Download French New Wave

+
French New Wave
Novelle Vogue
Auteur Theory
It’s all about the director..
+
The French New Wave

End of the 1950s and the 1960s.
No Film School
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R7R
0JHvvgo
+
Breathless
1960
Read the review of Breathless.
Be ready to present to the group about it…
+
Stand in order of positivity…
NEGATIVE REVIEW……………………………..POSITIVE REVIEW
+ Jean Luc Godard & ‘A Bout de Souffle’
Created most of these aesthetic features using the following
techniques (innovative at the time):
1)
Location shooting
2)
Hand held camera
3)
Natural lighting
4)
Subversion of rules of
classical editing.
+ Jean Luc Godard & ‘A Bout de Souffle’
All these techniques turn the films into spontaneous and
improvised performances rather than a mere recreation of the
script.
+
Begin the
‘facebook’
profile for
Michel.
Opening Sequence
Michel steals a car to drive to Paris. However,
two policemen on motorcycles chase him.
Michel runs into engine trouble. He turns off
the road and attempts to fix his car, but is
followed by one of the policemen. Michel
shoots the policeman and runs off.
+ Jean Luc Godard & ‘A Bout de Souffle’
All production techniques mentioned above are
used in this sequence:

Shot on location (highway)

Camera is mobile and shaky (Pans in shots 3 & 4
are quick, blurred)

Lighting is natural (Shot 7 sun shines directly
onto lens)

Casual, improvised acting style

Subverts continuity editing (jump cut from shots
3-4; shot 5 car left to right, shot 6 right to left)
+
Begin the
‘facebook’
profile for
Patricia
Paris
Michel arrives in Paris and finds Patricia selling
the New York Herald on the Champs Elysee.
The police have identified him as the cop-killer
and are on his trail. He mugs someone in a
restaurant to get money to take Patricia out on
a date - but she has other plans.
+ Jean Luc Godard & ‘A Bout de Souffle’
 Stylistic
choices also determined by
economics
 Identified
low production costs with artistic
freedom.
 Hollywood
auteurs transcended high
production values.
+
Begin the
‘facebook’
profile for
Patricia
Apartemente Sequence
This sequence is a ‘boring’ 30 minutes. Containing
much improvised and undirected dialogue it adds to
the realism of the film. Though it has had a
negative response from audiences and critics, this
scene still has value in the style of the director –
taking away some of the high drama of the
traditional film in favour of realism. We still see
‘real’ conversations between characters today
thanks to Jean Luc Godard.
+Jean Luc Godard & ‘A Bout de Souffle’
Social Seriousness

“Uniqueness of personality, brash individuality,
persistence of obsession and originality were
given an evaluative power over stylistic
smoothness or social seriousness.”
– John Caughie, Theories of Authorship

Auteurs criticized for lack of social
commitment.

Argued in favour of a more personalized
experience of cinema.
+
http://youtu.be/XEoYgXG8r-8
Storyboard
Create a storyboard shot by shot analysis of the final scene in Breathless
+Jean Luc Godard & ‘A Bout de Souffle’

Sequence does not aim to show sequence clearly but the
VISION of the auteur.
+
Breathless
1960
Create a podcast, reviewing Breathless
Make sure you analyse it as a French New
Wave Film.
+Jean Luc Godard & ‘A Bout de Souffle’
Social Seriousness

From 1960s Godard’s filmmaking became
politicized, both in terms of style and content.

Style: Jolted spectators and made them notice
the film making process.

Content: Political subject matter e.g. ‘La
Chinoise’, ‘Tout va bien’

Made films politically about politics.

Began to downplay romantic idea of the film
director as an auteur, used Dziga Vertov Group.
+
French New Wave Films
http://www.criterion.com/explore/4-frenchnew-wave
Create a profile for 4 films
+Francois Truffaut & Cahiers du Cinema

Auteur theory emerged from a group of critics
in 1950s France, who went on to become
filmmakers of the French New Wave of the
1960s.

Truffaut criticizes the dominant tendency in
French cinema: Tradition of Quality.

Projects bourgeois image of good taste and
high culture.
+
‘Tradition of Quality’ Films

Image of ‘Frenchness’ tied to good taste and high culture
achieved through:
1)
High production values;
2)
Reliance on stars;
3)
Nicely tied loose ends
4)
‘Sheen and polish’
+
‘Tradition of Quality’ Films

‘La Symphonie Pastorale’ (Jean Delannoy, 1946)

‘Douce’ (Claude Autant-Lara, 1943)

‘Jeux Interdits’ (Rene Clement, 1952)

‘La Ronde’ (Max Ophuls, 1950)

‘Minne, L’Ingenue’ (Jacques Audry, 1950)

‘French Cancan’ (Jean Renoir, 1955)

‘Les Grandes Manoeuvres’ (Rene Clair, 1955)
+
‘Tradition of Quality’ Films

Mechanically transferring scripts to screen.

Success or failure depends entirely on quality of
script.

Jean Aurenche & Pierre Bost

“Aurenche and Bost are essentially literary men
and I reproach them here for being contemptuous
of the cinema by underestimating it”
– A Certain Tendency of
the French Cinema, p. 229
+
‘Tradition of Quality’ Films

Privileging of script deflected attention
away from filmmaking process and director.

Cahiers critics and the French New Wave
filmmakers defined themselves AGAINST
the literary script and PROMOTED
filmmaking.

Tradition of Quality: Best technique is one
that is not seen;

French New Wave: Style draws deliberate
attention to itself.
+
The French New Wave
The
script merely served as the
pretext to the activity of filmmaking.
A
filmmaking practice that rejects
classical Hollywood cinema’s
dominance by producers in favour of a
mode of production that favours the
director.
Supported
the idea of filming
unimportant stories.
+
The French New Wave
One of the major movements of European Art
Cinema.
Features:
1)
A slower editing and narrative pace
2)
A strong ‘authorial voice’
3)
An investment in realism and ambiguity
4)
The desire to provoke thought and sometimes
shock
5)
A taste for unhappy endings.
+
OBJECTIVES
1.
2.
Understand what makes a scene a scene
Apply to the French New Wave
Creating a Scene
Think of an event that’s occurred in your life in
the past month. Be prepared to describe what
happened?
+
Why was your event an event?
Brought something new
into your life or
effected our lives
Special –
important –
big deal
Event
You learned
something new
Changed you
+
What is a scene?
What are the conventional
features of a Scene?

“Pathways, bridges between one moment
and the next”

Same Place

Same Time

‘Continuous action’

“A moment when an emotion is
articulated in some way, usually via
action”

Something must change (from starting
point to ending point)

Have a purpose to the actions

Development of the characters

Advances the plot

“A step along the way to telling the story”

Potentially learn something new
+
TASK: Write a simple scene

Choose from 4 treatment ideas.

Write a simple scene following the rules of a scene:

Changes/Does something new

Advances the plot

Characters develop

Same place and same time – continuous ‘action’.
+
TASK: A ‘scene’ in the
style of French New
Wave
What are the features of a
French New Wave Scene?

Realism

Natural Lighting

Shot on location (no stage or studio)

Mobile Shaking Camera

Casual Improvised Acting/Dialogue

Use of jump cuts

Longer shots/shower cuts

Slower narrative pace (story progresses
slowly)

Strong sense of style/directors vision

Ambiguity

Low production costs