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Hitchman, Simon. (2008). A History of French New Wave. Online at

http://www.newwavefilm.com/about/history-of-french-new-wave.shtml, accessed 5 July 2010.

1940 - 1944: The Occupation 

Paris during the Second World War was a dark city. The blackout

imposed by the occupying German forces meant that lights had tobe turned off, a shortage of petrol kept cars off the road, while a

curfew kept most people off the streets at night. During the day,

numerous regulations, censorship and propaganda, made theoccupation increasingly unbearable.

One of the few distractions available to the French citizens was thecinema, but the choice of what to see was limited. American films were banned, and aside from

German productions which consisted mainly of imitations of Hollywood musical comedies and

melodramatic propaganda movies, they only had access to the 200 odd French films that wereproduced during this four year period. These films, which had to be approved by the German

censor, were, with a few exceptions, pale imitations of the great French cinema of Marcel Carne,

Rene Clair, Marcel Pagnol, and Jean Renoir that had come before

the war.

To a generation of cinephiles like Andre Bazin, Alain Resnais and

Eric Rohmer, who had grown up in the rich cinematic culture of the1920’s and 30’s, this lack of choice added to the sense of loss they

already felt as a consequence of the war. And it wasn’t just French

films they missed, they could also no longer see the American genrefilms they loved: westerns, comedies and adventure films by

directors such as Howard Hawks, Josef von Sternberg, Leo

McCarey and Ernst Lubitsch. This experience of loss led them to prize freedom of expressionand truth of representation above all else; values which would become central to their later work.

For a younger generation born around 1930, who would later make up most of the directors of the New Wave, the cinema became the centre of their universe and a refuge from the harsh

reality of the world outside. They were too young to know very much about the films that had

come before the war, and had no reviews or criticism to guide them, but they instinctivelycherished a handful of films made during the occupation like  Lumiere d’ete (1943) by Jean

Gremillon, Les Visiteurs du Soir (1943) by Carne and Prevert, Le Destin Fabuleux de DisireeClary (1941) by Sacha Guitry, Goupi Mains Rouges (1943) by Jacques Becker, and above all, LeCorbeau (1943) by Henri-Georges Clouzot.

Le Corbeau (The Raven) [1943]

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France After The War 

In 1944 France was liberated from German Occupation by the Allied forces. In the years thatfollowed the Liberation, cinema become more popular than ever. French films such as Marcel

Carne’s Les Enfants du paradise (1945) and Rene Clement’s La Bataille du Rail (1946) were a

great success. Italian and British imports were also popular. Most popular of all were thestockpile of films now streaming in from Hollywood.

During the occupation the Nazis had banned the import of American films. As a result, after thewar, when the ban was lifted by the 1946 Blum-Byrnes agreement, nearly a decade’s worth of 

missing films arrived in French cinemas in the space of a single year. It was a time of exciting

discoveries for cine-philes eager to catch up with what had been happening in the rest of theworld.

Reviews and Journals 

The Liberation brought with it a great desire for self-

expression, open communication and understanding. The

discussion of film, inevitably, became part of thediscourse. Journals, such as L’Ecran Francais, became a

platform for writers like Andre Bazin to develop their

theories and convey their enthusiasm for film. Bazin saw

cinema as an art form, and one that deserved seriousanalysis. His interest was in the language of film –

favouring the discussion of form over content. Such an

attitude tended to bring him into conflict with thepredominantly left wing writers at the paper, who were

more concerned with the political standpoint of a film.

Another writer at the magazine who shared Bazin’s sense of aesthetics was Alexandre Astruc. In

1948 he wrote an article titled “Birth of a New Avant-Garde: The Camera as Pen”, in which he

argued for cinema, like literature, to become a more personal form, in which the camera literallybecame a pen in the hands of a director. The article would become something of a manifesto for

the New Wave generation and a first step in the development of “auteur theory”.

Another popular magazine amongst cinephiles was Le Revue du Cinema. This was a publication

devoted to the arts and therefore much less concerned with politics and issues of social

commitment. American cinema was discussed as much as European cinema and there were indepth studies of directors like D.W. Griffith, John Ford, Fritz Lang and Orson Welles. Andre

Bazin contributed some important articles to the magazine on cinema technique, as did the young

Andre Bazin 

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Eric Rohmer, whose piece, “Cinema, the art of Space” would have a lasting influence on the

directors of the New Wave.

Film Clubs 

The same enthusiasts who avidly read the film journals now began

setting up film clubs, not just in Paris, but all over France. The most

famous of these was Henri Langlois’ Cinematheque Française, which

first opened its doors in 1948. The cinema, which he co-founded withGeorges Franju, was small, consisting of just 50 seats, but the

programme of films shown was both comprehensive and eclectic, and it

soon became a mecca for serious film enthusiasts

Langlois believed the Cinematheque was a place for learning, not just

watching, and he wanted his audience to really understand what theywere seeing. It became his practice to screen films on the same evening,

that were different in style, genre and country of origin. Sometimes he

would show foreign films without translation or silent films withoutmusical accompaniment. This approach, he hoped, would focus the audience attention on the

techniques behind what they were watching, and the links connecting films that might otherwise

appear very different.

It was here, at the Cinematheque, that many of the important figures of the New Wave first met.

Francois Truffaut, only sixteen, was already a veteran film-goer. From a young age, the cinemasof Paris had been his refuge from an unhappy home life. He had even set up his own cine-club,

 Le Cercle Cinemane, although it only lasted for one session. Jean-Luc Godard was another who

immersed himself in the cine-clubs. He was studying ethnology at the Sorbonne when he firststarted going to the Cinematheque, and, for him too, cinema became something of a refuge. He

later wrote that the cinema screen was “the wall we had to scale to escape from our lives.”

Alain Resnais, Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, Roger Vadim, Pierre Kast, and others who

would later become directors, received much of their film education at film clubs like the Cinematheque and The Cine-Club du Quartier Latin. For true cine-philes like these, watchingfilms was only part of the experience. They would also collect stills and posters, read and discuss

the latest film articles and make lists of favourite directors. It was all a way of putting what they

were watching into some kind of perspective and developing their own critical viewpoints.

Another avid member of the cine-club audience was Eric Rohmer. He had already published

articles in other film journals, and now, with his two friends Jacques Rivette and Jean-LucGodard, he set up his own review called La Gazette Du Cinema. Although the paper only had a

small circulation, it was a means by which they could express their views on some of the films

they were watching. Others like Truffaut and Resnais soon followed, writing articles for

magazines like Arts and Les Amis du Cinema. 

Henri Langlois 

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Cahiers du Cinema 

The most important and popular film journal of all first appeared in1951. Set up by Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Andre Bazin out of the

ashes of the La Revue du Cinema, which had closed down the previous

year, it was called Les Cahiers du Cinema. The first issues of thereview, with its distinctive yellow cover, featured the best critics of the

time writing scholarly articles about film. However, it was with the

arrival of a younger generation of critics, including Rohmer, Godard, Rivette, Claude Chabrol and Francois Truffaut, that the paper really

began to make waves.

Bazin had become something of a father figureto these young critics. He was especially close

to Truffaut, helping to secure his release from the young offenders

institute where he was sent as a teenager, and later from the army prisonwhere he was locked up for desertion. At first, Bazin and Doniol-

Valcroze allowed the young cine-philes a small amount of column space

to air their often combative opinions, but, in time, their articles gainedmore and more attention and their status rose accordingly.

One thing these young writers shared was a disdain for the mainstream

"tradition de qualite", which dominated French cinema at the time. In

1953, Truffaut wrote an essay for Cahiers entitled "A Certain Tendency

of the French Cinema", in which he virulently denounced this tradition of adapting safe literary works, and filming them in the studio in an old

fashioned and unimaginative way. This style of cinema wasn’t visual

enough, Truffaut argued, and relied too much on the screenwriter. He andthe others labelled it ‘cinema de papa’, and compared it unfavourably

with the work of film-makers from elsewhere in the world.

Bazin delayed the article’s release for a year, fearing they would lose

readers and anger the film-makers who were being attacked. When it was

eventually published it did cause offence but there was also considerableagreement. The passionate and irreverent style of Truffaut’s writing, like

that of the other young critics, was a shift away from the hitherto austere

tone of Cahiers. It brought the journal both a notoriety and popularity ithadn’t had before. Now he, Rohmer, Godard, Rivette, and Chabrol, were given the opportunity

to promote their favourite directors within the review and develop their theories.

Favourite Directors 

Francois Truffaut

...

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Henri Langlois always believed that watching silent films was the best

way to learn the art of cinema, and he frequently included films from thisperiod in the Cinematheque Français programme. As a result the new

wave group had a great respect for directors like D.W. Griffith, Victor

Sjostrom, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Erich von Stroheim, who

had pioneered the techniques of filmmaking in its early years. When theybegan making films themselves, silent movies would continue to be a

source of inspiration for the New Wave directors

Three German directors, Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau,

were held in high esteem by the New Wave. Lubitsch’s sophisticated comedies were held up fortheir exemplary screenwriting and perfect dramatic construction. Lang, whose later American

films were generally felt by most critics at the time to be inferior to his early masterpieces like   Metropolis and M , was defended by the Cahiers critics who pointed out that the expressive mise-en-scene of his German films had been interiorized in the intense Film Noir dramas he was now

making in Hollywood. These later films such as Clash By Night and The Big Heat , they argued,

were every bit as complex as his earlier works. Murnau, the director of masterpieces like Nosferatu and Sunrise, although largely forgotten by contemporary critics, epitomised for the

New Wave an artist who used every technique at his disposal to express himself filmically. Theysung his praises in the pages of Cahiers, and helped to re-establish his reputation as a cinematic

visionary.

Another European influence on the New Wave was the Italian neo-realismmovement. Directors like Roberto Rossellini ( Rome, Open City) and

Vittorio de Sica (The Bicycle Thieves) were going direct to the street for

their inspiration, often using unprofessional actors in real locations. They

cut the costs of filmmaking by using lighter, hand-held cameras, and post-synching sound. This approach enabled them to avoid studio interference

and the demands of producers, resulting in more personal pictures. These

lessons learnt from the neo-realists would prove a major factor in thesuccess of the Nouvelle Vague ten years later.

A number of American directors were also acclaimed in the pages of Cahiers du Cinema including not only well known directors like Orson Welles (Citizen Kane), Joseph L.

Mankiewicz (The Barefoot Contessa) and Nicholas Ray ( Rebel Without a Cause), but also lesser

known B movie directors like Samuel Fuller (Shock Corridor ) and Jacques Tourneur (Out of thePast ). The Cahiers critics broke new ground when they wrote about these directors as they had

never been taken so seriously before. They ignored the established hierarchy, focusing instead on

the distinctive personal style and emotional truth they saw in these films.

Fritz Lang

Roberto Rossellini

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By contrast, contemporary French cinema was a major

disappointment to the New Wave group. The year that followedthe Liberation of France saw the release of some outstanding

films including Marcel Carne’s Les Enfants du Paradise, Robert

Bresson’s Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne, and Jacques

Becker’s Falbalas. However, since then, complacency had setin. There was none of the frank honesty of Italian neo-realism.

Instead, most of the films that dealt with the war and theResistance seemed to be sentimentalized versions of what had

really occured. It was clear that the majority of people, including

most French filmmakers, were not yet ready to confront theshame of the Vichy government and the many who had

collaborated with the Nazis during the war.

In their articles, the young critics showed their disdain for the "tradition de qualite" prevalent at

the time. Even directors who they had once admired like Henri-Georges Clouzot and Marcel

Carne seemed now to have lost their ambition; content to play the studio game. Other directorswith a more realistic style, such as Julien Duvivier, Henri Decoin and Jacques Sigurd, were

equally disappointing; portraying a cynical view of contemporary society that was stylisticallystatic and uninspired. For the New Wave cine-philes, who had expected so much after the war, it

felt like a betrayal; and it explains why their attacks in print were often so vitriolic.

However, there were some contemporary directors who made personal films outside the studiosystem like Jean Cocteau (Orphee), Jacques Tati ( Mon Oncle), Robert Bresson ( Journal d’uncure de campagne), and Jean-Pierre Melville ( Le Silence De La Mer ), who were much admired.

Melville was a real maverick who worked in his own small studio and played by his own rules.

His example would influence all of the New Wave and he is frequently cited as a part of themovement himself. At the same time, the

Cahierscritics praised certain French directors of an

earlier era like Jean Vigo ( L’Atalante), Sacha Guitry (Quadrille), and most of all Jean Renoir ( La Regle du Jeu), who was held up as the greatest of French auteurs.

Auteur Theory 

Rebel Without A Cause [1955]...

Alfred Hitchcock 

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For the New Wave critics, the “concept of the auteur” was the

key theoretical idea underlying their aesthetic viewpoint. Although Andre Bazin and others hadbeen arguing for some time that a film should reflect the director’s personal vision, it was

Truffaut who first coined the phrase “la politique des auteurs” in his article "Une certaine

tendance du cinéma français". He maintained that the best directors have a distinctive style, as

well as consistent themes running through their films, and it was this individual creative visionthat made the director the true author of the film.

At the time auteur theory was considered a radical new approach

to cinema. Before, it had been the screenwriter, or the producer,

or the Hollywood studio, who was seen as the principle creatorof a picture. The Cahiers critics applied the theory to directors

like Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks who had previously

been seen as merely excellent craftsmen, but had never beentaken seriously as artists. By uncovering the complex depths in

the work of directors like these, the young writers broke new

ground, not only in the way a film was understood, but in howcinema itself was perceived.

Mainly as a result of this radical new way of looking at cinema,the reputation of Cahiers du Cinéma began to grow. In Hollywood the review became essential

reading and directors like Fritz Lang, Joseph Mankiewicz and Nicholas Ray were photographed

with a copy of the magazine in their hands. Filmmakers like these weren’t used to peoplediscussing their work with such accuracy and depth. They were deeply impressed by these young

enthusiasts with their strong opinions and perceptive insights into the art of cinema.

Inevitably, as the ideas and writing of the Cahiers critics became better known, there was a

backlash. The aggressiveness of the review was felt to be too extreme by some. It brought abouta feeling of resentment, and even hatred, in those targetted. As a result a kind of warfare ragedbetween the young radicals and the old guard of French cinema.

Short Films 

The young group of writers at Cahiers du Cinéma were not content however, with merely being

critics. They wanted to be filmmakers too. At the time there were two recognised routes to

becoming a director. You could go through a long apprenticeship as an assistant director until,after many years, you were finally deemed ready to call the shots yourself. This approach was

antithetical to the desires of impatient young directors with ideas of their own and a disdain for

the conservative material they would have to work on.

...

Howard Hawks

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The other method was to apply for a short film funding scheme.

This government approved scheme ensured all films were made toa professional standard and was equivalent to a number of assistant

positions. In the end, it enabled the candidate to obtain the work 

card needed to make features. Some of the older members of the

New Wave began this way by making critically acclaimeddocumentaries: Georges Franju ( Les Sang des bêtes, Hôtel des Invalides), Alain Resnais ( Night and Fog, Toute Le Mémoire du Monde, Le Chant du Styrene), and Chris Marker ( Les Satues Meurent Aussi, Dimanche a Pekin, Lettre de Siberie), and Pierre

Kast ( Les Femmes du Louvre). Others soon followed their exampleincluding Louis Malle ( Le Monde du Silence), Agnes Varda ( LaPointe-Courte), and Jacques Demy ( Le Sabotier du Val de Loire).

The Cahiers group, however, rejected both of these approaches. They knew they would have to

bypass the rules of the system if they wanted to break into the industry and make the kind of 

films they wanted to make. While still writing for the magazine, they gained experience andcontacts. Chabrol worked as a publicist at 20th Century-Fox, Godard worked as a press agent,

Truffaut worked as an assistant for Max Ophuls and Roberto Rossellini, and Rivette worked withJean Renoir and Jacques Becker.

Sooner or later, though, they realised, if they wanted to direct,

they would have to start by making short films, raising moneyanyway they could. Rohmer began in 1950, directing Journald’un Scélérat , followed by Charlotte et Son Steak . Rivette, 

working with a script by Chabrol, directed Coup du Berger .In 1952 Godard directed a documentary called Operation

 Betonabout the building of the Grande Dixene dam in

Switzerland. He made the film with funds he earned by

working as a labourer on the dam. After selling this, he hadthe means to make two dramatic shorts: Une Femme Coquetteand Tous Les Garcons S’Appellent Patrick . As they gained

experience, their films became more sophisticated. Rohmer made Bérénice in 1954, La Sonate aKreuzer in 1956, and Véronique et son Cancre in 1958, to increasingly high standards.

Meanwhile, Truffaut had set up his own film company, Les Films du Carrosse, with the help of his wealthy new father in law, and in the summer of 1957, shot Les  Mistons, based on a story by

Maurice Pons. Pleased with the success of the film, its financial backer suggested he make

another. Truffaut began making a short comedy set against the backdrop of the flooding that hadbeen taking place in and around Paris at the time, but had trouble finding the right tone and

handed over the footage he’d shot to Godard. Godard felt no obligation to follow Truffaut’s

script however, and created an unconnected story with an off the wall commentary that broke allthe conventions followed by traditional filmmaking. This film, Une Histoire d’Eau, was the most

original, and most New Wave, of all the short films produced at the time.

Les Sang des Betes [1949]

...

Les Mistons [1957]

...

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Other important shorts made at this time, and in subsequent years, included Le Bel Indifferent  (1957) by Jacques Demy, Pourvu Qu’On Ait L’Ivresse (1958) by Jean-Daniel Pollet, and Blue Jeans (1958) by Jacques Rozier. These were followed by by first films from Maurice Pialet

( Janine, 1961), Jean-Marie Straub ( Machorka-Muff , 1963), and Jean Eustache ( Du Cote de Robinson, 1964).

New Developments 

When the New Wave directors graduated from making shortfilms to feature films in the late 1950’s, their ability to do so

came about largely as the result of a combination of fortunate

coincidences. Up until this time, filmmaking had always beenan expensive business and it was necessary to have thebacking of a major studio. Now, new circumstances came into

play that enabled them to bypass this stumbling block.

After the war, the Gaullist government had brought in

subsidies to support homegrown culture. A further act, 1958’s "Constitution of the FifthRepublic", resulted in more money being available for first time filmmakers than ever before.

Private investment money became more readily available and distributors were keen to back new

directors.

At the same time, technological developments meant filmmaking equipment was becoming

cheaper. New, lightweight, hand-held cameras, developed for use in documentaries, such as theEclair and Arriflex were now available, as were faster film stocks which required less light, and

portable sound and lighting equipment. These advancements meant filmmakers no longer needed

a studio to make a film. They could now go out and shoot on location using smaller crews setagainst authentic backdrops. Working fast on low budgets encouraged experimentation and

improvisation and gave the directors more control over their work than they might have had

otherwise.

The First Wave 

Truffaut and crew on location!

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Et Dieu... Crea La Femme ( And God Created Woman)

(1956) is often cited as the first New Wave feature film.Directed by a 28 year old writer-director named Roger

Vadim, and starring his then wife, 22 year old former

model and dancer, Brigitte Bardot, it celebrated beauty

and youthful rebellion and proved that a low budget filmmade by a first time director could be a success both at

home and abroad. Although now somewhat dated, at thetime the film was an inspiration to young directors hoping

to make their first film on their own terms.

An even more inspiring figure was Jean-Pierre Melville, 

whose 1956 crime caper  Bob Le Flambeur ( Bob TheGambler ) was a landmark in the French thriller genre.

Shot on location on the streets of Paris and in the director’s own home made studio, its portrayal

of the doomed gambler of the title, was both grittily realistic and audaciously stylized. The New

Wave critics quickly recognised that Melville was the real deal: a maverick with an authenticcinematic vision all his own.

Worlds away from Melville's tough gangsters were the strange, haunting films of GeorgesFranju. Co-founder of the Cinématheque Francais, Franju had graduated from archivist to film-

maker with shorts like Le Sang des Bêtes shot in a Parisian slaughter house. His ability to

combine the poetic and the graphic, and to evoke the uncanny in a realistic setting, were seen tofull effect in La Tête Contre  Les Murs (Head Against the Wall) (1958), and Les Yeux SansVisage (Eyes Without a Face) (1959).

Louis Malle made his name working with marine scientist

Jacques Cousteau on the Palme d’Or-winning underwaterdocumentary Le Monde Du Silence (The Silent World) .Coming from a wealthy background, Malle was able to

raise the money to make his feature film debut  Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud (Elevator to the Gallows) in 1957 when

he was still only 25 years old. Featuring a breakthroughperformance from Jeanne Moreau in the lead and Miles

Davis groundbreaking soundtrack, the picture – a fatalistic

film noir – was a success. He followed this up with Les Amants (The Lovers) in 1958, again starring Moreau. The

film provoked considerable controversy over its frank treatment of sexuality, and partly as a

result of this, became an even bigger success, marking out the young director as a rising talent.

Claude Chabrol was the first of the Cahiers critics to make the move into feature films. Using

money inherited from his wife’s family, Chabrol wrote, directed and produced  Le Beau Serge ( Beautiful Serge) (1958), featuring Jean-Claude Brialy and Gerard Blain in the lead roles, despite

having no previous filmmaking experience. Shot on location in a provincial village, using natural

light, the film upset the professional establishment by breaking the rules of what they consideredgood film-making, and it was refused entry to Cannes. However, the director took it to the

Et Dieu... Crea La Femme(And God Created Woman) [1956]

....

Le Beau Serge [1958]

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festival himself where it was well received, earning enough in sales to finance his next feature,

 Les Cousins (The Cousins) (1959).

Set in Paris, Les Cousins again starred Brialy and Blain, in a plot that effectively reversed thescenario of   Le Beau Serge. The film was both a critical (it won the Golden Bear at the 1959

Berlin Film Festival) and commercial success. Having broken through as a director, Chabrolused the production company he had set up to support the debut films of Jacques Rivette (Paris Nous Appartient ) and Eric Rohmer ( Le Signe du Lion).

Cannes 59: The Wave Breaks 

The term New Wave first appeared in 1957 in an article in  L’Express entitled “Report on Today’s Youth.” The article, by

the journalist Francoise Giroud, and the book she published the

following year called The New Wave: Portrait of Today’sYouth, had nothing to do with cinema, but was about the need

for change in society. However, the term was borrowed by

 journalists who used it to apply to the young directors creatinga storm at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, and soon the phrase

caught on internationally.

The film most responsible for bringing the attention of the

world to this new cinematic movement was Francois Truffaut’s Les Quatre Cents Coups (The400 Blows) (1959). It caused a sensation at the festival that year. Its young star, Jean-PierreLeaud,was carried out of the screening in triumph and Truffaut won the best director award.

Suddenly the world’s media were talking about the New Wave. Ironically, Truffaut had been

banned from the festival the previous year because of his uncomplimentary remarks aboutFrench cinema in Cahiers. Now he was a star director and those who had opposed him were

rapidly pushed aside.

Also screened at Cannes that year was Alain Resnais’  Hiroshima, Mon Amour , which was

awarded the International Critics’ Prize. Resnais had already made a name for himself as a

documentary director with Nuit Et Brouillard ( Night and Fog) (1955), the first film to focus onthe Nazi concentration camps of the Second World War. Like the documentary, his debut feature

film used innovative use of flashback, to illuminate themes of time and memory and the horror

of war. The film was acclaimed for its originality and became an international hit.

“All you need to make a movie is a girl and a

gun.” - Jean -Luc Goda rd 

Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows) [1959]

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In Cannes, Truffaut met Georges de Beauregard, an enterprising producer

willing to take a gamble on a young director. Truffaut introduced him toJean-Luc Godard who proposed several projects, including an idea

Truffaut had come up with based on a story he had seen in a newspaper.

Beauregard liked the scenerio and bought the rights off Truffaut for

100,000 francs. Godard was an unknown however, so as an addedguarantee, Beauregard insisted that Godard’s friends, who were now well

established, appear in the credits. Truffaut was credited with thescreenplay and Chabrol as

artistic advisor.

More than any other film

 À Bout de Souffle 

( Breathless) (1960) exemplified the New Wavemovement; serving as a kind of manifesto for the

group. While the plot, reminiscent of a thousand

Film Noir B movies, is simple, the film itself isstylistically complex and revolutionary in its

breaking of traditional Hollywood storytellingconventions. All of the trademarks of the New

Wave are evident: jump cuts, hand-heldcamerawork, a disjointed narrative, an

improvised musical score, dialogue spoken

directly to camera, frequent changes of pace and mood, and the use of real locations. As Godardsaid, the film was the result of “a decade’s worth of making movies in my head”.

 À Bout de Souffle was a commercial and critical success, playing to packed houses in Paris, andwinning the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival. Its stars Jean-Paul

Belmondo and Jean Seberg became fashion icons for the young, and audiences across the world

responded to the picture’s iconoclastic spirit. Godard had taken his first step toward reinventingcinema.

Like Godard, Truffaut had a passion for American pulp crime novels and Film Noir. His ownunconventional take on the genre began with his second picture which was adapted from a novel

by David Goodis called Down There. This was a deliberate move away from what he felt the

public expected of him after the autobiographical nature of his first film. Tirez Sur Le Pianiste (Shoot The Pianist ) was packed with cinematic references and deliberate subversions of genre

conventions. It was a chance for the director to enjoy himself and prove he wouldn’t be easily

catagorized.

Although considered a classic now, Tirez Sur Le Pianiste baffled audiences at the time who were

used to a more conventional style of storytelling. The film was not a financial success andTruffaut, who had planned to turn his company Les Films du Carrosse into a kind of New Wave

studio, was forced to lower his expectations. From this time onwards he made it a rule only to

produce his own films, and any projects sent to him, he referred to other producers.

Jean-Luc Godard

....

A Bout De Souffle (Breathless) [1960]

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Zazie, Lola, Catherine and Les Bonnes Femmes 

The start of the 1960’s saw the release of adiverse collection of New Wave films all

featuring female characters at their centre.

Typically unpredictable, Louis Malle followed  Les  Amants with Zazie Dans Le Metro (1960), a

lively, surreal farce shot in colour. Adapted from

a novel by Raymond Queneau, the story followsan eleven year old girl and her eccentric uncle on

a

mad

capchase

arou

nd Paris.

Claude Chabrol also reacted against his previous

work with Les Bonnes Femmes (1960), an unusualmix of Hitchockian thriller and documentary realism,

examining the ups and downs in the lives of four

shop girls. The film details their hopeful butultimately doomed attempts at finding romance.

Jacques Demy’s debut feature Lola (1961), set in theseaside town of Nantes, drew on musicals, fairytales,

and the golden age of Hollywood for its inspiration,

and set the tone for all his subsequent pictures. Featuring Anouk Aimee in the title role, thisoften downbeat tale of lost love and the machinations of fate was told with a joie de vivre that

would become characteristic of Demy's unique cinematic oeuvre.

That same year, Francois Truffaut was planning Jules et Jim the story of two friends who both

fall in love with the free-spirited but capricious Catherine. He had initially come across the semi-

autobiographical book by Henri-Pierre Roche by chance in a second hand bookshop, had fallenin love with it, and considered making it his first feature. However, realising how difficult it

would be to get right, he put it to one side until he had more experience under his belt. Now he

had the experience and used it to create what would become one of the most famous and popularfilms of the French New Wave.

 Jules et Jim (1961) was a stylistic tour de force, incorporating newsreel footage, photographicstills, freeze frames, voice over narration, and a variety of fluid moving shots executed to

perfection by cameraman Raoul Coutard. Despite this, Truffaut stayed remarkably faithful to the

source material. The unconventional love triangle at the centre of the story and the determination

Les Bonnes Femmes [1960]

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Jules Et Jim [1961]

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of Catherine (Jeanne Moreau) to find sexual satisfaction outside of society’s conventions caused

much controversy at the time of the film’s release but did nothing to hinder the film’s success.

The Left Bank Group 

In the early 1960s, critic Richard Roud attempted

to draw a distinction between the directors allied

with the influential journal Cahiers du Cinéma 

and what he dubbed the “Left Bank” group. Thislatter group embraced a loose association of 

writers and film-makers that consisted principally

of the directors Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, andAgnès Varda. They had in common a backgroundin documentary, a left wing political orientation,

and an interest in artistic experimentation.

Another associate of the group was the

Nouveau Roman novelist Alain Robbe-

Grillet. In 1961 he collaborated with AlainResnais on L’Annee Derniere A Marienbad ( Last Year in Marienbad ). The

film’s dream-like visuals andexperimental narrative structure, in whichtruth and fiction are difficult to

distinguish, divided audiences, with some

hailing it as a masterpiece, and othersfinding it incomprehensible. Despite the

critical disagreements, the film won the Golden Lion at the 1961 Venice Film Festival, and its

surreal imagery has become an iconic part of film history.

Chris Marker began making documentaries in the early 50’s, collaborating with his friend Alain

Resnais on Les Statues Meurent Aussi (1950-53), which begins as a simple film about African art

and gradually changes into an anti-colonialist polemic. Over the following years he developed aunique essay style of documentary filmmaking. His one fictional film, La Jetee (1962), a science

fiction story about a time traveller, composed almost completely of still photographs, hasbecome a classic in its own right.

Agnès Varda is the most celebrated female director to be associated with the New Wave. Shebegan as a photographer, then turned to the cinema and directed La Pointe Courte (1954), a low

budget documentary-like feature film about the break up of a marriage which, in its production

The Left Bank Group, from left: Alain Resnais, Agnes Varda, and

Jacques Demy (holding camera, front right)

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L'Annee Derniere A Marienbad (Last Year At Marienbad) [1961] .

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method and style, presaged the coming New Wave. Over the following years, she made a

number of shorts and documentaries, before directing Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962). This real timeportrait of a singer set adrift in the city as she awaits the results of a life or death medical report

became one of the benchmarks of the Nouvelle Vague movement.

The Tide Turns 

In December 1962, Cahiers du Cinéma published a special

issue on the “New Wave”, which included long interviewswith Truffaut, Godard and Chabrol, and a list of 162 new

French directors. Among the first time directors discussed

were Jacques Doniol-Valcroze ( L’eau a la Bouche (1960)),Pierre Kast ( Le Bel Age (1960)), Luc Moullet (Un Steack Trop Cuit (1960)), Jean-Daniel Pollet ( La Ligne de  Mire 

(1960)), Jean-Pierre Mocky ( Les Dragueurs (1960)), and

Jacques Rozier ( Adieu Philippine (1962)). The success of the early New Wave had opened the gates for a generation

of unknown directors to break through into what had

previously been a very closed industry. Films were nowbeing made by young people, for young people, and staring young people.

Inevitably, there was a media backlash. The failure at the box office of Tirez Sur Le Pianiste,

Une Femmes est une Femmes and other high profile releases gave the press ammunition to attack 

the movement. They reproached the young directors of the New Wave for making films that

were “intellectual and boring”. At the same time the old guard believed it was making acomeback with a string of successful films beginning with Rue des Prairies (1960), staring Jean

Gabin.

There was dissent too at Cahiers du Cinéma. Most of its leading writers were now directors and

no longer had the time to devote to writing for the magazine. As a result, by the early 60’s, a

second generation of young cinephiles had replaced the first group. This new group did notalways share the same opinions as its predecessors, leading to clashes with editor in chief, Eric

Rohmer. 

Supported by the new writers, Jacques Rivette took over as editor, and the sense of community at

the review fractured. The production of the New Wave group film Paris Vu Par (1964) – a series

of sketches by different directors – signalled the change. Rivette, and Truffaut who hadsupported him, were symbolically excluded from contributing. The split had begun. Each of the

filmmakers associated with Cahiers now went their own, increasingly divergent, ways.

Adieu Philippine [1962]

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"The Cinema is truth 24 times a second." - Jean-Luc

Godard

By the mid-60’s Jean-Luc Godard was probably the

most discussed director in the world. The films camein rapid succession, each one a further step towards apersonal reinvention of cinema. After  À Bout deSouffle, came a political thriller, Le Petit Soldat (The Little Soldier) (1961), a technicolour wide screen

musical, Une Femme Est Une Femme ( A Woman is aWoman) (1961), a social drama about prostitution,

Vivre Sa Vie (One Life to Live) (1962), and a war film,

 Les Carabiniers (The Soldiers) (1963).

These early films had made a star out of Belgian-

French actress Anna Karina, whom Godard hadmarried in 1961. With his next film, Le Mépris (Contempt) (1963), he reinvented Brigitte

Bardot’s public image, giving her the chance to prove she could act. The film - a story about the

breakup of a relationship set against the pressures of commercial filmmaking - became Godard’sbiggest box office success, ensuring continued financial backing for his prolific output.

In the following years, Godard continued to make films that established him as the definitiveNew Wave director. After the lush Mediterranean scenery of  Le Mepris, he went back to the

streets of Paris, showing a gritty view of the city in crime caper   Bande A Part ( Band of Outlaws) (1964), and an alternative view in the dystopian sci-fi feature  Alphaville (1965).

Next came a road trip to the South of France forthe brilliant Pierrot Le Fou (1965). PairingJean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina and

abounding with ideas and references to both

high and low culture (it even features a cameofrom B movie maestro Sam Fuller), the film

was a culmination of all the director’s radical

filmmaking techniques up to that point.

Godard’s political views became increasingly

central from now on. Masculin, Feminin (1966),was a study of contemporary French youth and

their involvement with cultural politics. An intertitle refers to the characters as “the children of 

Marx and Coca-Cola.” Next came Made in the U.S.A (1966), a playful crime story inspired byHoward Hawks’s The Big Sleep (1945).2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle (Two or Three Things I Know About Her ) (1967), starred Marina Vlady as a woman leading a double life as housewife

and prostitute. Le Chinoise (1967) focused on a group of students engaged with the ideas coming

out of the student activist groups in contemporary France.

Anna Karina in Vivre Sa Vie (My Life to Live) [1962]

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Weekend [1967]

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Later that year, Godard made a more colourful political film. Weekend (1967) follows a Parisian

couple as they go on a trip across the French countryside to collect an inheritance. What ensuesis a darkly comic, sometimes horrific, confrontation with the tragic flaws of the bourgeoisie.

Weekend ’s enigmatic closing title sequence concludes with the words “End of Cinema”, a

declaration which signalled an end to the first period in Godard’s filmmaking career.

Love, Murder, and Morality Tales 

Francois Truffaut followed Jules et Jim with La Peau Douce (Soft Skin) (1964) another story about an ill-fated love triangle, but thistime in a contemporary setting. Despite excellent perfomances and a

compelling narrative the film was not a financial success, and, over

the next few years, Truffaut’s career slowed as he worked on his

book about Alfred Hitchcock, whilst struggling to get his filmadaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Farenheit 451 off the ground. When

he came to shoot it the larger scale production was difficult for

Truffaut, used to working on low budgets and unable tocommunicate easily with the English speaking crew, and the

resulting film failed to match its initial conception.

Jacques Demy had his greatest success with his third film LesParapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) (1964).

The film, staring a 20-year-old Catherine Deneuve, tells a tragic story of everyday life but istransformed by Demy into a tender romance in which all the characters sing their lines and the

town is painted in a range of beautiful colours. The film was a critical and commercial success,winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes. He followed this with the equally captivating Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (The Young Girls of  Rochefort ) (1967).

Louis Malle’s typically diverse range of 1960’s

films included Vie Privee ( A Very Private Affair )(1962) in which Brigitte Bardot played a virtualparody of her real life persona; Le Feu Follet (The Fire Within) (1963), the powerful study of a

writer trying to find a reason not to kill himself;the internationally successful Viva Maria! (1965)

which teamed Brigitte Bardot with Jeanne

Moreau in a tale of revolution in South America;

and Le Voleur (The Thief ) (1967), a comedydrama about a thief staring Jean-Paul Belmondo. 

After the failure of the last of these, Malle

admitted he was tired of the mainstream film

Catherine Deneuve in Les Parapluies de

Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg)[1964]

....

Le Feu Follet (The Fire Within) [1963] .

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industry, and, in 1969, he travelled to India, where he made two uncompromising documentaries

about the poverty he found there.

In 1962 Eric Rohmer made La Boulangere de Monceau (The Bakery Girl of Monceau) (1962),the first in what would become a celebrated series of films released over the next ten years under

the title Six Moral Tales. Each of the films, which included Ma Nuit Chez Maud ( My Night with Maud ) (1969) and Le Genou de Claire (Claire's Knee) (1970), explored the entanglements,temptations and disappointments facing contemporary relationships. In them Rohmer established

a cinematic style all his own, notable for its economical camerawork, warmly ironic tone, and

strict fidelity to the true representation of reality.

More conventional in his approach than the other New Wave directors, Claude Chabrol’s mid-

1960’s output failed to draw the attention accorded to his contemporaries. Out of step with the

mood of the times, for a while Chabrol appeared to lose direction. Then came the series of psychological thrillers starting with  Les Biches (The Does) (1968), and including La Femme 

 Infidele (The Unfaithful Wife) (1969), and Le Boucher (The Butcher) (1969), which established

his world-wide reputation.

Jacques Rivette’s debut feature Paris Nous Appartient (Paris Belongs to Us) (1960) had been amonumental undertaking, taking two years to make and featuring a cast of thirty actors. However

it’s labyrinthean plot and uneven pace found little favour with audiences. His next film, Le Religieuse (The Nuns) (1966) was considerably more commercial, becoming a success de

scandal when the government blocked its release for a year. The relatively straightforwardnarrative of this film was, however, uncharacteristic of the director’s vision, and, it was with the

highly experimental and original films that followed, including L’Amour Fou ( Mad Love)

(1968), Out 1 (1970), and Celine et Julie Vont en Bateau (Celine and Julie Go Boating) (1974),that Rivette made a more lasting impact.

1968 - Year of Revolution 

In the spring of 1968, a minor protest by

students at Nanterre University quickly

escalated, leading to major civil unrest allover France. On May 10th in Paris there

was a violent confrontation between

student demonstrators and the police.

Over the following days discontent withthe Gaullist government spread into the

labour force and workers began joining in

the protest with a series of strikes andfactory occupations. Ultimately, the De

Gaulle government held firm, and, partly

because of divisions within the leftist opposition, the protests died away.

The Paris Riots, 1968

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Earlier in 68, events in the world of cinema had helped to trigger the riots that followed. It began

when Henri Langlois, who had set up and nurtured the Cinématheque Francaise, was fired as itshead by the Minister of Culture Andre Malraux. Claiming administrative incompetence as his

reason, Malreaux terminated the archive’s subsidy and moved to appoint a new head. The firing

sparked protests among Parisian film students who continued to receive much of their education

through screenings at the Cinematheque, as well as New Wave directors like Truffaut, Godard, Rivette and Resnais who proudly proclaimed themselves “children of the Cinématheque.”

Even the Cannes festival was drawn into the protest as Louis Malle and Roman Polanski

resigned from the festival jury, and Truffaut and Godard burst into a screening and hung from

the curtains to physically stop the festival from continuing. Support too came from abroad in theform of telegrams from world famous directors like Hitchcock, Kurosawa and Fellini. Eventually

Malraux was forced to back down and Langlois was reinstated.

Aftermath 

The Langlois affair showed that, despite their differences – both political and cinematic – the

directors associated with the Nouvelle Vague could still come together as a group. Indeed, aftertheir work came under attack from critics, and the film establishment began to reassert itself,

they felt more willing to assert themselves as part of a movement than they had at the start.

As Truffaut wrote in a 1967 issue of Cahiers du Cinéma: “Before, when we were interviewed –

Jean Luc, Resnais, Malle, myself and others – we said, ‘The New Wave doesn’t exist, it doesn’t

mean anything.’ But later, we had to change, and ever since that moment I’ve affirmed myparticipation in the movement. Now, in 1967, we are proud to have been and to remain part of 

the New Wave, just as one is proud to have been a Jew during the Occupation.”

Then and Now: The New Wave Continues 

La Maman et la Putain

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An enduring legacy of the French New Wave

movement was the inspiration it provided for similarmovements in other countries. In America, the “movie brat” generation of filmmakers that

emerged in the late 1960’s and 70’s, was profoundly influenced by the storytelling techniques

pioneered by the Novelle Vague directors. In Europe too, young directors in Poland,

Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Germany, and elsewhere, were motivated to break with the past andtell their own stories. Even further afield, in countries such as Japan, Brazil, and Canada, similar

movements prospered for a while.

In France the success of the Nouvelle Vague continued to open doors for new directors. Barbet

Schroeder ( More (1969)) Jean Eustache ( La Maman et La Putain (1973)), Andre Techine(Paulina s’en Va (1975)), and Philippe Garrel ( L’Enfant Secret (1979), made up part of what

could be considered a post New Wave second wave. They, and other directors like Jean-Claude

Biette, Claude Guiguet, and Paul Vecchiali, began, like their predecessors, writing for Cahiersdu Cinéma, before turning to filmmaking

themselves.

In the 1980’s a new generation of young

directors emerged in France. Dubbed by the

media the "New New Wave", the three mainfigures in the group, Jean-Jacques Beineix,

Luc Besson and Leos Carax, were quick to

distance themselves from the earliermovement, expressing anti-New Wave

sentiments in interviews. Their films, which

included the hits Diva (Beineix (1980),

Subway (Besson (1985), Betty Blue (Beiniex(1986),

The Big Blue(Besson (1988), and

 Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (Carax (1991), were criticized for favouring style over substance.

Their style of filmmaking became known as the ‘cinema du look’, and, although popular, wasfelt by many to offer little more than slick visuals and alluring stars.

The tragic early death of Francois Truffaut in 1984 brought an end to the career of the bestknown and best loved of the French New Wave directors. His later work, although varied and not

always successful, included such highlights as the Oscar winning  Day for Night  (1973), the

poetic La Chambre Verte (The Green Room) (1978), and Le Dernier Metro (The  Last Metro)(1980), a story of the Resistance which was a critical and box office triumph in France. Apart

from his work, Truffaut himself has become an icon and inspiration for impassioned, idealistic

young directors, determined to remake cinema on their own terms.

As for his Nouvelle Vague contemporaries, they continue making waves in the twenty-first

century. Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette, Varda, Resnais, Marker, and others associated withthe movement, are all now auteurs in their own right with an international following. Their

prolific output continues to challenge audiences and expand the boundaries of cinematic

expression. Retrospectives of their work and new prints of New Wave classics continue to keep

(The Mother and the Whore) [1973]

....

La Belle Noiseuse [1991] .

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alive a cultural revolution that produced some of the greatest films ever made and changed the

course of cinema history.