New Wave film evaluation

For my new wave film I decided to experiment with my editing to reflect the New Wave techniques such as colour overlays and jump cuts. I have focused on the French New Wave for my work. I edited my footage on Premiere Pro as this enabled me to be able to edit quicker and it helped me edit my jump cuts in more detail. Using Premiere enabled me to experiment with different techniques. I decided to add a golden toned overlay to some of my footage. I filmed on location in Birmingham as filming on location is another convention of the New Wave. In Truffaut's 'The 400 Blows' they filmed on location around Paris. I only used natural lighting to maintain the sense of verisimilitude of the film as the French New Wave was about documentary style films that were personal to the director. I kept the ISO at 100 or as close to 100 as possible to ensure that my footage was not grainy or overexposed.

Video essay script

                                                           Video essay script:

Introduction

La Nouvelle Vague or the new wave was a relatively short part of film history in France that started in 1959 and lasted until 1963. Charles De Gaulle was the president of France from 1958 until 1969. Due to the end of the 2^nd World War Parisian cinemas had an influx of foreign films, particularly American ones. Influential films that were previously banned in France were released, two of the most important films were Jean Vigo’s 1933  Zero de conduite'  and Jean Renoir’s 1939 'La Regle du jeu' These two films inspired and showed French filmmakers that they could make films just as well as the Americans could.

 A group of young French men, who wanted to be filmmakers but lacked the budget and the equipment necessary to do so, wrote for Andre Bazin’s film magazine Cahiers Du Cinema where they reviewed the films that were being shown at the cinematique. These men were Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Jacques Rivette and Claude Chabrol. .  They met to argue about film and critique some of the most prominent directors at the times work such as Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles and John Ford. Whilst they admired some of these directors’ works they felt that American films lacked personal feeling and that the directors had no emotional attachment to their films. This led them to agree with Andre Bazin’s belief that films should contain personal feelings and the ideologies of the director. This is known as the auteur theory. I have focused on the works of Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut due to them and their works being some of the most well known of the French New Wave. The films I have looked at are Godard’s 1960 “Breathless” and the 1963 film “Contempt” and Truffaut’s 1959 “The 400 Blows”. “ The 400 Blows” is autobiographical and is considered a "psychologically acute portrait of the artist as a young man".

The film is considered of historical importance due to its instant critical and commercial success. Due to this success other young French filmmakers were inspired to make their own films, giving birth to the French New Wave movement. Some common conventions of French New Wave films were: Jump cuts, colour overlays, breaking the 4^th wall, handheld cameras, unknown actors and shooting on location.

They disagreed with the formulaic structure of Hollywood films at the time and felt that the film audiences did not need to see everything that happened in the characters lives. To reduce irrelevant parts of the narrative, during editing they would create jump cuts.

The French New Wave was about documentary style films, which gave a sense of verisimilitude. One way that this happened was that the actor would break the fourth wall by talking directly to the audience. Here is an example of this in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 film “Breathless”. In this clip there is a close up of the actor, Jean- Paul Belmondo, he is placed in the centre of the frame so that the audience’s eyes are naturally drawn to him. In one continuous take Belmondo turns to look at the camera three times and tells the audience “ You don’t like the sea.” “ You don’t like the mountains.” “What if you didn’t like towns?” Addressing the audience and asking them a question adds to the sense of verisimilitude and documentary style as the audience feel like they are a part of the narrative. This also fits in with the young filmmakers belief in the auteur theory. Godard also included the use of breaking the 4^th wall in ‘Contempt’. However this time the audience were not addressed by the actor directly, instead the audience are shown what they are going to see but from a different angle

Video essay script

La Nouvelle Vague or the new wave was a relatively short part of film history in France that started in 1959 and lasted until 1963. Charles De Gaulle was the president of France from 1958 until 1969. Due to the end of the 2^nd World War Parisian cinemas had an influx of foreign films, particularly American ones. Influential films that were previously banned in France were released, two of the most important films were Jean Vigo’s 1933  Zero de conduite'  and Jean Renoir’s 1939 'La Regle du jeu' These two films inspired and showed French filmmakers that they could make films just as well as the Americans could. A group of young French men, who wanted to be filmmakers but lacked the budget and the equipment necessary to do so, wrote for Andre Bazin’s film magazine Cahiers Du Cinema where they reviewed the films that were being shown at the cinematique. These men were Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Jacques Rivette and Claude Chabrol. They also agreed with Andre Bazin’s belief that films should contain personal feelings and the beliefs of the director. This is known as the auteur theory.  They met to argue about film and critique some of the most prominent directors at the times work such as Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles and John Ford. They disagreed with the formulaic structure of Hollywood films at the time and felt that the film audiences did not need to see everything that a character did. To reduce irrelevant parts of the narrative, during editing they would create jump cuts. Jump cuts were also used to enable the audience to perceive and react to the film as they would with a real life situation. The French New Wave was about making the audience feel involved and connected to the film and its message. To do this the actor would break the fourth wall by talking directly to the audience. Here is an example of this in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 film “Breathless”. In this clip there is a close up of the actor, Jean- Paul Belmondo, he is placed in the centre of the frame. In one long continuous take he turns to look at the camera three times and addresses the audience each of these three times. The actor tells the audience that they don’t like and then questions whether or not the audience “ like towns,” He then tells them to “stick their heads in oil.” This fits in with the young filmmakers belief in the auteur theory and that the audience of their films should take in their own personal ideologies and beliefs as their own.

Film Clips and How I Will Use Them

I will be using this clip to back up my point that breaking the 4th wall is a convention of the French New Wave. In this clip there is a close up of the actor, Jean- Paul Belmondo, he is placed in the centre of the frame so that the audience’s eyes are naturally drawn to him. In one continuous take Belmondo turns to look at the camera three times and tells the audience “ You don’t like the sea.” “ You don’t like the mountains.” “What if you didn’t like towns?” Addressing the audience and asking them a question adds to the sense of verisimilitude and documentary style as the audience feel like they are a part of the narrative. This also fits in with the young filmmakers belief in the auteur theory.