Origins of the movement

When asked where New Wave began, most will point to a famous film journal named Cahiers du Cinéma. In fact, Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, and others tied closely to the ideas of the movement began as critics for this journal, and used publishing as a lead in to what would soon become a wider attack on the classic ‘literary’ style of French film. French New Wave was “in style” roughly between 1958 and 1964, although popular New Wave work existed as late as 1973. When understanding the basis for New Wave it is vital to recognize the socio-economic forces at play shortly after World War II. A politically and financially drained France tended to fall back to those old traditions which were so popular at the time before war broke out. One such tradition was that of straight narrative cinema, specifically classical French film. The movement has its roots deep in rebellion against this over-reliance on past forms, especially those in which the audience must submit to a dictatorial plot-line derived from old and played-out materials. [the preceding sentence seems to express an opinion] New Wave critics and directors studied the work of these and other classics. They did not reject them, but rather found a new outlet for the same creative energies. The low-budget approach helped film-makers get at the essential art form and find what, to them, was a much more comfortable and honest form of production. Interestingly, Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, and many B-film directors were held up in admiration while standard Hollywood films, those bound by traditional narrative flow, were strongly criticized.

Film techniques

The movies featured hitherto unprecedented methods of expression, such as seven-minute tracking shots (like the famous traffic jam sequence in Godard's 1967 film Week End). Also, these movies featured existential themes, such as the stressing of the individual and the acceptance of the absurdity of human existence.

Lasting effects

As with most art-film movements, the innovations of the New Wavers trickled down to the American cinema. Beginning with the heavily evident stylistic similarities in Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde (1967), the following generation of American independent filmmakers known as New Hollywood (e.g. Altman, Coppola, De Palma, Polanski and Scorsese) of the late 1960s and early 1970s all claim and display influence from the French tradition of the previous decade.

Major and minor figures

• Claude Chabrol
• Jean Eustache
• Jean-Luc Godard
• Louis Malle
• Jacques Demy
• Jean-Pierre Melville
• Alain Resnais
• Jacques Rivette
• Eric Rohmer
• François Truffaut
• Agnes Varda
• Andre Bazin
• Jeanne Moreau
• Jean-Pierre Leaud
• Jean Paul Belmondo
• Anna Karina
• Brigitte Bardot
• Jean Seberg
• Bernadette Lafont

Notes

1. ^ Desser, David. Eros Plus Massacre: An Introduction To Japanese New Wave Cinema, 1988 (Indiana Univ. Press)
2. ^ Oshima, Nagisa & Annette Michelson. Cinema, Censorship And The State: The Writings Of Nagisa Oshima, 1993 (M.I.T. Press)