PART I: French New Wave (1958-62)
A bout de souffle/ Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960) Not only was Breathless Jean-Luc Godard’s first feature film but also Jean-Paul Belmondo’s first appearance as a cinema actor. Breathless is the story of small-time gangster Michel (Belmondo) who while imitating American cinema icons tries to escape from the police but is eventually betrayed by one of his girl-friends, Patricia (Jean Seberg). It is less the rather conventional story than the cinematic style and innovative analysis of cinematic traditions and modern consumer culture that makes Breathless one of the most significant and globally influential works of the French New Wave.
Tirez sur le pianiste/ Shoot the Piano Player (Francois Truffaut, 1960) Disillusioned musician Charlie Kohler (Charles Aznavour) playing the piano in a rundown bar has never been lucky in life. But then he falls in love again. Happiness, however, can only be temporary, when he and his lover are drawn into a conflict between gangsters. In this homage to American cinema of the 1930s and 1940s, Francois Truffaut clearly represents the quest of New Wave directors for authenticity but also their rejection of the idea of real originality. Like Godard’s Breathless, it reinvents but also continues the rigid rules of the genre picture by closely relating to American Film Noir and especially the latter’s ambiguity towards the possibility of individual freedom.
Les Quatre cents coups/ The 400 Blows (Francois Truffaut, 1959) This is the first film of the French New Wave doing away with an obsolete French cinema that was oriented on commercial success only. Truffaut fully realizes a cinema that, as Godard put it, showed “girls as we love them, boys as we see them every day, parents as we despise or admire them, children as they astonish us or leave us indifferent; in other words, things as they are.” In this manner and inspired by his own biography, Truffaut tells the simple story of an adolescent (Jean-Pierre Léod) growing up in a hostile social environment, in which neither his parents nor his teachers at school are able or willing to make an effort to understand him.
Jules et Jim (Francois Truffaut, 1962) Set in the first half of the 20th century, Jules et Jim is about a two decade long triangular relationship between protagonists Jules (Oskar Werner), Jim (Henri Serre) and Catherine (Jeanne Moreau). As most love triangles in cinema history, their story will not have a happy resolution, either. Truffaut takes an archetypical cinematic plot and together with cinematographer Raoul Coutard transforms it into a well balanced film that infuses melodramatic scenes with a sense of irony and realism rarely found in other examples of the genre.
the 400 blows, 1959
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breathless, 1960
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shoot the piano player, 1960
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jules and jim, 1962
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A bout de souffle/ Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960) Not only was Breathless Jean-Luc Godard’s first feature film but also Jean-Paul Belmondo’s first appearance as a cinema actor. Breathless is the story of small-time gangster Michel (Belmondo) who while imitating American cinema icons tries to escape from the police but is eventually betrayed by one of his girl-friends, Patricia (Jean Seberg). It is less the rather conventional story than the cinematic style and innovative analysis of cinematic traditions and modern consumer culture that makes Breathless one of the most significant and globally influential works of the French New Wave.
Tirez sur le pianiste/ Shoot the Piano Player (Francois Truffaut, 1960) Disillusioned musician Charlie Kohler (Charles Aznavour) playing the piano in a rundown bar has never been lucky in life. But then he falls in love again. Happiness, however, can only be temporary, when he and his lover are drawn into a conflict between gangsters. In this homage to American cinema of the 1930s and 1940s, Francois Truffaut clearly represents the quest of New Wave directors for authenticity but also their rejection of the idea of real originality. Like Godard’s Breathless, it reinvents but also continues the rigid rules of the genre picture by closely relating to American Film Noir and especially the latter’s ambiguity towards the possibility of individual freedom.
Les Quatre cents coups/ The 400 Blows (Francois Truffaut, 1959) This is the first film of the French New Wave doing away with an obsolete French cinema that was oriented on commercial success only. Truffaut fully realizes a cinema that, as Godard put it, showed “girls as we love them, boys as we see them every day, parents as we despise or admire them, children as they astonish us or leave us indifferent; in other words, things as they are.” In this manner and inspired by his own biography, Truffaut tells the simple story of an adolescent (Jean-Pierre Léod) growing up in a hostile social environment, in which neither his parents nor his teachers at school are able or willing to make an effort to understand him.
Jules et Jim (Francois Truffaut, 1962) Set in the first half of the 20th century, Jules et Jim is about a two decade long triangular relationship between protagonists Jules (Oskar Werner), Jim (Henri Serre) and Catherine (Jeanne Moreau). As most love triangles in cinema history, their story will not have a happy resolution, either. Truffaut takes an archetypical cinematic plot and together with cinematographer Raoul Coutard transforms it into a well balanced film that infuses melodramatic scenes with a sense of irony and realism rarely found in other examples of the genre.