History of the French New Wave

A detailed Summary of History of the French New Wave

In 1959- early 1960 five directors released debut feature length films that are widely regarded as heralding the start of the French nouvelle vague or French New Wave. Claude Chabrols Le Beau Serge (The Good Serge, 1959) and Les Cousins (The Cousins, 1959) were released, along with Francois Truffauts Les Quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows, 1959), Jean-Luc Godards A bout de souffle (Breathless, 1960) and Alain Resnais Hiroshima mon amour (Hiroshima my love, 1959). These films were the beginning of a revolution in French cinema. In the following years these directors were to follow up their debuts, while other young directors made their first features, in fact between 1959-63 over 170 French directors made their debut films. These films were very different to anything French and American cinema had ever produced both in film style and film form and would change the shape of cinema to come for years. To understand how and why this nouvelle vague happened we must first look at the historical, social, economical and political aspects of France and the French film industry leading up to the onset of the nouvelle vague.

After the Second World War much of Europe was in ruins. 35 million people had died and most European countries w

Despite the relative stability of the French Film industry in the early and mid 50s there was a growing voice emanating from the emerging youth culture, for some new and fresh ideas. The pre war cine-club movement was revived and by 1954 there were over 200 clubs with 100,000 members. These clubs would show Hollywood classics as well as the latest releases. They would also show many of the re-released French films of the 30s from such directors as Jean Renoir and Jean Vigo and many of the Hollywood films that were never released during the occupation. It was from such clubs that the inspiration and driving force of many of the new wave directors came from. A young Francois Truffaut, along with Jean Luc-Godard and Jacques Rivette, some of the prominent future new wave directors and future writers for the Cahiers du Cinema, used to frequent Cinematheque Francais. This was a cine-club founded by Henri Langlois and devoted to screening the Classics. It was here where they learnt there history of the cinema. Indeed Truffaut actually founded a cine-club himself at an early stage in his life. Also, it was in a cine-club where one of the most important cinematic relationships in France was formed. Truffaut met Andre Bazin the famous French Film theorist. Bazin took Truffaut under his wing and through his teens nurtured him into the fierce film critic he became. In 1951 Bazin co founded Cahiers du Cinema and two years later he hired Truffaut as a critic/essayist. Cahiers du Cinema was the most influential and famous film journal of the many published after the war. As well as Francois Truffaut, it had fellow cinephiles Jean Luc-Godard and Jacques Rivette as writers and also Claude Chabrol and Eric Rhomer. These five became known as the Cahiers group and it was in the pages of Cahiers du Cinema in the 50s under the guidance of Bazin that they argued out a new theory of film.

In May of 1946 the Prime Minister of France Leon Bum signed an agreement with the US Secretary of State James Byres which eliminated pre-war quotas on American films. This caused outrage in an Industry already low on capital and fighting to recover after the occupation years. The number of American features increased tenfold while French film output reduced to just seventy-eight features a year. Similar agreements with other European countries worsened the situation as countries which traditionally relied on French Cinema were being saturated by Hollywood. This caused an outrage within the industry and in 1948 the French Government introduced legislation which b

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Approximate Word count = 1728
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History