French New Wave Fact File

Question 1

French new wave Is defined as such because of?

One of the most influential directors of the new wave? is quoted addressing a group of leading writers and directors of the French cinema in the 1950s ?

Answer 1

Its attack on previous generations of filmmakers who dominated French cinema.

“Your camera movements are bad and you no longer know what cinema is”

Question 2

Warren Buckland (2002) defines pre French New Wave film as having the following characteristics:

The French New Wave on the other hand had?

Answer 2

• High Production Values
• Reliance on Stats
• Genre conventions
• Privileging the script (rather than the film language).

very strong conventions that went against what was introduced
• Low budget
• Unknown Actors
• Non Genre Films (or using the genre in a new way)
• Privileging the film language over the script

Question 3

? Film can be seen as the classic film of the French New Wave, containing all the features which are characteristic of the Movement. 

Characteristics of French New Wave


Answer 3

Breathless

• Shot on location in Paris and Marseilles in a month (Aug - Sep 1959)
• Natural Lighting
• Hand-held camera
• Experimentation with sound, unpredictable mixture of diegetic and non-diegetic sound, sometimes used as counterpoint to the action on screen.
• Linking devices : Godard uses techniques from silent cinema, such as irising, masking and the fade to black, to link scenes.
• Uneven tone : the tone of the film can change suddenly, e.g. from comic to tragic.
• Elliptical ending - removing the continuity in time and space between shots. The most extreme form being a jump cut.
• Limited emphasis on cause and effect. In conventional, plot driven filmmaking each shot, each line of dialogue has a logical response, a reverse shot or answer to the question.

Question 4

Features of classic narrative Film Making?

In narrative films it is through the? that the forward movement of narrative takes place.

Answer 4

• Events are organised in a cause and effect relationship and progress towards an inevitable conclusion.
• Emphasis in identification with a character
• There is a high degree of concluding

linking together of shots and scenes by editing

Question 5

Continuity Editing (characteristics)

Answer 5

•cutting breaks a scene into fragments : Continuity editing creates a unity of time and space from those fragments.
• Editing imitates the space of Renaissance painting, creating an illusion of depth on a flat screen
• Continuity editing aims to create consistency and orientate the viewer. It always positions the spectator on the same side of the action.
• Continuity editing also creates dramatic focus, rhythm and mood.