Contextual Study Evaluation

Contextual Study Evaluation

     For my contextual studies, I chose to study the French New Wave movement. I decided to focus on two directors – Jean-Luc Godard, and Francois Truffaut, and analyse three films from the two directors. I decided to choose two films from the same director in order to be able to make reference to the auteur theory, and provide textual evidence in order to highlight this theory. Though using one of Truffaut's films also allowed me to compare their different approach to directing, and how their works helped to shape the movement in individual ways.  There was a large range of French New Wave films that i could have analysed, but the three I chose were: Breathless (1960), Band of Outsiders (1964), and The 400 Blows (1959); this is because all three are more renowned films – The 400 Blows even won Truffaut an award at the Cannes film festival, and in my opinion some of the most defining films in the era. Though before covering the films in the essay, I decided to delve into the history of the French New Wave, and particularly the history of my chosen directors in order to provide some context and justify their reasoning for 'breaking the rules of cinema'. Studying their pasts as film critics and particularly the 'Cahiers du Cinema' allowed me to study key scenes in more depth as the history provided me with the directors' visions for their films and how they implemented techniques to achieve their unique look. When studying the works of Godard, I found that he was interested in 'destroying cinema', and because of this I tended to focus on the production and post-production of his films – technicalities such as the camerawork and editing style, how his unnatural techniques opposed conventional cinema. When studying Truffaut's The 400 Blows, I focused more on the characters of the film and the director's justification for his narrative choices, since the film was described as almost autobiographical. Though some of his techniques were similar to Godard's, Truffaut was actually interested in bringing cinema into a high-culture state of art and entertainment, so rather than try to just purely oppose mainstream cinema, he attempted to bring his stylistic choices into light and shape the way that films were created and viewed in the future. The difference in the director's views on cinema allowed me to compare and contrast their work and how it defines their ideoligies. Before starting my essay, i conducted research and collected a sustainable amount of information on which I would base my contextual study; I found information from a range of sources such as websites and books; however, during writing my essay i found myself referencing the same source on some occasions, therefore in the future I will accumulate research from a wider range of sources, which will allow me to include more valid evidence and context in my essay. I have structured my essay in a way that there is a clear aim of each paragraph, this is to make sure that the information is set out in a clear and concise method in order to meet the gradin criteria. If i were to improve on this essay, I would probably make an effort to link the director's work to the context of the French New Wave more thouroughly,  this would help to develop a deeper understanding of the movement and why the directors made such an impact on the film industry. Also, I would conduct more in-depth textual analysis of key scenes within my chosen films, picking up on things such as lighting and camera angles, and using technical vocabulary would help to display my understanding of the topic.