French New Wave

Critics pick up cameras, leave the studio, and make the cinema they had been writing about.

When: 1958–1968
Where: France
Films: 11 · 8 guided
Named by: 34 guides

Where it sits

French Impressionism and Surrealism · Film noirFrench New WaveNew Hollywood · Czechoslovak New Wave

Context

What was happening

France in the late fifties: the war a memory, the economy growing, a young public with a little money and a passion for the cinema. French films are still made in studios, by professionals, from literary adaptations. The critics of Cahiers du cinéma call it the tradition of quality, and mean it as an insult.

They see more films than anyone in Paris, in the cinemas and at the Cinémathèque, and they have a theory: a film belongs to its director. In 1958 and 1959 they stop writing about it and start to shoot.

The signature

What you see on screen

1The streetReal Paris, in daylight, with passers-by who look at the camera.
2The jump cutTime skips inside a shot, and the cut shows itself.
3The author's voiceVoice-over, direct address, a director who is in the film.
4Cinema about cinemaPosters, quotes and Hollywood genres, borrowed with love.

The people

Who made it

FTFrançois TruffautThe critic who became the movement's heart. The 400 Blows, Jules and Jim.
JGJean-Luc GodardThe one who broke the rules. Breathless, Contempt, Pierrot le Fou.
AVAgnès VardaThe mother of the wave, and of the Left Bank. Cléo from 5 to 7.
ARAlain ResnaisMemory and time. Hiroshima mon amour, Last Year at Marienbad.
CCClaude ChabrolWhere it started. Le Beau Serge, made in 1958.
ÉRÉric RohmerThe patient moralist of the group, and a critic before he was a director.

The films

Defining films, in order

Its constellation

Where it came from, what it led to

Came from

French Impressionism and Surrealism Film noir Italian Neorealism Japanese post-war golden age

Led to

New HollywoodCzechoslovak New WaveNew German CinemaCinema NovoJapanese New WaveHong Kong New WaveAmerican independent cinemaCinéma du lookTaiwanese New Cinema

Parallel

Free Cinema and the British New Wave

Legacy

Where you still see it

Every time a young director raises a little money and goes out into the street to shoot a first film; every actor who looks into the lens; every film that quotes another. Bonnie and Clyde was written for Truffaut. Quentin Tarantino named his company A Band Apart after a Godard film. Wong Kar-wai films Hong Kong with the jump cuts of Paris.

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