New Wave Cinema Film Realism and Formalism

New Wave Cinema

• Film Realism and Formalism

Table of Contents

• 1) Nouvelle vague

• 2) Nouvelle vague’s contribution to film realism

• 3) Realism or Formalism?

Nouvelle vague

• ‘New Wave’ Cinema

• Films in the late 1950s and 1960s which are loosely linked by their self-conscious rejection of conventional film-making methods.

• Radical experiments in narrative construction, mise-en-scène, montage, and subjects and themes (political)

Nouvelle vague

• Jean-Luc Godard François Truffaut

• (1930- ) (1932-1984)

Nouvelle vague

• Eric Rohmer Claude Chabrol

• (1920 - 2010) (1930 - 2010 )

Nouvelle vague

• Jacques Rivette André Bazin

• (1928 - ) (1918 - 1958)

Nouvelle vague

• Film journalists and critics for Cahiers du cinema

• a) Attacked the films of many master film makers of the day

Nouvelle vague

• Reappraisal of:

• - certain directors considered as outdated (Jean Renoir and Max Ophüls);

• - eccentric directors (Jacques Tati and Robert Bresson);

• - those were considered unimportant or inartistic (Howard Hawks, Otto Preminger, Samuel Fuller, Nicholas Ray and Alfred Hitchcock).

• CINEASTE - watched a huge number of films at Cinématèque française (Henri Langlois’s creation) and had a encyclopediac knowledge of world cinema.

Nouvelle vague

• 1958

• Claude Chabrol’s Le Beau Serge

• François comes back to his home village after a decade to find that his village hasn’t changed but his friend, Serge has.

Nouvelle vague

• 1959

• François Truffaut’s Quatre cent coups (Four Hundred Blows)

• Semi-autobiographical film about a boy who is neglected and misunderstood by his parents and teachers, skipping school, stealing a typewriter and being sent to institution

Nouvelle vague

• 1960

• By this time, those young film makers had become a force to reckon with.

• Jacques Rivette’s Paris, nous appartient (Paris Belongs to Us)

Nouvelle vague

• Jean-Luc Godard’s A Bout de souffle (Breathless)

• A small-time thief, Michel Poiccart steals a car and murders a policeman. In the end, he is betrayed by his ambiguous girl friend, Patricia.

Nouvelle vague

• Claude Chabrol’s Les Cousins

• Charles comes to Paris to share an apartment with his decadent cousin, Paul. He falls love with Paul’s friend, Florence. Paul does not care much about a serious relationship and his cousin’s interest in his girlfriend.

Contribution to Film Realism

• CASUAL LOOK

• - the lack of tight narrative structure

• - ignoring technical conventions

• - the heavy reliance on improvisation

Contribution to Film Realism

• CASUALNESS → to give nouvelle vague films a great sense of presence = a significant instance of reality effects.

• For reality ‘is’ more casual than well-structured.

• The sense of presence similar to the one found in a live TV programme, a documentary film or an amateur film.

Contribution to Film Realism

• Hans Holbein Portrait of a Gentleman

• Edouard Manet, The Balcony

Contribution to Film Realism

• Auguste Renoir, Dance at the Moulin de la Galette

Contribution to Film Realism

• ‘All artistic discoveries are discoveries not of likenesses but of equivalencies which enable us to see reality in terms of an image and an image in terms of reality.’

• E.H. Gombrich

• ‘If you ask me what the world looks like to me, it looks like a painting by Pissarro.’

• Ernst Gombrich

• Camille Pissaro, Boulevard des Italiens

Contibution to Film Realism

• A) The lack of narrative structure: Truer to actual situations

• Unclear narrative goal - e.g. the protagonists drift aimlessly, start actions on the spur of the moment (Chabrol's Les Cousins, Rivette’s Paris, nous appartient)

• Improvisation - unpredictableness

• → naturalness

Contribution to Film Realism

• Constant detours and digressions from the main gangster film narrative (Truffaut's Tirez sur le pianiste, Shoot the Piano Player, 1960)

Contribution to Film Realism

• b) Unconventional mise-en-scène

• Location shooting and opposition to studio film making: the influence of Neorealist film makers (Rivette's Paris Belongs to Us and almost all other Nouvelle vague films)

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trxPuwQYRAk

Contribution to Film Realism

• Studio lighting was replaced by available light and some auxiliary sources. Filming without artificial lighting was made possible by the availability of fast film stock.

• e.g. Quatre cents coups

Contribution to Film Realism

• Frequent and agile camera movements - panning and tracking by a hand-held camera or a light camera.

• Eclaire camera (mainly used in documentary film - direct cinema)

Contribution to Film Realism

• The long tracking shot with a hand-held camera of Antoin Doinel in Quatre Cents Coups

• Impressive stop-motion (formalist ending)

Contribution to Film Realism

• Hand-held elcaire camera captures Patricia and Michel walking along Champs Elysée

• Passer-bys gaze at them and walk in front of the camera.

Contribution to Film Realism

• Claude Lelouche’s Un Homme et une femme (1966)

• Images go occasionally out of focus or shot against light or the sun

Contribution to Film Realism

• Direct sound recording with noises not being erased

• Eric Rohmer’s films

• Compare two restaurants scenes in Rohmer’s Aviator’s Wife and Rob Rainer’s When Harry Met Sally

Realism or Formalism?

• Nouvelle vague filmmakers - self-conscious film makers

• Do not hide that their films are disguised reality and not reality itself.

• They rather manifest that their films are ‘films’ - something artificially created and invented

Realism or Formalism?

• Films are created not only from imitating reality but also from referring to other films - a form of artifice

• Films are not representations of reality but commentaries on the film and the process of film making

Realism or Formalism?

• François Truffaut’s Jules et Jim (1962) - encyclopedia of film techniques (freeze frame, wipe, masking, swish pan, the insertion of newsreel footage and still photos, etc.)

• Casual composition and out of focus photography shot by zoom lens.

• Film as play and joke (e.g.)

Realism or Formalism?

• Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le feu

• Samuel Fuller’s cameo appearance commenting on filmmaking.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPXV_Tm6iIw

Realism or Formalism?

• A film is made of quotations from other films.

• A bout de souffle and Humphrey Bogart

• Phillip Marlow in Big Sleep and Michel in A Bout de souffle