Hollywood notion 'the suspension of disbelief', but simply to break with the common expectations of cinema. The techniques that were used to shock the audience out of their blurry haze were so bold and confrontational that Jean-Luc Godard was accused of having contempt for his audience. His approach could be seen as a desperate struggle against the mainstream cinema of the time, or a degrading attack on the viewer’s naivety.
Either way, the challenging nature of this movement can still be seen in today's multiplexes. The use of improvisation, flashbacks, jump cuts, voice overs and symbolism - all mashed up together - frequently led to absurd, almost incomprehensible narratives. Despite this, the films themselves and the ideas behind them were nothing short of groundbreaking.
Everything old is new again...
Effects that now seem quite common, such as a character stepping "out of role" to address the audience directly (known as "breaking the fourth wall"), were radically innovative at the time. Directors such as Quentin Tarantino admit being inspired by the French New Wave, using this defiant cinematic era as a blueprint for their own attempts at creating a kind of hybrid American New Wave in the 1990s with gritty underworld tales of gangsters and low-lifes who dwell on the 'mean streets'.
When it came to the age-old Hollywood tradition of crafting that perfect illusion of fantasy, the French New Wave didn't just take the rule book and throw it out the window - they threw it out, burnt it and hosed the ashes down the drain! Audaciously, they made sure to constantly remind the viewer that a film is just a sequence of moving images, no matter how clever the use of light and shadow. The result is raw, rustic, gritty and unpretentious... a set of oddly disjointed scenes that are not apologizing for their lack of neat-ness, smooth-ness and seamless-ness.
FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT 'shoot the piano player' - audition scene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyQbhJltlI8&feature=related
FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT 'shoot the piano player' - windscreen splash / conversation in car
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4rro8wce2M&feature=related
JEAN-LUC GODARD 'a bande aparte' - dance scene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6pOXjQLh7Y
JEAN-LUC GODARD 'alphaville' - existential themes?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHikpdf8ktM&feature=related
JEAN-LUC GODARD 'breathless' - the new york herald tribune scene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4l00kP2XWM&feature=related
JEAN-LUC GODARD 'breathless' - hotel scene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHQ2Q-_bl8k&feature=related
JEAN-LUC GODARD 'breathless' - the car scene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KUVwKp6MDI&feature=related
'LA FICTION DU PULP'
Read the web article 'LA FICTION DU PULP" detailing Quentin Taratino's debt of gratitude to the French New Wave. There are three questions to answer afterwards.
http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue03/features/tarantino1.htm
QUESTIONS
1. Creatively, Quentin Tarantino has borrowed from the likes of Truffaut and Godard. List the four trademarks for which Tarantino does not "own the copyrights".
2. What do you think the article means when it says "the usually tight structure of Hollywood films is being loosened"?
3. It's claimed 'Pulp Fiction' echoes the way French New Wave films divert from the typical conventions we see in formulaic film-making. List three ways Pulp Fiction diverts from (ie: steers away from) conventional narrative form.
Quotations from Jean-Luc Godard:
All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl.Movies are a world of fragments.
There is no point in having sharp images when you've fuzzy ideas.
Every edit is a lie.
Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.
I don't think you should feel about a movie. You should feel about a woman. You can't kiss a movie.
Hollywood movies, for the past 20 or 30 years, are made mainly by lawyers or agents.
A story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order.
To me style is just the outside of content, and content the inside of style, like the outside and the inside of the human body—both go together, they can’t be separated.
In films, we're trained by the American idea that we must understand and 'get' everything right away. But this is not possible. When you eat a potato, you don't understand each atom of the potato.
Questions
In your workbook, respond to the following questions in complete sentences.
1. Filmmakers of the French New Wave were inspired by the prominent Neo-Realists from... Was it Germany? Italy? Or Russia?
2. Explain in your own words what you think the word 'auteur' means.
3. 'Existential themes'... use the web to locate and record a definition for 'existentialism'.
4. Explain how technical advancements influenced the style of New Wave filmmaking.
5. Define 'jump cut'.
6. Explain how Jean-Luc Godard's contempt for his audience came to be perceived by many critics.
7. What things did New Wave filmmakers improvise?
8. In cinematic terms, what is 'suspension of disbelief'? How did Godard and his contemporaries shatter this?
9. Choose two (2) quotations from Jean-Luc Godard. Based on what you know of the French New Wave movement, explain what you think he means.
10. What is it about French New Wave that is 'unapologetic'?
The Influence of the French New Wave
The legacy of the French New Wave lives on in the highly referential work of many modern film-makers such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Altman, Quentin Tarantino and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Tarantino constantly and knowingly references other films he admires in his own work, just as the New Wave did. In Amelie, Jeunet had actress Audrey Tautou break from the sealed world of the narrative to talk directly to the audience. Scorsese, Coppola and Altman, who all rose to fame in the 1970s - the decade after the New Wave - freely cite the influence the French filmmakers had on their own work. Stylistically and philosophically, the ideas of the French New Wave have had a huge impact on the face of modern cinema.
Keepin' it real...
Noted film critic Gene Siskel claimed that what made Tarantino's work so distinctive was the way he blended realistic subject matter into outrageous conversation. The 'real'-ness of the way Tarantino's characters conversed was that action never broke a character’s delivery. Further, Siskel commented that Pulp Fiction's unique-ness was that, typically, a conversation in a scene kept going a few minutes after the scene normally would have ended.
QUESTION: How does Quentin Taratino create his brand of realism?
Rather than write a proper paragraph response, your task is to plan a paragraph. To do this, you firstly need to refer to those key words/ideas underlined and explore these in detail. View the clips below from Pulp Fiction to give you a few examples to use in your response.
Featured clips to view:
QUENTIN TARANTINO 'pulp fiction' - royale with cheese
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLtwFugudZE
QUENTIN TARANTINO 'pulp fiction' - divine intervention + marvin gets shot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb9rk6M6cpE&feature=related
QUENTIN TARANTINO 'pulp fiction' - dance scene at Jack Rabbit Slims
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVzj2lb98WE&feature=related
QUENTIN TARANTINO 'pulp fiction' - choosing weapon (delaying shot, dramatic effect)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmKju-x8nnM&feature=related
QUENTIN TARANTINO 'pulp fiction' - butch in the kitchen (delaying shot, dramatic effect
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otMq4OD2YBs&feature=related
QUENTIN TARANTINO 'pulp fiction' - bar scene (making us wait, withholding information, dramatic tension / suspense)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O5BfnhmT2A&feature=related
QUENTIN TARANTINO 'pulp fiction' - car boot scene + foot massage scene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWAPzkm3W10&feature=related
