For my contextual study essay, I will be studying the French New Wave, exploring how the social, cultural, and political conditions of the country at the time helped to shape the movement. I will be looking at the work of Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, and how their work boasted an unconventional style of filmmaking which defined the new wave era. In my research I will analyze scenes and features of three main films: Breathless (1960), Band of Outlaws (1964), and 400 Blows (1959).
Cinema became very important to the people of culture-starved, post-war France. Due to German occupation and censorship, the country had missed out on almost a decade of foreign film culture. The year of 1946 saw foreign films and previously banned French films become available to the public. It was during this time, beginning from around the early '50s, that arguably one of the most influential movements ever to take place in cinema was born, the French New Wave era. Beforehand however, in the late 1940s, French movie enthusiasts became infatuated with the idea that filmmakers of the time were artists, and their film-work was their canvas on which they produced a story. "In their view, a Hitchcock film was a Hitchcock film, and not just a product churned out by the studios". Film critic Alexandre Austruc planted the idea that films were a vision of a single artist in his essay titled: 'The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: La Camera-Stylo'. He labelled the new age of cinema "the age if the camera-stylo (camera pen)", stating that he believed that a camera to a director was as a typewriter is to a writer - a tool used to by a single artist. This idea was carried forward by probably the most important film journal of the era; set up by Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Andre Bazin in 1951 - 'Cahiers du Cinema' boasted the arrival of a younger generation of passionate film critics, including the four directors later to become known as the 'young turks': Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, and Jacques Rivette. The theory of the 'camera-pen' also laid the foundation for the development of the Auteur Theory, which states that the director of the movie is considered the author of the movie, and that particular directors "bear their own personal stamp"[7] and have an individual style of visual elements that are frequent throughout their work. Directors became 'authors' of a film, using the camera as a pen to tell a story. Films of the French New Wave rejected the conventional methods of storytelling used by mainstream studios, the directors felt that mainstream cinema and fixed narratives limited the audience's ability to perceive and react to films in a genuine way that they would to real life. They also believed that films were lacking in emotion, and thought they were 'dry, recycled, and inexpressive' [2]. These directors wanted to 'break the rules' of cinema, to experiment with innovative and unusual filming techniques, and thus create a fresh and innovative cinema experience.
The film 'Breathless' (1960) - directed by Jean-Luc Godard, follows Michel, who after stealing a car in Marseille and shooting a police officer, meets Patricia - an American student in Paris. She agrees to help him hide while he tries to gather money for an escape to Italy, but eventually she betrays him as the police close in. Godard approached the film's narrative in a radical fashion that subverted from the conventional crime archetypes. "His years as a critic, his immersion in both high and low culture, his philosophical explorations, all impacted on his debut feature film"[9]; films at the time were considered low culture, acting merely as forms of entertainment and containing little meaning, however Godard aspired to bring cinema into the world of high-culture art, making films with both cultural and aesthetic value. At this point Godard was an unknown in the world of cinema, making only a few shorts beforehand, and as a result he was relatively inexperienced and had a sparse knowledge of practical film techniques; though this didn't matter, as he once said in an interview, the film was a "result of a decade's worth of making movies in my head"[9] - Godard was an avid fan of classic American noir films, and his time in 'Cahiers du Cinema' allowed him to study these films and their conventions, which is why many of Godard's films pay homage to classic American noir. A large factor of the French New Wave was to capture spontaneity and genuine reactions, this was a philosophy of Godard's, who made up a lot of the dialogue for the film as he shot the film. In Breathless, all of the dialogue was actually dubbed in the final cut, as Godard would feed actors lines from behind the camera as they were rolling. Breathless was also a defining film which helped to inspire documentary-style filmmaking, it was shot almost entirely with handheld cameras, using only natural and available light. Over 50 years on, this technique is used by contemporary cinema as a technique to immerse the audience in a work of fiction, by making them feel like they're in the film, and share the emotions the characters are feeling. However, Godard aimed to achieve the exact opposite; he was heavily influenced by playwright Bertolt Brecht, who constantly reminded the audience they were watching a play. Godard followed this philosophy by calling the audience's attention to things that are meant to be unnoticeable in mainstream cinema in order to achieve self-reflexivity. For example, in one of Godard's other motion pictures – Pierrot Le Fou, characters Ferdinand and Marianne break the 4th wall and address the audience frequently, at one point one of the character asks: "who are you talking to?", and the other replies with "the audience". Godard is renowned for his use of jump-cuts in Breathless, but these were not intentional, initially the run-time of the film was too long, but rather than cut out entire scenes, Godard decided to cut pieces out of the middle of single shots. This gave the film an unpolished and unnatural effect as it seemed as the film was jumping forward in time. This is evident in one particular scene, where our protagonist Michel is in a car with Patricia, where Godard implements six jump-cuts in under ten seconds. This represents an unnatural style of editing because the two characters are simply talking, but the jump-cuts disrupt the flow of conversation and strip the film of continuity, almost making the clip into a montage of dialogue rather than a single conversation. Another famous scene in which this technique is utilised in is when Michel shoots the policeman, Godard uses a jump-cut, just as Michel fires the gun the shot cuts to the policeman lying on the ground - we don't actually see him get shot. This is a prime example of Godard cutting out pieces of clips that might not need to be seen as he believed the audience would be able to figure out what happened without the extra footage.
The 1964 movie 'Band of Outsiders' is Godard's seventh feature length film. It follows two men – Franz and Arthur, who long for a life of crime after having grown up admiring gangster movies. They meet a woman named Odile (played by Anna Karina – Godard's wife), who happens to live with her aunt in a house with a large amount of money; eventually the two will try and rob the woman of her large sum of money. In an interview that was recorded during filming, Godard states that the movie "went along with his desire to show that nothing was off limits" [11]. In the opening credits of the film, the director demonstrates his light-hearted and carefree approach to film making, giving himself the middle name 'CINEMA'. It's merely Godard making fun of himself, but it simultaneously represents the rebelliousness of the French New Wave. An interesting quality about this film is how Godard represents the characters, there is no defining protagonist or antagonist; "all of the characterization is dynamic and Godard never says 'here are the bad guys, her is whom you should root for' "[4], instead Godard presents us with characters with which there is no obvious morality, therefore allowing the audience to pass their own judgement and have their own opinions. At one point in the film, the characters sit in a café for a whole minute in full silence. Conventional filmmakers of the time would never dare to include such a scene, as it doesn't add anything to the film or bring any meaning to the narrative, it's just there. Again, this is a defining moment within Godard's work as it demonstrates his experimentality and disregard for the rules of cinema. Probably the most iconic scene in the film is the dance scene, in which our three protagonists begin to dance in the middle of a café. An important note is that this scene was shot on-location in public, the crew are in a genuine café at the busiest hour of a regular day. It is evident that the routine isn't perfect, as the actors aren't perfectly in time, and they keep looking to each other for reassurance as they make little mistakes; but that is just the effect Godard is trying to achieve, he doesn't aim for a perfectly polished and flawless film, he captures the spirit and essence of the characters' personalities and their lives. This is to oppose mainstream film companies, who would have perhaps spent hours on rehearsals and different takes in order to create a perfect scene; during the clip, you can see bystanders in the background gathering to watch the trio dance. These people aren't actors or extras, they are real people in a public place watching this scene unfold before them. At one point, Odile is dancing on her own, and a waiter squeezes by her to deliver an order to a table, again he isn't an actor, that is his job. You can also see that the scene is shot entirely with a single shot, no other camera angles are used and there are no cuts, it is simply one camera man following the group as they move around the room.
Francois Truffaut's 'The 400 Blows' won him the award for the best director at the Cannes Film Festival in 1959, and is one of the defining films that spearheaded the French New Wave movement. Truffaut made the film he had been wanted others to create, 'based substantially on events from his childhood, it marked his transition from controversial critic to world famous film director' [11]. Film auteurs leave their own personal stamp on their work, and implement their 'individual themes, psychological preoccupations, and stylistic practices' [12]. Truffaut vindicated his right to be an auteur in his own right by making 'The 400 Blows' almost autographical, the film's characters and circumstances were based on the early life of the director; Truffaut even picked the protagonist's actor Jean-Pierre Leaud as he felt that he bore a resemblance to the director himself at the age of 14. In his review for 'The 400 Blows' in Cahiers du Cinema, Jacques Rivette wrote "in speaking of himself, he seems to be speaking of us" - emphasizing that Truffaut captured the essence of what it was like to be a 14-year-old in Paris in that time, and from that audiences were able to empathize with the characters. The French New Wave took influence from the Italian Neorealism movement, the directors' time as film critics allowed them to study Italian directors who shot on location due to both financial limitations and practical reasons. Though this was beneficial as not only did on-location shooting limit expenses, it provided directors with 'greater creativity, freedom, and a degree of realism'[12]. In one scene the boys steal an alarm clock, and as they run down the street it begins to ring, you can see how real bystanders stop and react to the commotion being caused, adding an element of realism by catching people in real-life situations. The long take was a common shot type used throughout French New Wave films, whereas jump-cuts involved fast editing and multiple cuts, the long take was a single shot which played uninterrupted for a long period. Perhaps one of the most significant uses of this type of shot is in the final moments of The 400 Blows; this involves our protagonist Antoine escaping from the school and running towards the sea, the scene is shot continuously in a single shot, and lasts for approximately two minutes.
To conclude, the filming techniques used by directors during the French New Wave have paved the way for a new and innovative style of filmmaking, and the movement as a whole has encouraged directors t. Both Godard and Truffaut had very different approaches to their work, for example, Godard's techniques such as jump-cuts and breaking of the fourth wall, created an experience in which the audience were not immersed, but fully aware of the fact that they were watching a work of fiction. On the other hand, Truffaut reflected his own personal experiences through his work – particularly his relationship with his wife Anna Karina, and so audiences for the first time were able to empathise with characters with the film.
Godard approached the story in ways that departed radically from past genre archetypes. His years as a critic, his immersion in both high and low culture, his philosophical explorations, all impacted on his debut feature film. As he said in an interview, the film was the result of “a decade’s worth of making movies in my head.” The fact that he was relatively inexperienced and had little knowledge of the practical aspects of filmmaking proved unimportant. 