French New Wave (french: La Nouvelle Vague) is a French

art film An art film (or arthouse film) is typically an independent film, aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience. It is "intended to be a serious, artistic work, often experimental and not designed for mass appeal", "made primarily f ...

movement that emerged in the late 1950s. The movement was characterized by its rejection of traditional

filmmaking Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, cast ...

conventions in favor of experimentation and a spirit of

iconoclasm Iconoclasm (from Greek: grc, εἰκών, lit=figure, icon, translit=eikṓn, label=none + grc, κλάω, lit=to break, translit=kláō, label=none)From grc, εἰκών + κλάω, lit=image-breaking. ''Iconoclasm'' may also be consid ...

. New Wave filmmakers explored new approaches to

editing Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, photographic, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, or ...

, visual style, and narrative, as well as engagement with the social and political upheavals of the era, often making use of irony or exploring existential themes. The New Wave is often considered one of the most influential movements in the history of cinema. The term was first used by a group of French film critics and cinephiles associated with the magazine ''

Cahiers du cinéma ''Cahiers du Cinéma'' (, ) is a French film magazine co-founded in 1951 by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca.Itzkoff, Dave (9 February 2009''Cahiers Du Cinéma Will Continue to Publish''The New York TimesMacnab ...

'' in the late 1950s and 1960s. These critics rejected the ''Tradition de qualité'' ("Tradition of Quality") of mainstream French cinema, which emphasized craft over innovation and old works over experimentation. This was apparent in a manifesto-like 1954 essay by

François Truffaut François Roland Truffaut ( , ; ; 6 February 1932 – 21 October 1984) was a French film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film critic. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of the French New Wave. After a career of more th ...

, ''Une certaine tendance du cinéma français'', where he denounced the adaptation of safe literary works into unimaginative films. Along with Truffaut, a number of writers for ''Cahiers du cinéma'' became leading New Wave filmmakers, including

Jean-Luc Godard Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as Fran ...

Éric Rohmer Jean Marie Maurice Schérer or Maurice Henri Joseph Schérer, known as Éric Rohmer (; 21 March 192011 January 2010), was a French film director, film critic, journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and teacher. Rohmer was the last of the post-World ...

, Jacques Rivette, and

Claude Chabrol Claude Henri Jean Chabrol (; 24 June 1930 – 12 September 2010) was a French film director and a member of the French New Wave (''nouvelle vague'') group of filmmakers who first came to prominence at the end of the 1950s. Like his colleagues a ...

. The associated Left Bank film community included directors such as Alain Resnais,

Agnès Varda Agnès Varda (; born Arlette Varda; 30 May 1928 – 29 March 2019) was a Belgian-born French film director, screenwriter, photographer, and artist. Her pioneering work was central to the development of the widely influential French New Wave film ...

Jacques Demy Jacques Demy (; 5 June 1931 – 27 October 1990) was a French director, lyricist, and screenwriter. He appeared at the height of the French New Wave alongside contemporaries like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. Demy's films are celebra ...

and

Chris Marker Chris Marker (; 29 July 1921 – 29 July 2012) was a French writer, photographer, documentary film director, multimedia artist and film essayist. His best known films are ''La Jetée'' (1962), '' A Grin Without a Cat'' (1977) and ''Sans Soleil ...

. Using portable equipment and requiring little or no set up time, the New Wave way of filmmaking often presented a documentary style. The films exhibited direct sounds on film stock that required less light. Filming techniques included fragmented, discontinuous editing, and long takes. The combination of realism, subjectivity, and authorial commentary created a narrative ambiguity in the sense that questions that arise in a film are not answered in the end.

Origins of the movement

Alexandre Astruc's manifesto "The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: The Camera-Stylo", published in ''L'Écran'' on 30 March 1948, outlined some of the ideas that were later expanded upon by

and the ''

''. It argues that "cinema was in the process of becoming a new means of expression on the same level as painting and the novel ... a form in which and by which an artist can express his thoughts, however abstract they may be, or translate his obsessions exactly as he does in the contemporary essay or novel. This is why I would like to call this new age of cinema the age of the ''caméra-stylo.''" Some of the most prominent pioneers among the group, including

, and Jacques Rivette, began as critics for the famous film magazine ''Cahiers du cinéma''. ''Cahiers'' co-founder and theorist André Bazin was a prominent source of influence for the movement. By means of criticism and editorialization, they laid the groundwork for a set of concepts, revolutionary at the time, which the American film critic Andrew Sarris called '' auteur theory''. (The original French ''La politique des auteurs'', translated literally as "The policy of authors".) Bazin and

Henri Langlois Henri Langlois (; 13 November 1914 – 13 January 1977) was a French film archivist and cinephile. A pioneer of film preservation, Langlois was an influential figure in the history of cinema. His film screenings in Paris in the 1950s are often ...

, founder and curator of the Cinémathèque Française, were the dual father figures of the movement. These men of cinema valued the expression of the director's personal vision in both the film's style and script. Truffaut also credits the American film '' Little Fugitive'' (1953) by Ruth Orkin,

Ray Ashley Raymond Abrashkin (March 9, 1911 – August 25, 1960) was an American writer and filmmaker. He is known for writing, co-producing, and co-directing '' Little Fugitive'' and for co-creating and co-writing with Jay Williams the ''Danny Dunn'' ser ...

and

Morris Engel Morris Engel (April 8, 1918 – March 5, 2005) was an American photographer, cinematographer and filmmaker best known for making the first good-quality, internationally-recognized American film "independent" of Hollywood studios, '' Little Fugi ...

with helping to start the French New Wave, when he said "Our French New Wave would never have come into being, if it hadn't been for the young American Morris Engel icwho showed us the way to independent production with (this) fine movie." The auteur theory holds that the director is the "author" of their movies, with a personal signature visible from film to film. They praised movies by

Jean Renoir Jean Renoir (; 15 September 1894 – 12 February 1979) was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s. His films '' ...

and

Jean Vigo Jean Vigo (; 26 April 1905 – 5 October 1934) was a French film director who helped establish poetic realism in film in the 1930s. His work influenced French New Wave cinema of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Biography Vigo was born to Emil ...

, and made then-radical cases for the artistic distinction and greatness of Hollywood studio directors such as

Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...

John Ford John Martin Feeney (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973), known professionally as John Ford, was an American film director and naval officer. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of his generation. He ...

Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...

and Nicholas Ray. The beginning of the New Wave was to some extent an exercise by the ''Cahiers'' writers in applying this philosophy to the world by directing movies themselves. Apart from the role that films by Jean Rouch have played in the movement, Chabrol's '' Le Beau Serge'' (1958) is traditionally (but debatably) credited as the first New Wave feature.

's '' La Pointe Courte'' (1955) was chronologically the first, but did not have a commercial release until 2008. Truffaut, with ''

The 400 Blows ''The 400 Blows'' (french: Les Quatre Cents Coups) is a 1959 French coming-of-age drama film, and the directorial debut of François Truffaut. The film, shot in DyaliScope, stars Jean-Pierre Léaud, Albert Rémy, and Claire Maurier. One of the ...

'' (1959) and Godard, with '' Breathless'' (1960) had unexpected international successes, both critical and financial, that turned the world's attention to the activities of the New Wave and enabled the movement to flourish. Part of their technique was to portray characters not readily labeled as protagonists in the classic sense of audience identification. The auteurs of this era owe their popularity to the support they received with their youthful audience. Most of these directors were born in the 1930s and grew up in Paris, relating to how their viewers might be experiencing life. With high concentration in fashion, urban professional life, and all-night parties, the life of France's youth was being exquisitely captured. The French New Wave was popular roughly between 1958 and 1962. The

socio-economic Socioeconomics (also known as social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how modern societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their loc ...

forces at play shortly after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

strongly influenced the movement. Politically and financially drained, France tended to fall back on the old popular pre-war traditions. One such tradition was straight narrative cinema, specifically classical French film. The movement has its roots in rebellion against the reliance on past forms (often adapted from traditional novelistic structures), criticizing in particular the way these forms could force the

audience An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature (in which they are called "readers"), theatre, music (in which they are called "listeners"), video games (in which they are called "players"), o ...

to submit to a dictatorial plot-line. They were especially against the French "cinema of quality", the type of high-minded, literary period films held in esteem at French film festivals, often regarded as "untouchable" by criticism. New Wave critics and directors studied the work of western classics and applied new avant garde stylistic direction. The low-budget approach helped filmmakers get at the essential art form and find what was, to them, a much more comfortable and contemporary form of production.

Charlie Chaplin Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is conside ...

Howard Hawks Howard Winchester Hawks (May 30, 1896December 26, 1977) was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era. Critic Leonard Maltin called him "the greatest American director who is not a household name." A ...

, Sam Fuller and Don SiegelMovie movements that defined cinema: the French New Wave
/ref> were held up in admiration. French New Wave is influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. In a 1961 interview, Truffaut said that "the 'New Wave' is neither a movement, nor a school, nor a group, it's a ''quality''" and in December 1962 published a list of 162 film directors who had made their feature film debut since 1959. Many of these directors, such as Edmond Agabra and Henri Zaphiratos, were not as successful or enduring as the well-known members of the New Wave and today would not be considered part of it. Shortly after Truffaut's published list appeared, Godard publicly declared that the New Wave was more exclusive and included only Truffaut, Chabrol, Rivette, Rohmer and himself, stating that "''Cahiers'' was the nucleus" of the movement. Godard also acknowledged filmmakers such as Resnais, Astruc, Varda and Demy as esteemed contemporaries, but said that they represented "their own fund of culture" and were separate from the New Wave. Many of the directors associated with the New Wave continued to make films into the 21st century.

Film techniques

The movies featured unprecedented methods of expression, such as long

tracking shot A tracking shot is any Shot (filmmaking), shot where the film camera, camera follows backward, forward or moves alongside the subject being recorded. In cinematography, the term refers to a shot in which the camera is mounted on a camera dolly ...

s (like the famous traffic jam sequence in Godard's 1967 film '' Weekend''). Also, these movies featured existential themes, often stressing the individual and the acceptance of the

absurdity An absurdity is a state or condition of being extremely unreasonable, meaningless or unsound in reason so as to be irrational or not taken seriously. "Absurd" is an adjective used to describe an absurdity, e.g., "Tyler and the boys laughed at ...

of human existence. Filled with irony and sarcasm, the films also tend to reference other films. Many of the French New Wave films were produced on tight budgets; often shot in a friend's apartment or yard, using the director's friends as the cast and crew. Directors were also forced to improvise with equipment (for example, using a shopping cart for tracking shots.) The cost of film was also a major concern; thus, efforts to save film turned into stylistic innovations. For example, in

's '' Breathless'' (''À bout de souffle''), after being told the film was too long and he must cut it down to one hour and a half he decided (on the suggestion of Jean-Pierre Melville) to remove several scenes from the feature using

jump cut A jump cut is a cut in film editing in which a single continuous sequential shot of a subject is broken into two parts, with a piece of footage being removed in order to render the effect of jumping forward in time. Camera positions of the subj ...

s, as they were filmed in one long take. Parts that did not work were simply cut from the middle of the take, a practical decision, and also a purposeful stylistic one. The cinematic stylings of the French New Wave brought a fresh look to the cinema with improvised dialogue, rapid changes of scene, and shots that broke the common 180° axis of camera movement. In many films of the French New Wave, the camera was used not to mesmerize the audience with elaborate narrative and illusory images, but rather to play with audience expectations. Godard was arguably the movement's most influential figure; his method of film-making, often used to shock and awe audiences out of passivity, was abnormally bold and direct. Godard's stylistic approach can be seen as a desperate struggle against the mainstream cinema of the time, or a degrading attack on the viewer's supposed naivety. Either way, the challenging awareness represented by this movement remains in cinema today. Effects that now seem either trite or commonplace, such as a character stepping out of their role in order to address the audience directly, were radically innovative at the time. Classic French cinema adhered to the principles of strong narrative, creating what Godard described as an oppressive and deterministic aesthetic of plot. In contrast, New Wave filmmakers made no attempts to suspend the viewer's disbelief; in fact, they took steps to constantly remind the viewer that a film is just a sequence of moving images, no matter how clever the use of light and shadow. The result is a set of oddly disjointed scenes without attempt at unity; or an actor whose character changes from one scene to the next; or sets in which onlookers accidentally make their way onto camera along with extras, who in fact were hired to do just the same. At the heart of New Wave technique is the issue of money and production value. In the context of social and economic troubles of a post-World War II France, filmmakers sought low-budget alternatives to the usual production methods, and were inspired by the generation of Italian Neorealists before them. Half necessity and half vision, New Wave directors used all that they had available to channel their artistic visions directly to the theatre. Finally, the French New Wave, as the European modern Cinema, is focused on the technique as style itself. A French New Wave film-maker is first of all an author who shows in its film their own eye on the world. On the other hand, the film as the object of knowledge challenges the usual transitivity on which all the other cinema was based, "undoing its cornerstones: space and time continuity, narrative and grammatical logics, the self-evidence of the represented worlds." In this way the film-maker passes "the essay attitude, thinking – in a novelist way – on his own way to do essays."

Left Bank

The corresponding "right bank" group is constituted of the more famous and financially successful New Wave directors associated with ''

'' (

, and

). Unlike the ''Cahiers'' group, Left Bank directors were older and less movie-crazed. They tended to see cinema akin to other arts, such as literature. However, they were similar to the New Wave directors in that they practiced cinematic modernism. Their emergence also came in the 1950s and they also benefited from the youthful audience.Thompson, Kristin. Bordwell, David. ''Film History: An Introduction'', Third Edition. McGraw Hill. 2010, p.412 The two groups, however, were not in opposition; ''Cahiers du cinéma'' advocated for Left Bank cinema. Left Bank directors include

, Alain Resnais, and

(Varda's husband,

, is sometimes grouped with the Left Bank filmmakers). Roud described a distinctive "fondness for a kind of

Bohemian Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Beer * National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst * Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...

life and an impatience with the conformity of the Right Bank, a high degree of involvement in literature and the

plastic arts Plastic arts are art forms which involve physical manipulation of a plastic medium by molding or modeling such as sculpture or ceramics. Less often the term may be used broadly for all the visual arts (such as painting, sculpture, film and ...

, and a consequent interest in

experimental film Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, parti ...

making", as well as an identification with the political left. The filmmakers tended to collaborate with one another.Jill Nelmes, ''An Introduction to Film Studies'', p. 44. Routledge. Jean-Pierre Melville, Alain Robbe-Grillet, and Marguerite Duras are also associated with the group.Donato Totaro, ''Offscreen'', ''Hiroshima Mon Amour'' review, 31 August 2003. Access date: 16 August 2008.
/ref> The nouveau roman movement in literature was also a strong element of the Left Bank style, with authors contributing to many of the films. Left Bank films include '' La Pointe Courte'', '' Hiroshima mon amour'', '' La jetée'', '' Last Year at Marienbad'', and ''

Trans-Europ-Express The Trans Europ Express, or Trans-Europe Express (TEE), was an international first-class railway service in western and central Europe that was founded in 1957 and ceased in 1995. At the height of its operations, in 1974, the TEE network compri ...

''.

Influential names in the New Wave

New Wave Film.com
"Where to Start Guide", section outlining directors. Accessed 30 April 2009.

''Cahiers du cinéma'' directors

* Jacques Rivette

Left Bank directors

* Alain Resnais *

* Henri Colpi *

Other directors associated with the movement

* Alexandre Astruc * Jacques Doniol-Valcroze * Jean Douchet * Marguerite Duras *

Jean Eustache Jean Eustache (; 30 November 1938 – 5 November 1981) was a French filmmaker. During his short career, he completed numerous short films, in addition to a pair of highly regarded features, of which the first, '' The Mother and the Whore'', is ...

* Georges Franju * Philippe Garrel * Pierre Kast * William Klein *

Louis Malle Louis Marie Malle (; 30 October 1932 – 23 November 1995) was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in both French cinema and Hollywood. Described as "eclectic" and "a filmmaker difficult to pin down," Malle's filmogr ...

* Jean-Pierre Melville * Luc Moullet * Alain Robbe-Grillet * Jean Rouch *

Jacques Rozier Jacques Rozier (; 10 November 1926) is a French film director and screenwriter. He is one of the lesser known members of the French New Wave movement and has collaborated with Jean-Luc Godard. Three of his films have been screened at the Canne ...

* Straub-Huillet *

Roger Vadim Roger Vadim Plemiannikov (; 26 January 1928 – 11 February 2000) was a French screenwriter, film director and producer, as well as an author, artist and occasional actor. His best-known works are visually lavish films with erotic qualities, suc ...

Other contributors

Raoul Coutard Raoul Coutard (16 September 1924 – 8 November 2016) was a French cinematographer. He is best known for his connection with the Nouvelle Vague period and particularly for his work with director Jean-Luc Godard. Coutard also shot films for New Wa ...

– cinematographer * Henri Decaë – cinematographer * Georges Delerue – composer *

Paul Gégauff Paul Gégauff (10 August 1922 – 24 December 1983) was a French screenwriter, actor, and director. He collaborated with director Claude Chabrol on 14 films. Among his films are ''Les Biches'', ''Plein Soleil'' and the autobiographical '' Une Pa ...

– screenwriter * Michel Legrand – composer * Marilù Parolini - photographer, screenwriter * Suzanne Schiffman – screenwriter

Actors and actresses

* Anna Karina * Anne Wiazemsky *

Anouk Aimée Nicole Françoise Florence Dreyfus (born 27 April 1932), known professionally as Anouk Aimée () or Anouk, is a French film actress, who has appeared in 70 films since 1947, having begun her film career at age 14. In her early years, she studi ...

Brigitte Bardot Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot ( ; ; born 28 September 1934), often referred to by her initials B.B., is a former French actress, singer and model. Famous for portraying sexually emancipated characters with hedonistic lifestyles, she was one of the ...

* Charles Aznavour *

Jean-Paul Belmondo Jean-Paul Charles Belmondo (; 9 April 19336 September 2021) was a French actor and producer. Initially associated with the New Wave of the 1960s, he was a major French film star for several decades from the 1960s onward. His best known credits ...

* Gerard Blain *

Jean-Claude Brialy Jean-Claude Brialy (30 March 1933 – 30 May 2007) was a French actor and film director. Early life Brialy was born in Aumale (now Sour El-Ghozlane), French Algeria, where his father was stationed with the French Army. Brialy moved to mainland ...

* Jacques Charrier * Françoise Dorléac * Stéphane Audran *

Bernadette Lafont Bernadette Lafont (28 October 1938 – 25 July 2013) was a French actress who appeared in more than 120 feature films. She has been considered "the face of French New Wave". In 1999 she told ''The New York Times'' her work was "the motor of my ex ...

Jean-Pierre Léaud Jean-Pierre Léaud, ComM (; born 28 May 1944) is a French actor, known for playing Antoine Doinel in François Truffaut's series of films about that character, beginning with ''The 400 Blows'' (1959). He also worked several times with Jean-Luc Go ...

* Claude Jade *

Jeanne Moreau Jeanne Moreau (; 23 January 1928 – 31 July 2017) was a French actress, singer, screenwriter, director, and socialite. She made her theatrical debut in 1947, and established herself as one of the leading actresses of the Comédie-Française. M ...

* Maurice Ronet * Jean Seberg *

Delphine Seyrig Delphine Claire Beltiane Seyrig (; 10 April 1932 – 15 October 1990) was a Lebanese-born French actress and film director. She came to prominence in Alain Resnais's 1961 film ''Last Year at Marienbad'', and later acted in films by Francois ...

* Jean-Louis Trintignant *

Sami Frey Sami Frey (born Samuel Frei; 13 October 1937) is a French actor of Iranian Jewish descent. Among the films he starred in are '' En compagnie d'Antonin Artaud'' (1993), in which he portrays French poet and playwright Antonin Artaud Antoine Ma ...

* Catherine Deneuve

Theoretical influences

* Alexandre Astruc * André Bazin *

Robert Bresson Robert Bresson (; 25 September 1901 – 18 December 1999) was a French film director. Known for his ascetic approach, Bresson contributed notably to the art of cinema; his non-professional actors, ellipses, and sparse use of scoring have l ...

* Roger Leenhardt