French New Wave - La Nouvelle Vauge

THE FRENCH NEW WAVE

LA NOUVELLE VAUGE

During the German occupation French cinema thrived, this was due to the protection given to it from foreign competition. When the war ended American films flooded into the French market, these films were greeted with great enthusiasm, as many were curious about all aspects of American culture. The Blums-Byrnes Agreement regulated the flow of foreign films in the French market. This agreement stated that French films could only be shown for 13 weeks of the year, the rest being left free to show foreign film. This quota was seen as restricting the opportunities for the French film industry to grow, due to the protests generated against this agreement certain measures were introduced to give financial assistance to French film production and exhibition. These were: the loi d’aide of 1948, under which production and exhibition were assisted by a tax on profits; the fonds de developpement, established in 1953 specifically to support artistically ambitious productions; and the fonds de soutien, created in 1959, which provided for interest free loans, allocated on the basis of a project and which were repayable if a film made a profit. Cinema attendances were extremely high during and after the war, this was due in part to this being the only entertainment available, as television was slow to develop in France.

The French cinema, although doing well financially had become creatively stagnant. It had lost its direction with its endless historical reconstructions and uninspired literary adaptations. The French film became more and more formulaic, the likes of Jacque Tati and Robert Bresson who were noted for the cinematic style, not only found themselves isolated but also found it increasingly difficult to finance their films.

Cine-clubs were set up to show old films as many became disillusioned with French film, they would show old films from around the world, and by 1954 there were 200,000 members in 200 cine-clubs. From these clubs several journals were created, among them were L’ecran Francois, La Revue du Cinema, Postif and Cahiers du Cinema. The most famous of these journals was Cahiers du Cinema, founded by Andre Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca. Bazin championed the Italian Neo-realism movement, for it on location shooting, improvisational style, use of non actors and for it long takes. He favoured these long takes and deep focus over the Soviet Montage.

“composition in depth is seen as egalitarian in the sense that everything in the frame exists with equal clarity, thereby giving the spectator a choice: our eyes are free to roam from foreground to background and around. It is closer to the way we perceive in off screen life, and reintroduces ambiguity into the structure of the image”

The Cahiers du Cinema critics were very critical of the glossy, formulaic and studio-bound French cinema of the 1940s and 1950s. They praised French film makers such as Jean Renoir and Jean Vigo, who were prevalent in 1930s French cinema. They also favoured such Italian neo-realists as Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica, as well as certain Hollywood directors as Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks. The critics felt that these directors were auteurs of their own films because of distinctive themes that could be detected running through their body of work.

It was these critics, including Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol and Jacques Rivette which took the opportunity in the late 1950’s to make their debut films, all in all there were about 120 first time film makers during the years 1958 to 1964, which has been generally recognized as period of the French New Wave. Initially these critics collaborated and helped each other in their film making which in turn resulted in somewhat of a common and distinct use of form, style and narrative, which would make their work identifiable. The growth of existentialism in France was also a contributing factor to the certain style that the French New Wave directors became renowned for. This philosophy seemed to be borne out of the harshness of life and internal tensions created by a country that in part resisted and in part collaborated