The Effect of New Wave Cinema


     This week I watched a YouTube video that explains how The New Wave movement changed French cinema. The speaker of the video begins by explaining that the New Wave started after World War 2 had ended, as well as Nazi censorship in France. Previous films by filmmakers such as Jean Renoir were again accessible to the public. The video also touched on the importance of French magazines.  During the time of the New Wave, magazines began depicting directors as individual artists. In an article called The New Avant Garde by art critic Alexandre Astruc, he uses the word camera pen to describe the camera as if it were a paintbrush or typewriter.
     The video points out that many New Wave films used cities and on set locations to depict the actors in reality, and also to reduce the cost of studios. Filmmakers used long takes and deep focus to ensure the audience felt active and present in the scenes. 
     During this movement, Francois Truffault publicly criticised the lack of creativity of the Cannes festival and was banned as a result. When he made the film The 400 Blows, the movie made it the Cannes Festival as the request of the new minister of cultural affairs. He won the price of best director and inspired many other directions to create experimental films.
     Breathless by Jean-Luc Godard came out the next year. Godard, as well as many other New Wave directions, used jump-cuts to make single shots appear to skip forward in time.  This highlighted the fact that the audience was watching a film.  Overall, The New Wave allowed directors to be more experimental with their films.





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