French New Wave

French New Wave ( ) Response to French “tradition of quality” (“staged” literary scripts) Cahiers du Cinema Auteurism Rebellion against authority & convention Existential outlook (post-WWII)

Zeitgeist: France, Late 1950s The Fourth Republic 20 governments between Algerian War for independence (people questioned colonial policies) More Algerians killed by French than French killed by Germans (ironic occupation) Failed occupation in Indochina Threat of nuclear war (Cold War)

Zeitgeist: National Identity Protests against the war Rise of Communists (Sartre) and liberal anarchists (Camus) General De Gaulle forms the Fifth Republic Algeria granted independence in 1962 (still has neocolonial relationship) Distrust of imperialism, authority, old traditions

Zeitgeist: Culture & Popculture Sartre and Camus (existentialism) Influence of avant garde, “Beatnik” culture on society Hedonistic “youth culture” All-night dancing at jazz clubs Rejection of bourgeois values Fascination with things American: –Hollywood –Coca-Cola –Blue jeans

Origins Sociological survey on the values of postwar French youth Clothing, habits, morals, values Generation wanted to be liberated from traditions of the past Obsession with the “new” (TV, appliances, automobiles) Emergence of the “new liberated French woman” (Bridget Bardot)

New Generation Candid attitude toward sex Young women identified with the Bardot image Rejection of parent’s values Accent of individual freedom and expression Infusion of American culture (jazz, cars and Rock-and-Roll)

French “Tradition of Quality” “Le cinema de papa” Producer-controlled studio system Required certification from national film school (Institut Hautes Etudes Cinematographiques) Highly institutionalized (15 studios, unions, apprentice system) “Beautiful images to illustrate screen plays” A “highly mannered style removed from everyday reality”

Young Film Makers “40 who are under 40” Rejected French “tradition of quality” 1959 Cannes Film Festival (Existential novelist Andre Malraux was the Minister of Culture) La Napoule colloquium of young filmmakers Cine clubs in the Latin Quarter of Paris

Cahiers du Cinema Godard and Truffaut started as critics Met Andre Bazin Bazin was the “founding father” of film theory and New Wave cinema

French New Wave UNDERLYING PHILOSOPHY: Personalized existential visions Stressed “the individual, the experience of free choice, the absence of any rational understanding of the universe and a sense of the absurdity in human experience”

French New Wave UNDERLYING PHILOSOPHY: Characters seek to act authentically, taking responsibility for their actions, instead of playing roles dictated by society Marginalized anti-heroes, who act spontaneously and often amorally

French New Wave FILM AESTHETIC: “Low-budget” anti-Hollywood look Casual, natural appearance Location shooting (not studio) Ambient sound and light “Real,” often improvised dialogue (overlapping) Improvised scripting

French New Wave FILM AESTHETIC: “In the streets and cafes” “Bored couple having meaningless conversation in Paris café, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee and absinthe” (Skutski) Mobile camera (tracking & panning) Jump cuts, “free” editing Admired Hitchcock & Italian Neorealism

French New Wave FILM AESTHETIC: Auteurism: the personal stamp of the director Long takes Flux and flow of time Breaks with common expectations of cinema Loose plots Self-referent

French New Wave: “Left Bank” More experimental & cerebral Philosophical investigations Fascination with memory Play with time and space Political left

French New Wave Jean-Luc Godard Francois Truffaut Alain Resnais Eric Rohmer Claude Chabrol Agnes Varda Louis Malle Alain Robbe-Grillet

Siefried Kracauer ( ) CINEMATIC REALISM Critic of “modernity” (Frankfurt School) Human condition characterized by alienation Mass culture/society manipulates individuals Materialistic values have replaced religion, metaphysical, romantic convictions, resulting in disenchantment People live distracted lives Film as a “redemptive” experience that can show man damaged condition of modernity and help him transcend materialism

Siefried Kracauer ( ) CINEMATIC REALISM Foreshadowed and predicted dehumanizing power of mass media “Mass ornaments”--movies, military parades and sporting events “Real” world of the individual desubstantiated by spectacle and empty rituals Film must “reengage” individual with nature and the Kantian real world

Andre Bazin ( ) CINEMATIC REALISM Shared Kracauer’s view of modernity Also saw film as redemptive Kracauer: German classical philosophy Bazin: Catholicism, Bergson, Sartre, French Phenomenological influence Bergson: Flux and flow of existence Modern life and ideologies obscure the “base of life”

Andre Bazin ( ) Views cinema as a “redemptive” art The role of cinema is to help man in his search for truth and understanding in an ambiguous and uncertain world Man can transcend alienation and modernity Film can be a religious experience “Love” and “state of grace”

Andre Bazin ( ) Bergson’s concept of “creative evolution” Close experiential scrutiny reveals deep structures/meanings behind phenomena Under scrutiny of inquiry [artistic analysis] these deep structures are brought into the light Cinema and photography are media that an artist can utilize to review the deeper meanings behind the phenomena of existence

Andre Bazin ( ) “We know that under the image revealed there is another which is truer to reality and under this image still another and yet again still another under this last one, right down to the true image of reality, absolute, mysterious, which no one will ever see.” Michelangelo Antonioni

Andre Bazin ( ) Film image “embalms” time & wrenches phenomena from the flux of life Symbolic power of cinematic imagery combined with empirical density of cinematic realism The spirit behind the “real” object The “long hard gaze” Disliked over-expressive, over-ornamental, or overuse of montage

Andre Bazin ( ) “Montage...chops the world up into little fragments, and disturbs the natural unity in people and things.”

Andre Bazin ( ) “German expressionism did violence to the image by ways of sets and lighting.”

Andre Bazin ( ) Respect for the continuity of dramatic space and the flow of time Composition in depth “Dramatic effects for which we had formerly relied on montage were created out of the movements of the actors within a fixed framework.” Ambiguity of expression closer to reality; viewer must choose

Andre Bazin ( ) Liked films that focused on everyday psychological experience Italian Neorealism (The Bicycle Thief) Disliked modernist, expressionistic Disliked films that imposed a political ideology on the viewer Long takes, of surrounding environment Impact of environment on people (French determinism)

Andre Bazin ( ) Francois Truffaut Erich von Stroheim Roberto Rossellini Vittorio De Sica Robert Bresson Jean Renoir Orson Welles William Wyler