Truth, 24 Frames a Second: Nouvelle Vague
Truth, 24 Frames a Second
Nouvelle Vague
For a long time cinema had mastered it’s form, becoming an industry of disposable cinema. It was the golden age of Hollywood. However, film making was difficult for new creatives to break into the industry to smash the barriers that had been set for them. Hollywood already had a refined, manufactured process of making films, now churning pictures out on a much larger scale then before. But it needed something new to shake the industry up...
Step in the French New Wave. A movement with the ambition to create new opportunities for those who wanted to make films. Founded by a group of film critics turn rebel film makers known as the Young Turks, New Wave' origins were formed in the late 50’s by a roaster of soon to be influential names: Jean-Luc Goddard, François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Jaques Rivette, Eric Rohmer. Other names were commonly dropped in this pool, the likes of Louis Malle, Agnes Varda, Jean-Pierre Melville, Jean Rouch and Roger Vadim also has parts to play - but nothing as substantial as the Turks. Although there is a debate about the precise origins or New Wave, or Nouvelle Vague, due to it’s nature as a movement. Despite this it was predominantly spearheaded by this group of film makers.
It was in their frustration with being unable to make films because of funding and growing increasingly agitated by the growing staleness in Hollywood as it suffered from a severe lack of innovation. They banded together in hopes to revolutionise the industry and provide fresh, original alternatives that were more practical.
“Photography is Truth. The cinema is truth 24 times a second.”
This was a newer, more personal kind of cinema. It was to embody the directors ideals and life philosophies. One that, although sometimes shared a common goal, ultimately looked for different (and in a lot of cases more effective) techniques to provide an extra dimensionality to scenes. This is what was at the essence of the Young Turks philosophies. Not so much to change cinema, but to add to it. To give it more depth and break the rules in the process. The Turks wanted to reflect the times that they were a part of, to create cinema and art that it linked to the creator. This is in part what led to the auteur role of the director, who was to play a much more idealised position in the production. It came to be that the archetypal film techniques used at the time did not reflect their own life’s journey. Things had gotten stale and too conforming towards the preexisting paradigms.
Brigitte Bardot in Le Mepris
More so, it was important to differentiate themselves from their contemporaries, finding the standard practices in film making and finding obscure methods and techniques to achieve a more effective alternative to the systematic formulas used in filmmaking up to that time. It was a polarised way to present a scene, one that slapped the face if conventional cinema. By expanding this pool of techniques, they created more ways to say something powerful and do it effectively and more efficiently. In hindsight, Cinema has been bettered by these discoveries.
By finding low-budget alternatives for locations, inexpensive or unknown actors, lighting and cameras and using natural light they bolstered their positioning as pioneers of their time. The first thing you will likely notice in New Wave cinema is the editing, specifically the use of cuts. Cuts are a tool used to denote the spatial and temporal context of the scene. This, and keeping a continuity with pacing and narrative in a steady, easy to digest manner making the overall production comfortable to watch. It was a way to keep the editing invisible, so the audience does not notice it, part of the distinct and formulaic language of classical cinema. You will notice that a cuts job is to provide, or highlight the differences in space and time between shots, or alternatively by mismatching the shots. Although it ultimately depends on the type of film that is being created.
By using jump cuts it contrasts two shots rather than glue them together, the audience becomes more conscious they are watching a movie. It represented the spirit of their era and rejuvenated cinema as an art form by breaking etiquette. They made it look easy. And it caught on, essentially giving birth to what was to become the montage. Essentially by cutting non-pertinent moments from the film it sped up the editing, creating a new feeling of tempo throughout.
The quartet knew and understood the grammar of film. They knew the audience didn't need to see everything to understand the scene - on the contrary they should be challenged. They began highlighting only the important parts, leaving more breath for the viewer, punctuated with original techniques to keep it fresh. They operated with a 'show, don’t tell’ ideology, seeking for efficiency. They blended transitions with establishing shots in the same take, dialogue was presented with off shots and discontinued editing, they even broke the fourth wall. These were efforts to remind the audience that they were watching a film, watching art. They were not to be complacent like in Hollywood but rather to be bold and outrageous, ushering in a new movement that was fresh with clarity and purpose.
In this auteur-bias style of filmmaking, the director uses his camera the same way that a writer would use a pen. They become the true author, and visionary of the film. This switch to directors personalising their films was a breakthrough in the cinematic world, making Directors artists in their own right. This in part is what led to the enhancement of creative elements and techniques in film. For a time films were the products of Hollywood, but the new wave movement brought the personalisation to cinema. The Turks wanted to find new ways to do old things, in a way that incorporated the film makers individual stylistic trademarks as a film maker. The message wasn’t always different but at times had a more layered more focussed subtext.
Anna Karina in Vivre Sa Vie
Camera movement is the second most noticeable change. An unencumbered camera was still a new approach and broke away from the typical stationary shots over the shoulders and establishing shots. So in order to separate themselves, they experimented with how the camera moves and follows the characters. There really wasn’t a definitive definition of how the camera should move in the films but the Young Turks experimented with how different methods can provide alternative outcomes.
Similar to how when we see an actor interact with something or someone off-screen the viewer must assume that there is another world outside of this frame, allowing a reality to exist within the frame but without necessarily having to spoon feed the audience. It was one of many steps that blurred the lines between art and reality and one of many of New Waves’ influences that can be found throughout modern cinema. Playing with the frame, isolation of certain elements of the frame within itself, freeze frames and zooms, all curated the scene underscoring specific elements that the director wanted. This was how they would toy with the audiences expectations, bu pushing the viewer and the boundaries of storytelling. The rules of continuity are broken, and the Young Turks were the first to tear them at the seams. They were some of the first in film making to ask themselves: how can this be done differently? They challenged themselves and in the process went through the important journey every artist must take, they broke the rules to make new ones of their own.
“A story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order.
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There are a few names in Avant Gardism that are sure to stand out, the likes of Salvador Dali (See my score for Destino!) Louis Brunel or Jean Cocteau. However, the gradient between Avant Garde and what was to become Art House cinema was blurring and what clearly defined the two before is ambiguous now. This questioned the integrity of realism in a piece of Avant Garde despite following a loose narrative, or a derivative of one.
Avant grade became synonymous with non-narrative and non-linear film, possessing a storyline despite the linearity of the film. Questioning and highlighting the medium itself by assimilating avant grade techniques by way of the relationship between sounds and vision.
By prompting interpretive and creative practices that exposed moments of textural excessiveness, proponents believed that spectators critically distanced themselves and moved to challenge the politics of representation, be it through the works of classical or experimental practitioners like Goddard. It questions the extended paradigm of avant-gardism where the film is circumventing the linearity of the story arc.
Music prior to new wave stood as realism, a separation between the audience and the characters. In non-diegetic music, we are kept as a separate entity to the story. This role was questioned in New Wave cinema and breaks down when the characters realise it exists, thus acknowledging the audience. It brought anarchy and lack of form to the very strict narrative based cinema of Hollywood. Goddard, of a critical, academic background was a chief proponent of such techniques.
In Une Femme Est Une Femme (1961), the impeccable Anna Karina performs a striptease after playing a record. There are jarring elements about this scene, like the main sitting at the piano behind her but not playing it, teasing the abnormality of the moment. This is brought to another level when the music playing cuts out. Leaving Anna Karina to finish the scene acapella, gradually closing the scope on her and the audience as she dances towards the viewer. And this keeps happening, highlighting the higher powers at play (the director). Goddard is no stranger to these techniques, earlier in the film music is played at such a volume that it even drowns out the characters dialogue.
By stopping the music before reaching it’s musical cadence, it prevents the audience from reaching the sonic resolution, like missing a stair on a flight of steps it draws us in and forced the audience to pay attention.
That’s what New Wave was all about in the end, it was the shock that cinema needed. The head-turner that got people noticing how powerful the medium of cinema truly was and how it can be used to convey messages, emotions, political undertones and even reflect the lives and times of the film makers.
It has probably done more for contemporary cinema than any other period of film. Probably.