N£W Wav£S and Young Cin£Mas. 1958-1967

CHAPTER N£W WAV£S AND YOUNG CIN£MAS. 1958-1967 he decade after 1958 S8 W extraordinary ferment in the interna tionaJ T 8ft cinema. Not only were major innov8tions introduced by older auteurs, but a host of "new waves," "young cll1emas," and "new cine mas," criticized and rejuvenated the modernist tradition. Many of the younger filmmakers became the major figures of later decades. THE INDUSTRIES' NEW NEEDS lnd ustnal cond itions fa vored the a rrival of fresh ta len t. Whereas Ameri can film attendance had declined after 1947, elsewhere audiences did not significantly dwindle until the late 1950s. Then, with television provlding cheap entertainment, producers aimed at new audiences-sometimes through coproduetions, sometimes by making erotic films. They also tried to attract the "youth culture" that emerged in most western countries in the late 1950s. In western Europe, sexual liberation, rock music, new fashions, the growth of soccer and other sports, and new forms of tourism such as Club Med became hallmarks of the generation coming to matu rity 8round 1960. Trends toward an urban, leisure-class lifestyle were strengthened by an economic boom a frer 1958 tha t raised Europea n Ii v ing standards. Similar patterns emerged in ]clpan and eastern Europe. Who could better attract this affluent audience than young filmmak ers? Film companles began to open up production to beginning direc tors. These opportunities coincided with the expansion of professional film traillll1g. After the late I950s, existing film academies 111 the USSR, eastern Europe, France, and Italy were joined by national film schools founded in the Netherlands, Sweden, West Germany, and Denmark. Throughout Europe, young directors (around thelr thirties) made their 439 440 CHAPTER 20 New Waves :lI1d Young Cinemas. i 958-1967 20.1, le(t Istvan Sza bo's The Age o( Da)'drearning (1964): shooting on rhe street, using a long lens that tlartens perspective. 20.2, right Sha Itow depth in a closer view, yielded by the telephoro lens (Walkover. 1965, Jerzy Skolimowski). first features in the years 1958 to 1967. Brazil, one of showed exactly what the lens saw, and film stocks that the most westernized countries in South America, also needed less light to create acceptable exposures. Al reflected this trend in Its Cinema Novo gl'OUp. though much of this equipmenr was designed to aid Youth culture accelerated the internationalizing of documentary filmmakers (p. 484), fiction filmmakers film culture. Art thea ters and ci ne-clu bs In ultlplied. The immediately took advantage of it. Now a director could list of International film festivals now included San film with direcr sound, recording rhe ambient noise of Francisco :Jl1d London (both begun in 1957), Moscow the world outside the sealed studio. Now the camera (1959), Adelaide and New York (1963), ChIcago and could take to the streers, searching out fictional charac Panama (1965), Brisbane (1966), and San Antonio and ters 111 the midst of a crowd (20.1, 20.2). This porta ble Shiraz, Iran (1967). Festivals in Hyeres, France, and Pe equipment also let the filmmaker shoot quickly and sara, Italy (both begun In 1965) were deliberately cre cheaply, an advantage for producers anxious to econo ated as gathering points for young filmmakers. mize in a declining industry. The 1960s fictional cinema gained a looseness that put it closer to Direct Cinema documentary (see Chap FORMAL AND STYLISTIC TRENDS ter 21). Directors often filmed from a distance, using panning shots to cover the action and zoom lenses to Each na tlon 's new ci nema was a loose assortment of enlarge derails, as if rhe filmmaker were a journalist quite different filmmakers. Typically their work does snooping on the characters (20.3). It was during this pe not display the degree of unity that we find in the stylis riod that close-ups and shotlreverse-shot exchanges tic movements of the silent era. Still, some broad trends began to be shot almost entirely with long lenses-a link the young cinemas. trend that would dominate the 1970s (2004, 20.5). The new generation was the first to have a clear Yet this rough documentary look did not commit the awareness of the overall history of cinema. The Cine directors to recording the world passively. To an extent matheque Fran<;:aise in Paris, the National Film Theatre not seen since the silent era, young filmmakers tapped in London, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York rhe power of fragmentary, discontinuous ediring. In became shrines for young audIences eager to discover Breathless (France, 1960), Jean-Luc Godard violated films from around the world. Film schools screened for basic ruJes of continuity editing, notably by rossing out eign classics for study. Older directOrs were venenHed as frames from the middle of shots in order to create jarring spi ritual"fa thers": Jean Renoi r, for Franc;ois Truffa ut; jump cuts (20.6). A film by the Japanese Nagisa Oshima Fritz Lang, for Alexander Kluge; Alexander Dovzhenko, might contain over a rhousand shots. Older directors for Andrei Tarkovsky. In particular, young directOrs ab favored smooth editing, considering Sovier Montage sorbed the neorealist aesthetic and the art cinema of the unrealistic and manipulative, but now montage became 1950s. Thus the new clllemas exrended several postwar a source of inspiration. At the limit, 1960s direcrors trends. pushed toward a collage form. Here the director builds Most apparent were JOnovatlons in technique. In the film out of staged footage, "found" footage (news part, Young Cinema identified itself with a more imme reels, old movies), and images of all sorts (advertise diare approach to filming. During the lare 1950s and ments, snapshots, posters, and so on). throughour the 1960s manufacturers perfected cameras Yet young filmmakers also exrended the use of long that dId not require tripods, reflex viewfinders that takes, one of the major stylistic trends of the postwar Formal and Stylistic Trends 441 20.3 A Illoment in the pan-and-zool11 2004,20.5 Shotlreverse shot employing a long lens in Milos Forman's Blacl<. Peter shot covering a conversation ([,5, 1965, ( 1963). Ulrich Schamoni). 20.6, left In Breathless, Godard's jUl11p cuts create a skittery, nervous style. 20.7, right The end point of a zoom in from Los Golfos. line. The objective realism of the Neorealist approach was enhanced by the use of nonactors, reaJ locations, and improvIsed performance. The new techniques of Di rect Cinema allowed young directors to go even further on this path. Accordingly, young filmmakers set their stories in their own apartments and neighborhoods, filming them in a way that traditional directors consid ered rough and unprofessional. For instance, in Los Gol (os ("The Drifters," 1960), Carlos Saura uses nonactors and improvisation to tell his story of young men's Jives era (p. 341). A scene might be handled in a single shot, of petty crime. 5aura incorporates hand-held shots and a device that qUlckly became known by its French abrupt zooms (20.7) to give the film a documentary name, the plan-sequence ("sequence shot"). The light immediacy. weight cameras proved ideal for making long takes. The art cinema's subjective realism also developed Some directors alternated lengthy shots and abrupt edit further during this period. Flashbacks had become com ing; French New Wave directors vvere fond of chopping mon in the postwar decade, but now filmmakers used off a graceful long take with sudden close-ups. Other them to intensify the sense of characters' mental states. directors, such as the Hungarian Miklos ]ancso, devel Alan Resnais's Hiroshima mon amour (1959) led many oped the Ophuls-Antonioni tradition by building the filmmakers to "subjectivize" flashbacks. Scenes of fan film out of lengthy, intricate traveling shots. Across the tasy and dreams proliferated. All this mental imagery 1960s, telephoto filming, discontinuous editing, and became far more fragmentary and disordered than it had complex camera movements all came to replace the been in earlier cinema. The filmmaker might interrupt dense staging In depth that had been common after the narrative with glimpses of another realm that only World War II. gradually becomes identifiable as memory, dream, or The narrative form of the postwar European art film fantasy. At the limit, this realm might remain tantaliz relied on an objective realism of chance events that often ingly obscure to the very end of the film, suggesting how could not be fitted into a lwear cause-and-effect story reality and imagination can fuse in human experience. 442 CHAPTER 20 New Waves and Young Cinemas, 1958-1967 20.8, left Daisies: the long lens f1attens women and man. 20.9, right Everything (or Sale joins the new cinemas in its self-conscious references to film history-a history that includes Wajda's early work. In a direct echo of Ashes and Diamonds, the mysterious young actor lights drinks while remarking that the partisans were symbols for his generation (compare with 18.23). The an-cinema rendency roward aurhorlal COI11 from objective realism made film form and sryle sel£ menrary likeWise conrinued. Fran~ois Truffaur's lilring referential. Many films no longer sought ro reflect a camera movements around his characrers suggesred thar realiry outside themselves. Like modern painting and rheir lives were a lyric,1i dance. In Daisies (1966), Vera literature, film became reflexive, pointing to its own ma Chyrilov3 uses camera rricks ro commenr on her hero terials, structures, and history. tne's mocking view of men (20.8). Reflexjviry was perhaps least disturbing when the Directors combined objective realism, subjecrive re 111m built its plot around the makjng of a film, as in 8'/1, alism, and authorial commenrary in ways rhat gener Godard's Contempt (1963), and Andrze) Wajda's Every ared narrarive ambiguiry.

Load more