New Wave Cinema

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New Wave Cinema

• Film Realism and Formalism

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Table of Contents

• 1) Nouvelle vague
• 2) Nouvelle vagues contribution to film realism
• 3) Realism or Formalism?

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Nouvelle vague

• New Wave Cinema
• Films in the late 1950s and 1960s which are
  loosely linked by their self-conscious rejection
  of conventional filmmaking methods.
• Radical experiments in narrative construction,
  mise-en-scène, montage, and subjects and themes
  (political)

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Nouvelle vague

• Jean-Luc Godard François Truffaut
• (1930- ) (1932-1984)

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Nouvelle vague

• Eric Rohmer Claude Chabrol
• (1920 - 2010) (1930 - 2010 )

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Nouvelle vague

• Jacques Rivette André Bazin
• (1928 - ) (1918 - 1958)

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Nouvelle vague

• Film journalists and critics for Cahiers du
  cinema
• a) Attacked the films of many master filmmakers
  of the day

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Nouvelle vague

• Reappraisal of certain directors considered as
  outdated (Jean Renoir and Max Ophüls)
• eccentric (Jacques Tati and Robert Bresson)
• and unimportant and inartistic (Howard Hawks,
  Otto Preminger, Samuel Fuller, Nicholas Ray and
  Alfred Hitchcock).
• CINEASTE - watched a huge number of films at
  Cinématèque française (Henri Langloiss creation)
  and had a encyclopediac knowledge of world cinema.

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Nouvelle vague

• 1958
• Claude Chabrols Le Beau Serge
• François comes back to his home village after a
  decade to find that his village hasnt changed
  but his friend, Serge has.

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Nouvelle vague

• 1959
• François Truffauts Quatre cent coups (Four
  Hundred Blows)
• Semi-autobiographical film about a boy who is
  neglected and misunderstood by his parents and
  teachers, skipping school, stealing a typewriter
  and being sent to institution

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Nouvelle vague

• 1960
• By this time, those young filmmakers had become a
  force to reckon with.
• Jacques Rivettes Paris, nous appartient (Paris
  Belongs to Us)

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Nouvelle vague

• Jean-Luc Godards A Bout de souffle (Breathless)
• A small-time thief, Michel Poiccart steals a car
  and murders a policeman. In the end, he is
  betrayed by his ambiguous girl Friend, Patricia.

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Nouvelle vague

• Claude Chabrols Les Cousins
• Charles comes to Paris to share an apartment with
  his decadent cousin, Paul. He falls love with
  Pauls friend, Florence. Paul does not care much
  about a serious relationship and his cousins
  interest in his girlfriend.

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Contribution to Film Realism

• CASUAL LOOK
• - the lack of tight narrative structure
• - ignoring technical conventions
• - the heavy reliance on improvisation

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Contribution to Film Realism

• CASUALNESS ? to give nouvelle vague films a great
  sense of presence a significant instance of
  reality effects.
• Reality looks more casual than well-structured.
• The sense of presence similar to the one found in
  a live TV programme, a documentary film or an
  amateur film.

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Contribution to Film Realism

• Hans Holbein Portrait of a Gentleman
• Edouard Manet, The Balcony

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Contribution to Film Realism

• Auguste Renoir, Dance at the Moulin de la Galette

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Contribution to Film Realism

• All artistic discoveries are discoveries not of
  likenesses but of equivalencies which enable us
  to see reality in terms of an image and an image
  in terms of reality.
• E.H. Gombrich
• If you ask me what the world looks like to me,
  it looks like a painting by Pissarro. Ernst
  Gombrich

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• Camille Pissaro, Boulevard des Italiens

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Contibution to Film Realism

• A) The lack of narrative structure Truer to
  actual situations
• Unclear narrative goal - e.g. the protagonists
  drift aimlessly, start actions on the spur of the
  moment (Chabrol's Les Cousins, Rivettes Paris,
  nous appartient)
• Improvisation - unpredictable / natural

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Contribution to Film Realism

• Constant detours and digressions from the main
  gangster film narrative (Truffaut's Tirez sur le
  pianiste, Shoot the Piano Player, 1960)

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Contribution to Film Realism

• b) Unconventional mise-en-scène
• Location shooting and opposition to studio
  filmmaking the influence of Neorealist
  filmmakers (Rivette's Paris Belongs to Us and
  almost all other Nouvelle vague films)
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vtrxPuwQYRAk

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Contribution to Film Realism

• Studio lighting was replaced by available light
  and some auxiliary sources. Filming without
  artificial lighting was made possible by the
  availability of fast film stock.
• e.g. Quatre cents coups

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Contribution to Film Realism

• Frequent and agile camera movements - panning and
  tracking by a hand-held camera or a light camera.
• Eclaire camera (mainly used in documentary film -
  direct cinema)

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Contribution to Film Realism

• The long tracking shot with a hand-held camera of
  Antoin Doinel in Quatre Cents Coups
• Impressive stop-motion (formalist ending)

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Contribution to Film Realism

• Hand-held elcaire camera captures Patricia and
  Michel walking along Champs Elysée
• Passer-bys gaze at them and walk in front of the
  camera.

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Contribution to Film Realism

• Claude Lelouches Un Homme et une femme (1966)
• Images go occasionally out of focus or shot
  against light or the sun

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Contribution to Film Realism

• François Truffauts Jules et Jim (1962) -
  encyclopedia of film techniques (freeze frame,
  wipe, masking, swish pan, the insertion of
  newsreel footage and still photos, etc.)
• Casual composition and out of focus photography
  shot by zoom lens.
• Film as play and joke (e.g.)

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Contribution to Film Realism

• Significant influence on new American films in
  the 1960 and 70s
• George Roy Hills Butch Cassidy and the Sundance
  Kid
• Casual filmmaking - images go out of focus
• Bicycle scene

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Contribution to Film Realism

• Direct sound recording with noises not being
  erased
• Eric Rohmers films

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Realism or Formalism?

• Nouvelle vague filmmakers - self-conscious
  filmmakers
• Do not hide that their films are disguised
  reality
• They rather manifest that their films are films
  - something artificially created and invented

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Realism or Formalism?

• Films are created not only from imitating reality
  but also from referring to other films - a form
  of artifice
• Films are not representations of reality but
  commentaries on the film and the process of
  filmmaking

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Realism or Formalism?

• Jean-Luc Godards Pierrot le feu
• Samuel Fullers cameo appearance commenting on
  filmmaking.
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vZPXV_Tm6iIw

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Realism or Formalism?

• A film is made of quotations from other films.
• A bout de souffle and Humphrey Bogart
• Phillip Marlow in Big Sleep and Michel in A Bout
  de souffle