French New Wave

French New Wave

New wave by definition is a new movement or trend, especially in the arts which applies to new wave films as a whole. New wave films break the typical Hollywood conventions; such as filming with expensive cameras and linear narratives, that films used to follow very closely but as stated this is something that new wave often strays away from.

French new wave is often referred to one of the most influential movements in the history of cinema. The movement started when a group of 5 filmmakers who had a strong influence critics and the theory of film were writing the magazine Cahiers du Cini. The 5 filmmakers being were Godard, Truffaut, Rivette, Rohmer and Chabrol and they changed the entire notion of the way film could be made and paved the way with the French new wave and forged this new cinema, thus creating Nouvelle Vague. These directors assisted each other and developed films with a unique style; that some could ever argue makes the similar to auteurs, and strayed away from conventional Hollywood cinema which therefore makes their work instantly recognisable and has people attracted to it, especially at the time of the start of the French new wave.

French new wave didn't get rid of the pre-established rules set by cinema before, it simply added onto them. One of the ways they did this was with editing.  when it came to editing the french new wave broke the rules, essentially taking the books that held what editing had to be like and burning them to create their own style. When watching a French new wave film editing will be one of the first few things you notice. They're many components of editing, the most basic one being cuts. Jump-cuts are both spacial and temporal; used to show both the space and time between two shots, and they can be used for two functions: to match two shots or too mismatch two shots, the latter being the reason why jump-cuts weren't really used prior to the new wave. Editing's purpose before the new wave was used to maintain continuity and keep things flowing at a very specific pace. Prior there was a certain film language that was very distinct and had certain kinds of coverage such as the basic long shot, two shot, single shot, single shot in scenes. There was almost a formulae of the way of presenting films and it was quiet strict. In editorial terms there were rules that people felt couldn't be broken. Though these rules were a way of keeping editing invisible and so the audience wouldn't notice it, but the auteurs didn't want that and instead they wanted to be noticed, almost like they wanted to audience to be aware that they were watching a film and not just be passive during the film. In Godard's film 'breathless' their is a conversation between a man and a woman in the car as they drive through the streets of Paris. In thus scene there is a mid shot of the girls head from behind and as the scene takes place and the guy driving talks there is no change of shot and multiple jump cuts as the guy finishes each sentence. Theres no master shot, no reaction shot and no over the shoulder shot, just discontinuous editing. By editing this conversation with jump-cuts it contrasts two pieces of footage instead of complimenting them, with the result of the audience becoming more conscious they are watching a movie. With the French new wave wanting to represent the spirit of their era by using new techniques to create a new style of filmmaking. This style was to make the audience aware that they were watching a film. It demystified audiences at the time as it didn't follow hollywoods editing etiquette, but by doing this they managed to reduce restrictions on the assembly of their movies and making film making look somewhat easy. The term montage was derived from this, with the term montage being the French term for assembly when editing and without the style of editing from the French new wave the modern day montage would potentially not exist without it, hence showing just how influential the French new wave truly has been as many movies these days;espeically the famous montage from the film 'Rocky'.