CHAPTER ¡6 The French New Wave, Part One: ¡957–¡968 Introduction Sartre and Albert Camus, became part of a significant philosophical reflection on the The next two chapters focus on the historic nature of being and the absurdity of the human importance of the New Wave (nouvelle vague), condition. Sartre and Camus proposed a con- a radical film movement that changed the way cept of human freedom based upon the possi- we think about and understand film narratives bility of a deliberate and conscious choice in as an art form and cultural construct. The which the actions of human beings are not lim- movement was initiated by a young, talented ited or determined by powerful cultural forces. group of French film critics, namely, François On the contrary, it is the experiential choices Tru›aut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, they make that fully bring whatever endow- Eric Rohmer and Jacques Rivette, whose first ments they have into being. “Man is a self-cre- feature films in ¡959 revolutionized film pro- ating being who is not initially endowed with duction in Western Europe. Their improvisa- a character and goals,” notes Sartre, “but must tional approach to acting, directing and script- choose them by acts of pure decision … [and writing followed the documentary techniques make] existential leaps into being” (Sartre of filmmakers like Jean Rouch, Alain Resnais ¡943). Contrary to Plato, Sartre places one’s and Chris Marker, using handheld cameras, on- existence before the idea of essence. By location shooting, and small crews. As writers acknowledging that people are temporal beings and directors they followed André Bazin’s con- conscious of their own mortality, a person must cept of the long take and mise-en-scène. The strive to live authentically with the under- unifying principle behind these films was standing of this fact as leading to a person’s own French Existentialism, in which they expressed ultimate destiny. a personal vision of the world. They merged These concepts were born out of the philoso- this philosophy with the dramatic theories of phers’ own experiences during the French strug- Bertolt Brecht. The New Wave displaced the gle against German occupation during World postwar French commercial cinema, the Tra- War II. For some documentary French filmmak- dition of Quality, in which studio writers ers such as Alain Resnais, Georges Franju and adapted novels into filmscripts to produce a Alexandre Astruc, it was necessary to depict on cinema of “psychological realism.” film these atrocities, symbolically or otherwise, if only to document them. This political com- mitment to documentary filmmaking began The Influence of French with the early short documentaries of Georges Existentialism on the New Wave Franju (¡9¡2–¡987), the co-founder of the Ciné- mathèque Française with Henri Langlois. His During the postwar years French Existen- Les Sang des Bêtes / The Blood of the Beasts tialism, through the writings of Jean-Paul (¡949) is a surreal documentary on a Paris 194 ¡6. The French New Wave, Part One: ¡957–¡968 195 Alain Resnais in Last Year at Marienbad (¡96¡) uses shots of gardens and statues of a hotel where remem- brances of times past confuse time present. slaughterhouse that becomes an allegory of the centration camps. Resnais uses brief, almost Nazis and their butchery of French Resistance subliminal, flash cuts as a method to pursue the fighters. His other short films, one on Georges e›ects of time and memory and how they play Méliès, the other on Madame Curie, decon- upon our present sense of reality. A somber struct myths about heroism and heroes. His voice-over narration throughout the film leads first feature film, La Tête Contre les Murs / The to his warning for viewers to remember the hor- Keepers (¡958), a partly surreal documentary on rors of the death camps. His meditations on the the French insane asylums, is cited as a fore- e›ects of time upon memories and how we per- runner of New Wave attacks on traditional ceive them became the theme of his first feature institutions and structures that Michel Foucault film, Hiroshima, Mon Amour (¡959), followed revisits in his account of mental institutions in by L’Année Dernière à Marienbad / Last Year at Madness and Civilization (¡965/¡98¡). Marienbad (¡962) whose intersection of past and Alain Resnais (b. ¡922) is another important present a›ects our sense of the future. These documentary filmmaker to influence the New themes are taken up by another documentary Wave filmmakers and critics. His early work filmmaker, Chris Marker (b. ¡92¡). In his sci- included short documentary films about Van ence-fiction short, La Jetée / The Pier (¡962), we Gogh and Gauguin. In Nuit et Brouillard / Night become involved in a time-travel adventure of and Fog (¡955), he interweaves past with pre- a man revisiting his past only to discover his own sent in a political documentary on Nazi con- death. In Le Joli Mai (¡963) Marker focuses upon 196 AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD CINEMA Impersonal relations between lovers, indicated by long tracking shots of empty corridors and outdoor vistas, disorient the viewer trying to sort out the flashbacks and present-day actions in Last Year at Marienbad. the political strife in Parisian life as he mixes use the camera as a pen to express his own present time with fading memories. Resnais and thoughts and ideas independent of a given sce- Marker and other documentary filmmakers nario, as opposed to adopting a style from lit- were part of the Left Bank group associated with erature or the theatre. This “writing with the the New Wave, but were committed to a more camera” would see filmmaking as a sponta- existential approach to documentary films. neous happening, in which the director would Alexandre Astruc (b. ¡923) championed the face the problems of expressing ideas and direct cinéma style of Franju and Resnais. He thoughts through the very activity of filmmak- expressed his critical thoughts on filmmak- ing. Using this cinematic technique, Astruc ing in his ¡948 essay, “The Birth of a New believed young French filmmakers would be Avant-Garde: La Camera-Stylo” (camera-pen). able to find a personal style and form of expres- According to Astruc, this new cinema would sion comparable to a written language. Thus, “gradually break free from the tyranny of what they could discover a new audiovisual language is visual, from the image for its own sake, from that abandoned the classical style of montage the immediate and concrete demands of the editing and linear narration. This new cinema narrative, to become a means of writing just as would give the filmmaker the status of author, flexible and subtle as written language” (Astruc, or auteur, since the mode of filmmaking inves- quoted in Graham ¡968, p. ¡8). tigated natural phenomena according to the By breaking away from a traditional narra- director’s personal attitude and beliefs. As a tive technique, and more into a surreal stream- film style, it would emphasize the use of the of-consciousness approach, the director would “long-take” and mise-en-scène. ¡6. The French New Wave, Part One: ¡957–¡968 197 The French New Wave lightweight ¡6mm cameras, and remembered Directors, ¡956–¡968 his dictum to show people as they are. Godard made Tous les Garçons S’Appellent Patrick / All The critical comments of Alexandre Astruc the Boys Are Named Patrick (¡957), Tru›aut on a personal, first-person filmmaking tech- directed Les Mistons / The Mischief Makers nique were advanced by André Bazin (¡9¡8– (¡958) and Chabrol produced and directed Le ¡958) in the influential film journal Cahiers du Beau Serge / Bitter Reunion (¡958). Cinéma which he founded as La Revue du Cinéma with Jacques Doniol-Valcroze in ¡95¡. The term to describe this filmmaking practice The New Wave became known as the politique des auteurs, and and Jean-Luc Godard was defined by Bazin in his own essay as follows: The French New Wave was a provocative The politique des auteurs consists, in short, exploration into commercial cinema at a time of choosing the personal factor in artistic when film that relied on traditional stage tech- creation as a standard of reference, and niques was seen as a sterile creative movement. then of assuming that it continues and The personal styles of these young critics of even progresses from one film to the next. Cahiers du Cinéma challenged this “cinema de It is recognized that there do exist certain papa.” They became filmmakers to examine the important films of quality that escape this relationship of one’s own identity with the role test, but these will systematically be con- sidered inferior to those in which the per- assigned by society. They followed two basic sonal stamp of the auteur, however run-of- tenets emerging from Cahiers du Cinéma and the-mill the scenario, can be perceived André Bazin. One was the use of the long take, even minutely [Bazin, quoted in Graham and a mise-en-scène that respected the unity of ¡968, p. ¡5¡]. time and place, as opposed to montage. The second tenet related to the use of the camera as Under the guidance of Bazin, a group of an instrument for personal expression as advo- young writers and critics who wanted to cated by Alexandre Astruc. Thus universal become filmmakers began studying film at the themes on life, love and identity would receive Cinémathèque Française. This film theatre was a personal interpretation as a dialectical play founded by Georges Franju and Henri Langlois between the representation of self in the cinema in ¡937 as a film archive designed to promote and in real life, a play between illusion and film study and film culture.