By the 1950s, French cinema was in a dire state. The filmscape at the time was dominated by “cinéma de qualité”, uninspired, script-centered studio films engineered to achieve commercial success rather than be meaningful expressions of human life. In 1951, a group of young cinema-goers came together to form Les Cahiers du Cinéma, a journal that challenged the ideas of contemporary cinema and laid the way for a new wave of French cinema, or “La Nouvelle Vague”.
The writers of Les Cahiers, most notably François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and Eric Rohmer among others, took a radical new approach to film. Whereas previously, a film had been considered the creation of the screenwriter, producer and studio, these young cinephiles considered cinema to be an art form, and the director to be the sole author of the film, a radical idea that came to be known as “la politique des auteurs”. This can be seen in particular with Alfred Hitchock, who, as a director, was considered a very skilled craftsman, but was never seen as a serious “artist”. The Cahiers critics, however, essayed to explore the complexity behind Hitchcock’s works, and discover the distinctive style and themes that made up a Hitchcock film. Thus, the writers in the Cahiers rejected the preconceived notions of what cinema was and completely changed the way film was perceived.
However, the critics soon decided that theory was not enough; in the late 1950s, they began to direct their own films in an entirely new way. The films they directed defied the conventions of what a film ought to be, often with disjointed plot structures, candid and controversial films that they considered to be more in touch with the real life of the French youth, and meta-cinematic touches, such as characters talking directly to the camera, constantly remaining the audience that what they were watching was, in fact, a film. The new directors were also determined to operate outside of the studio system; this, combined with post-war economic struggles, meant that they faced significant financial constraints. These obstacles, however, benefitted the films more than it took away from them; it forced the directors to employ cinematic techniques such as shaky hand-held shots, and to film on location rather than on a set, which made the films all the more grounded in reality.
The breakthrough for the New Wave came in 1959, when François Truffaut’s semi-autobiographical Les Quatres Cent Coups won him the best director award at the Cannes film festival. The film was lauded by critics and drew worldwide attention for this new cinematic movement, paving the way for the French new wave to become the hugely influential movement that it is considered today. The knock-on effects of “La Nouvelle Vague” cannot be overstated. The new idea of “la politique des auteurs” inspired directors across the globe to create films as their own artistic vision, leading to the production of some of the most renowned films of all time; it is safe to say that, without “La Nouvelle Vague”, films like The Godfather, Jaws, or Star Wars would never have been put to screen.
