The New Wave (French: La Nouvelle Vague) was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced (in part) by Italian Neorealism. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of classical cinematic form and their spirit of youthful iconoclasm. Many also engaged in their work with the social and political upheavals of the era, making their radical experiments with editing, visual style, and narrative part of a general break with the conservative paradigm. A blanket term is a word or phrase that is used to describe multiple groups of related things. ... Les Enfants du Paradis (Marcel Carne), one of the greatest French films ever made La regle du jeu (Jean Renoir), another candidate for the best French film LAtalante (Jean Vigo) La belle et la bête (Jean Cocteau) Diary of a Country Priest (Robert Bresson) Vivre sa Vie (Jean... The 1950s decade refers to the years 1950 to 1959 inclusive. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969. ... Italian neorealism is a film movement characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class, filmed in long takes on location, frequently using nonprofessional actors for secondary and sometimes primary roles. ... Statues in the Cathedral of Saint Martin, Utrecht, attacked in Reformation iconoclasm in the 16th century. ...

Some of the most prominent pioneers among the group, including Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Éric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol and Jacques Rivette, began as critics for the famous film magazine Cahiers du cinéma. Co-founder and theorist André Bazin was a prominent source of influence for the movement. By means of criticism and editorialization, they laid the groundwork for a surge of concepts which was later coined as the auteur theory (or, more correctly, "La politique des auteurs" ("The policy of authors")). Jean-Luc Godard (French IPA: ) (born 3 December 1930) is a French filmmaker and one of the most influential members of the Nouvelle Vague, or French New Wave. Born to Franco-Swiss parents in Paris, he was educated in Nyon, Switzerland, later studying at the Lycée Rohmer, and the... François Roland Truffaut (French IPA: ) (February 6, 1932 – October 21, 1984) was one of the founders of the French New Wave in filmmaking, and remains an icon of the French film industry. ... Éric Rohmer (born Jean-Marie Maurice Scherer, April 4, 1920, Tulle, France) is a French film director and screenwriter. ... Claude Chabrol (French IPA: ) (born June 24, 1930, Paris) is a French film director and has become well-known since his first film, Le Beau Serge (1958) for his chilling tales of murder, including Le Boucher (1970). ... Jacques Rivette (born March 1, 1928) is a French film director. ... Cahiers du cinéma is an influential French film magazine founded in 1951 by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca. ... André Bazin on the cover of the third volume of the original edition of Quest-ce que le cinéma? André Bazin (April 18, 1918 – November 11, 1958) was a renowned and influential French film critic and film theorist. ... Auteurs redirects here. ...

It holds that the director is the "author" of his movies, with a personal signature visible from film to film. They praised movies by Jean Renoir and Jean Vigo, and made then-radical cases for the artistic distinction and greatness of Hollywood studio directors such as John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock and Nicholas Ray. The beginning of the New Wave was to some extent an exercise by the Cahiers writers in applying this philosophy to the world by directing movies themselves. Director Herbert Brenon with actress Alla Nazimova on the set of War Brides, 1916 A director is a person who directs the making of a film. ... Jean Renoir Jean Renoir (September 15, 1894 – February 12, 1979), born in the Montmartre Quarter of Paris, France was a film director. ... Jean Vigo (April 26, 1905 – October 5, 1934) was a short-lived French film director, who helped in the establishment of poetic realism in film in the 1930s and went on to be a posthumous influence on the French nouvelle vague of the late 1950s and early 1960s. ... ... For other persons named John Ford, see John Ford (disambiguation). ... Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock KBE (August 13, 1899 â€“ April 29, 1980) was an iconic and highly influential British-born film director and producer who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and thriller genres. ... Nicholas Ray (born Raymond Nicholas Kienzle) (August 7, 1911–June 16, 1979) was an American film director. ...

Chabrol's Le Beau Serge (1958) is generally credited as the first New Wave feature. Truffaut, with The 400 Blows (1959) and Godard, with Breathless (1960) had unexpected international successes, both critical and financial, that turned the world's attention to the activities of the New Wave and enabled the movement to flourish. Other directors active in the movement, although not necessarily part of the core Cahiers contributors, included Robert Bresson, and Jacques Demy. Le Beau Serge is a French film directed by Claude Chabrol, released in 1958 Synopsis Francois returns to his village after a long absence. ... This article is about the French film. ... Year 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Breathless. ... Year 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Robert Bresson (French IPA: ) (September 25, 1901 – December 18, 1999) was a French film director known for his spiritual, ascetic style. ... The director and screenwriter Jacques Demy (1931 - 1990) was one of the most approachable filmmakers of the French New Wave. ...

Despite their similarities to the New Wave, films by Alain Resnais and Agnès Varda belonged more precisely to the parallel Rive Gauche movement, along with Chris Marker, Marguerite Duras, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jean Cayrol and Henri Colpi. The group was of an older generation and strongly tied to the nouveau roman movement in literature. Like the New Wave, its members would often collaborate with each other.^[1] Alain Resnais (born June 3, 1922 ) is a French film director whose early works are often grouped within the New Wave or Nouvelle Vague film movement. ... Agnès Varda (born May 30, 1928) is a French filmmaker and director based in Paris and one of the key figures in modern film. ... Chris Marker (born July 29, 1921) is a French writer, photographer, film director, multimedia artist and documentary maker. ... Marguerite Donnadieu, better known as Marguerite Duras, (April 4, 1914 – March 3, 1996) was a French writer and film director. ... Alain Robbe-Grillet Alain Robbe-Grillet (1922-) is a French writer and filmmaker, born in Brest, Finistère, France into a family of engineers and scientists. ... Jean Cayrol is a French poet, who wrote the emotionless narration in Alain Resnaiss 1955 documentary film, Night and Fog. ... Henri Colpi won the palme dor at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival for the Luis Bunuel-directed film Viridiana(1961). ... The nouveau roman (French: new novel) is a type of 1950s French novel that diverged from classical literary genres. ...

Louis Malle is often incorrectly labeled as part of the new wave, but his style and theory share nothing with the auteur theory that categorized the styles of true new wave directors like Truffaut, Godard, and Chabrol. Louis Malle (October 30, 1932 – November 23, 1995) was an Academy Award nominated French film director, working in both French and English. ... François Roland Truffaut (February 6, 1932–October 21, 1984) was one of the founders of the French New Wave in filmmaking, and remains an icon of the French film industry. ... See also Goddard. ... Claude Chabrol (born June 24, 1930, Paris) is a French movie director and has become well-known in the 40 years since his first film, Le Beau Serge, for his chilling tales of murder, including Le Boucher. ...

Origins of the movement

When asked where New Wave began, most will point to a famous film journal named Cahiers du cinéma. Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette, and others tied closely to the ideas of the movement began as critics for this journal, and used publishing as a lead into what would soon become a wider attack on the classic ‘literary’ style of French Cinema. Cahiers du cinéma is an influential French film magazine founded in 1951 by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca. ...

French New Wave was “in style” roughly between 1958 and 1964, although popular New Wave work existed as late as 1973. The socio-economic forces at play shortly after World War II strongly influenced the movement. A politically and financially drained France tended to fall back to the old popular traditions before the war. One such tradition was straight narrative cinema, specifically classical French film. The movement has its roots in rebellion against the reliance on past forms (often adapted from traditional novellic structures), criticizing in particular the way these forms could force the audience to submit to a dictatorial plot-line. New Wave critics and directors studied the work of these and other classics. They did not reject them, but rather found a new outlet for the same creative energies. The low-budget approach helped film-makers get at the essential art form and find what, to them, was a much more comfortable and honest form of production. Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Howard Hawks, John Ford, and many B-film directors were held up in admiration while standard Hollywood films bound by traditional narrative flow were strongly criticized.

Film techniques

The movies featured unprecedented methods of expression, such as seven-minute tracking shots (like the famous traffic jam sequence in Godard's 1967 film Week End). Also, these movies featured existential themes, such as stressing the individual and the acceptance of the absurdity of human existence. In motion picture terminology, a tracking shot is the same as a dolly shot or a trucking shot--the camera is mounted on a wheeled platform that is pushed on rails while the picture is being taken. ... Le weekend is a 1967 black comedy movie written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard, and shot in full color by Raoul Coutard. ... Existentialism is the philosophical movement positing that individual human beings create the meaning and essence of their lives as persons. ...

Lightweight cameras, lights, and sound equipment allowed the New Wave directors to shoot in the streets, rather than in studios. This fluid camera motion became a trademark of the movement, with shots often following characters down Paris streets. This article is about the capital of France. ...

Many of the French New Wave films were produced on small budgets, often shot in a friend's apartment, using the director's friends as the cast and crew. Directors were also forced to improvise with equipment (for example, using a shopping cart for tracking shots). The cost of film was also a major concern; thus, efforts to save film turned into stylistic innovations: for example, in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (À bout de souffle), several scenes feature jump cuts, as they were filmed in one long take: parts that didn't work were simply cut right from the middle of the take, a purposeful stylistic decision. Jean-Luc Godard (French IPA: ) (born 3 December 1930) is a French filmmaker and one of the most influential members of the Nouvelle Vague, or French New Wave. Born to Franco-Swiss parents in Paris, he was educated in Nyon, Switzerland, later studying at the Lycée Rohmer, and the... For other uses, see Breathless. ... In film editing, a jump cut is a cut between two similar scenes, so that the objects in them appear to jump from one position to another. ...

The cinematic stylings of French New Wave brought a fresh look to cinema with improvised dialogue, rapid changes of scene, and shots that go beyond the common 180º axis. The camera was used not to mesmerize the audience with elaborate narrative and illusory images, but to play with and break past the common expectations of cinema. The techniques used to shock the audience out of submission and awe were so bold and direct that Jean-Luc Godard has been accused of having contempt for his audience. His stylistic approach can be seen as a desperate struggle against the mainstream cinema of the time, or a degrading attack on the viewer’s naivete. Either way, the challenging awareness represented by this movement remains in cinema today. Effects that now seem either trite or commonplace, such as a character stepping out of her role in order to address the audience directly, were radically innovative at the time.

Classic French cinema adhered to the principles of strong narrative, creating what Godard described as an oppressive and deterministic aesthetic of plot. In contrast, New Wave filmmakers made no attempts to suspend the viewer’s disbelief; in fact, they took steps to constantly remind the viewer that a film is just a sequence of moving images, no matter how clever the use of light and shadow. The result is a set of oddly disjointed scenes without attempt at unity; or an actor whose character changes from one scene to the next; or sets in which onlookers accidentally make their way onto camera along with extras, who in fact were hired to do just the same.

At the heart of New Wave technique is the issue of money and production value. In the context of social and economic troubles of a post-WWII France, filmmakers sought low-budget alternatives to the usual production methods. Half necessity and half vision, New Wave directors used all that they had available to channel their artistic visions directly to the theatre.

Lasting effects

As with most art-film movements, the innovations of the New Wavers trickled down to the American cinema. Beginning with the heavily evident stylistic similarities in Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde (1967), the following generation of American young, studio-hired filmmakers known as New Hollywood (e.g. Altman, Coppola, De Palma, Polanski and Scorsese) of the late 1960s and early 1970s all claim and display influence from the French tradition of the previous decade. American cinema has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. ... Arthur Penn (born September 27, 1922 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a film director of thoughtful films that dont always find an audience. ... Bonnie and Clyde (1967) is a film about Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, bank robbers who roamed the central United States during the Great Depression. ... Year 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the 1967 Gregorian calendar. ... New Hollywood or post-classical Hollywood refers to the brief time between roughly 1967 (Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate) and 1982 (One from the Heart) when a new generation of young filmmakers came to prominence in America, drastically changing not only the way Hollywood films were produced and marketed, but... For other persons named Robert Altman, see Robert Altman (disambiguation). ... Francis Ford Coppola (born April 7, 1939) is a five-time Academy Award winning American film director, producer, and screenwriter. ... Brian De Palma (born Brian Russell DePalma on September 11, 1940 in Newark, New Jersey) is a controversial American film director, best known for directing the Al Pacino classic Scarface, and the Academy Award-winning The Untouchables. ... Roman Polanski (born August 18, 1933) is an Academy Award-winning film director, writer, actor, and producer. ... Martin Marcantonio Luciano Scorsese (IPA: AmE: ; Ita: []) (b. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, also called The Seventies. ...

Bob Rafelson, a member of the New Hollywood movement (Five Easy Pieces), claimed that the Marx Brothers and the French New Wave influenced his vision for the television series, The Monkees, which he created and oversaw. Rafelson, with Jack Nicholson, went on to direct the Monkees' feature film, the surrealistic Head which displays a strong New Wave influence. Robert (Bob) Rafelson (born February 21, 1933 in New York City) is an American film director, writer and producer. ... Five Easy Pieces is a 1970 film written by Carole Eastman (as Adrien Joyce) and Bob Rafelson, and directed by Rafelson. ... This article is about the comedian siblings. ... The Monkees were a pop-rock quartet created and based in Los Angeles in 1965 for an NBC American television series of the same name. ... John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937), known as Jack Nicholson, is a three time Academy Award-winning American actor internationally renowned for his often dark-themed portrayals of neurotic characters. ... Head is a motion picture released in 1968, starring TV group The Monkees (in credit order: Peter Tork, Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz and Michael Nesmith), and distributed by Columbia Pictures. ...

Likewise, the influence of the movement was seen in a number of other national cinemas globally - beginning in the 1960s, and continuing to the present day. Similar movements arose in a number of European countries, and a large nuberu bagu arose in Japan during the early 1960s, which was somewhat different in its origins, but similar in techniques and trajectory^[2][3]. The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969. ... Nuberu bagu (from French nouvelle vague) is the term for a group of Japanese film directors emerging from the late 1950s through the early 1970s. ...

Many contemporary filmmakers, including Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson, claim influence from the New Wave. Quentin Tarantino dedicated Reservoir Dogs to Jean-Luc Godard and named his production company A Band Apart, a play on words of the Godard film Bande à part. Wes Anderson's sardonic comedies are known to carry influence from the French New Wave; for example, the opening scenes of The Royal Tenenbaums closely mimic the style and cinematography used in the opening scene of Agnes Varda's Cleo from 5 to 7. Additionally, the 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was filmed using techniques borrowed from Godard.^[4] Quentin Jerome Tarantino (born March 27, 1963) is a Palme dOr-winning American film director, actor, and an Oscar winning screenwriter. ... Wesley Wales Anderson (born May 1, 1969) is an American writer, producer, and director of films and commercials. ... For the video game based on the film, see Reservoir Dogs (video game). ... A Band Apart is a production company created by a number of famous and acclaimed movie directors. ... Bande à Part is French bossa nova group Nouvelle Vagues second album, released in 2006. ... The Royal Tenenbaums is the 2001 dramatic comedy about three genius siblings who experience great success in youth, and even greater disappointment and failure after their eccentric father leaves them in their adolescent years. ... Agn s Varda (born May 30, 1928) is a French filmmaker and director based in Paris and one of the key figures in modern film. ... Cleo from 5 to 7 (Cléo de 5 à 7) is a 1962 film by Agnès Varda. ... Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is an Academy Award-winning 2004 American romance film by director Michel Gondry. ...

Major figures

• Jean-Pierre Melville
• François Truffaut
• Jean-Luc Godard
• Claude Chabrol
• Éric Rohmer
• Jacques Rivette
• Alain Resnais
• Agnes Varda
• Jacques Demy

Jean-Pierre Melville (born Jean-Pierre Grumbach) (October 20, 1917 – August 2, 1973) was a noted French director. ... François Roland Truffaut (French IPA: ) (February 6, 1932 – October 21, 1984) was one of the founders of the French New Wave in filmmaking, and remains an icon of the French film industry. ... Jean-Luc Godard (French IPA: ) (born 3 December 1930) is a French filmmaker and one of the most influential members of the Nouvelle Vague, or French New Wave. Born to Franco-Swiss parents in Paris, he was educated in Nyon, Switzerland, later studying at the Lycée Rohmer, and the... Claude Chabrol (French IPA: ) (born June 24, 1930, Paris) is a French film director and has become well-known since his first film, Le Beau Serge (1958) for his chilling tales of murder, including Le Boucher (1970). ... Éric Rohmer (born Jean-Marie Maurice Scherer, April 4, 1920, Tulle, France) is a French film director and screenwriter. ... Jacques Rivette (born March 1, 1928) is a French film director. ... Alain Resnais (born June 3, 1922 ) is a French film director whose early works are often grouped within the New Wave or Nouvelle Vague film movement. ... Agn s Varda (born May 30, 1928) is a French filmmaker and director based in Paris and one of the key figures in modern film. ... The director and screenwriter Jacques Demy (1931 - 1990) was one of the most approachable filmmakers of the French New Wave. ...

Minor figures

• Marguerite Duras
• Jean Eustache
• Bernadette Lafont
• Chris Marker
• Luc Moullet
• Jacques Rozier

Marguerite Donnadieu, better known as Marguerite Duras, (April 4, 1914 – March 3, 1996) was a French writer and film director. ... Jean Eustache (November 30, 1938 - November 4, 1981) was a famous French filmmaker, whose best known feature film was the 210 minute film The Mother and the Whore. ... Bernadette Lafont (born October 25, 1938) is a French actress. ... Chris Marker (born July 29, 1921) is a French writer, photographer, film director, multimedia artist and documentary maker. ... Luc Moullet (born 14 October 1937 in Paris) is a French film critic and filmmaker, and a member of the Nouvelle Vague or French New Wave. ... Jacques Rozier (born in 1926 in Paris) is a French film director and screenwriter Filmography Fifi Martingale (2001) Maine-Ocean (1985) Les Naufrages de lIle de la Tortue / The Castaways of Turtle Island (1976) Du Cote DOrouet / Near Orouet (1971) Jean Vigo [doc] (1964) Le Parti Des Choses...

Frequent Collaborators

• Anna Karina
• Brigitte Bardot
• Gerard Blain
• Jean-Claude Brialy
• Jeanne Moreau
• Jean Paul Belmondo
• Jean-Pierre Léaud
• Jean Seberg
• Raoul Coutard
• Catherine Deneuve

For the novel, see Anna Karenina. ... Brigitte Bardot (French IPA: ) (born September 28, 1934) is a BAFTA Awards-nominated French actress, former fashion model, singer, known nationalist, animal rights activist, and considered the embodiment of the 1950s and 1960s sex kitten. ... Brialy, Jean-Claude (b. ... Jeanne Moreau (French IPA: ; born 23 January 1928) is a BAFTA Awards-winning French actress, screenwriter and director. ... Jean Paul Belmondo Jean-Paul Belmondo (born April 9, 1933) is a French actor. ... Jean-Pierre Léaud (born May 5, 1944) is a French actor. ... Jean Seberg (November 13, 1938 – September 8, 1979) was an American actress who spent an important part of her career in France. ... Raoul Coutard is a French cinematographer who has contributed to over seventy five films. ... Catherine Deneuve (French IPA: ), (October 22, 1943, in Paris, France), is an Academy Award-nominated French actress. ...

Theoretical Influences

• Andre Bazin
• Alexandre Astruc
• Huaco

Andr Bazin (April 18, 1918–November 11, 1958) was a famous and influential French film critic and film theorist. ... Alexandre Astruc is a French film director born July 13, 1923, in Paris (France). ... Gauco, huaco, or guao, also vejuco and bejuco are terms applied to various Central and South American, and West Indian plants, reputed to have curative powers. ...

See also

• British New Wave
• Cinema Novo (Brazilian New Wave)
• Czechoslovak New Wave
• Hong Kong New Wave
• New Hollywood
• No Wave Cinema
• Nuberu bagu (Japanese New Wave)
• Remodernist Film
• Taiwan New Wave

The British New Wave is the name given to a trend in filmmaking among directors in Britain in the late fifties and early sixties. ... Cinema Novo was a movement among Brazilian film makers in the second half of the 20th century, summarized by the phrase Uma câmera na mão e uma idéia na cabeça (which roughly translates to A camera in the hand and an idea in the head). The... The Czechoslovak New Wave (also Czech New Wave or Czechoslovakian New Wave) is a term used for the early works of 1960s Czechoslovakian directors Miloš Forman, Věra Chytilová, Ivan Passer, Jaroslav Papoušek, Jirí Menzel, Jan Němec, Jaromír Jireš, and others. ... The Hong Kong New Wave was a blanket term applied to a number of young, groundbreaking Hong Kong filmmakers of the late 1970s and 1980s, many trained in overseas film programs and with experience in the territorys thriving television drama scene. ... New Hollywood or post-classical Hollywood refers to the brief time between roughly 1967 (Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate) and 1982 (One from the Heart) when a new generation of young filmmakers came to prominence in America, drastically changing not only the way Hollywood films were produced and marketed, but... No Wave Cinema was a nearly nine year boom (1976-1985) in underground filmmaking on the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City. ... Nuberu bagu (from French nouvelle vague) is the term for a group of Japanese film directors emerging from the late 1950s through the early 1970s. ... Remodernist film developed in the United States and the United Kingdom in the late 1990s and early 21st century and is related to the British art movement Stuckism and its manifesto, Remodernism. ... The history of Chinese-language cinema has three separate threads of development: Cinema of Hong Kong, Cinema of China and Cinema of Taiwan. ...

Notes

1. ^ Clouzot, Claire Le cinéma français depuis la nouvelle vague, Fernand Nathan/Alliance Française, 1972
2. ^ Desser, David, Eros Plus Massacre: An Introduction To Japanese New Wave Cinema, Indiana Univ. Press, 1988
3. ^ Oshima, Nagisa & Annette Michelson, Cinema, Censorship And The State: The Writings Of Nagisa Oshima, M.I.T. Press, 1993
4. ^ John Pavlus, "Forget Me Not: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, shot by Ellen Kuras, ASC, explores a man's fight to retain his romantic memories", American Cinematographer, April 2004

External links

• GreenCine primer on French New Wave