French New Wave

Also known as “Nouvelle Vague”, the French New Wave movement emerged in France in
the late 1950s. It emerged as a critique of the “Old Hollywood” style of film making. The
film movement was inspired by the vision and thoughts of the writers if “Cahiers Du
Cinema”, a film magazine owned by Andre Bazin. Directors of the French New Wave were
young, idealistic members of “Cahiers Du Cinema”, like Jean-Luc-Godard, Francois Truffaut
and Eric Rohmer.
Proponents of the French New Wave, used cinema as means of creative expression post the
doom and gloom of the 2nd World war. The New Wave directors, rejected all aspects of
popular film making which resembled or replicated the Hollywood Style of film making. This
meant that it rejected the easy-to-follow narratives shown in Hollywood films produced by
big studios. The creative process was controlled by the studios in order to ensure maximum
profits for their movies. The French New Wave in turn, wanted to wrest creative control back
to the directors. Due to the rejection of big studios, there was a low budget to produce
movies, thus film makers had to resort to innovative measures to make creative works of art.
Characteristics
 Rejects the Big Studios
French New Wave directors, wanted to take back creative control of their movies back from
the big studios. They wanted to explore complex and innovative themes that were not
encouraged by the big studios. The big studios, did not want to risk their money on themes
that were too challenging for audiences to ensure a good profit. The new wave directors thus,
used this opportunity to explore new and innovative storytelling styles.
Working at a low budget without resources, they evolved cost effective measures to make
their movies. Movies were thus now shot on location and not inside expensive film studios.
They were shot with handheld cameras, utilising natural lighting. These movies were also not
dubbed to save costs.
 Rejects strong Narrative
Directors of the French New Wave wanted to challenge audiences. They rejected the
Hollywood style of film making that created easy to understand consumable content to
guarantee profits. Instead, French New Wave films challenged audiences to fulfil gaps in the
narrative on their own. These films wanted to remove the complacency of the audience while
watching a movie and aimed to make the audiences utilise their imagination and thinking
power to understand the movie. Innovative styles of film making were employed like the use
of jump cuts, breaking the 4th wall etc.
Instead of a heavily scripted story, New Wave directors favoured improvisation in the
scripting and the performances.
 Complex themes and narratives
French New wave films explored themes, ideas and narratives that weren’t explored in
commercial cinema at the time. Concepts such as existentialism were explored. Long takes
were often employed to allow the minds of the audiences to wander and add their own input
and experiences to the film.
The French New Wave films did not use stars to sell their movie to audiences. Women were
central to narrative of these stories and worked against the taboo of women’s sexuality that
existed at the time. The creators of these films wanted to ensure that the art form of Cinema,
was accorded the same respect and reverence, that other art forms such as literature and
painting evoked. It was aimed to reveal the creativity of literature and served as a critique of
the burgeoning commercialisation of Cinema.
Eg: The 400 Blows (1959), Hiroshima mon amour (1959), Breathless (1960)