Paris In French New Wave Cinema Film Studies Essay

This essay will analyse the importance of Paris in French New Wave cinema. In addition to that the history of the French New Wave would be looked at to have a better understanding of the importance of location of the film taken as well as the style. Additionally it would also consider the directors who started these films and their impact upon them. This would enable a better understanding of the filming technique and style of the film, the film I will analyze is HYPERLINK “http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055852/fullcredits”Cléo at the café (1962), in English translation Cleo from 5 to 7.

The French New Wave is more than a list of titles or a list of directors. The New Wave was at first a cultural phenomenon, coming from political, economic and social trends that were developed in the 1950s. Big changes in other arts including literature and theatre, made some of the shifts in cinema, and the role even domain of art criticism shifted during this time also.

The New Wave cinema was shaped by forces as abstract, as the growth of these film criticism that stressed mise-en-scene over thematic and as concrete as technological innovations in motion picture camera and sound recorders. France was going through some extraordinary industrial growth and self-evaluation, both of which put new pressures on the cinema and its place in the larger national sphere. Also, the average of moviegoers of the 1960s was very different from the ones in the 1950s. Political conservatism, consumerism and television, cine-clubs, popular film journals and a new generation of movie producers all had an involvement in the stories and styles that would make this thriving movement. To understand the meant to “be” nouvelle vague, it is ideal to consider the social, critical, economic, and the technological backgrounds that helped determine the films and their significance. Rather than starting with the cinema, one must bring the social realm but getting a better understanding of what French life and culture was like in the 1950s, one can understand much better why this even in the cinema world took place, when and where it did. Even though the rest of international cinema could only look in curious way at the revival of French cinema.

France had changed largely in the late 1940s, and this large transformation carried on into the 1960s. Every nation involved in World War II was affected by it for a long time after, and France, particularly, was affected more deeply, with war damage and debt. The French faces a strange mixture of national shame for Frances military loss. Moreover the conflicting views of France held by the international community at the war’s end, France as a helpless victim, a lazy and unsuccessful military force, a crippled industrial power, were also felt in its own borders. Every politicians and media newspaper seemed to want to speak to and for unified France, and the French people were often known as a single team that now had to get back to basics in order to simultaneously make up for the lost time and join the modernizing world.

In Paris, during World War II was a very dark city. The Germans forces created a blackout which imposed Paris to have the lights turned off, there was a shortage of petrol that kept cars off the road, even a curfew kept people away from the street at night. During daylight, a number of regulations, propaganda made the occupation increasingly unpleasant.

One of the few things that took away these times for the French citizens, was the cinema. However, these choices of what to watch, was very limited. American films was banned, and German films which was usually copies of Hollywood musicals and comedies, also melodramatic propaganda movies. French citizens only had the access to the 200 off French made films, that was produced during this four year period. These films that was approved by the German censor was few exceptions, pale imitations of the great French cinema of Marcel Carne, Rene Cliar, Marcel Pagnol and Jean Renoir that had came before the war.

The generations of “cinephiles” for example Andre Bazin, Alain Resnais and Eric Rohmer who had all been raised in the rich cinematic culture of the 1920’s and 1930’s, this less choice added to the sense of loss they already felt as a result of the war. It was not only the French films that they missed out, but the fact they could no longer see the American films that they loves. This experience of the missing out, let them to bring freedom of expression and truth of representation above all else, and values which would later become centre of their work.

After the World War II, France was seen desperately trying to assert, or reassert in the eyes of many French citizens, it’s cultural, political and even the economic clout in Europe and beyond. From the day the Germans was pushed out of Paris in August 19,1994, the French film industry rushed to reclaim its domain from the collaborators and to foster a new reborn cinema that the world regain from the glory of 1930s, which brought out the golden years of Jean Renoir, Rene Clair and Marcel Carne.

As the titles states, Cléo de 5 à 7(1962) is set between 5pm and 7pm. At this time we follow a young singer, Florence, ‘Cléo’ Victoire as she walks along the busy street of Paris; all the while she is awaiting a dreaded test result from her doctor.

The director Agnes Varda, known as the “Grandmother of the New Wave”, uses fluid camera style with quick jump cuts to casually take us through the streets of Paris, allowing us the audience to feel the presences in the scenery. The camera brings a realistic, real-life documentary but still a strong experience.

Florence starts her journey by using a cliché. She is taken by materialism and a mostly hypnotized by her own beauty. She is being selfish and ignorant to the people around her as she is walking around, while people are looking at her, as she is quite noticeable to the people around her. She does not smile, or respond, and she acts like people are not even there. In a way in this selected clip, if at first you watch it, you at first can assume that she was a prostitute. Jill Forbes calls this the inescapable ‘mise-en-scene to which women are subjected’, usually in Paris (Forbes 2002:89). Forbes concludes that ‘though Cleo is Bauderliareon in some respects, it is an object not subject of the gaze’ (2002:86).

The shots of her walking the street is done using a bird eye view, you see lots of birds flying off the street as she enters the scene. This could have hidden connotations of the fact that it could be sign of a bad omen, in an almost a mythological scale. As she is walking the camera does not zoom into her, but more the camera is showing the street surroundings, and to make her seem a part of the society around her, as one of the public. You can tell it’s a sunny day, as being a black and white film, and as she is walking underneath tree, wearing sunglasses also, she is unseen in some part from the shadow, this shows how French new wave films, tend to use natural light. Lots of French New Wave films were created on a tight budget. Directors would use their friends as the cast and crew. The Directors would often have to improvise with camera equipment, for example using shopping cart for tracking shots. Cost in making movies was a major thing to think about; even the efforts to save money would make a film turned into stylist’s innovation. In Jean-Luc Godard’s film, Breathless (1960), in French known as (À bout de soufflé), was told the film was too long and that he was told to cut an hour and half. He then removed many scenes from the film using jump cuts, as they were filmed in one long take. Some parts did not work were just cut from the middle, a practical decision and also a stylistic one.

As Florence is seen walking inside the café, there are many POV shots. It makes the audience feel that they are in the cafe. All the people that are seen, does not blend in the background, they are seen in your way of the camera, and not something you would be used to watching as you would usually not focus on these extras actors. They seem like real people minding their own business, busy working, reading papers and so on. But one to think if they were watching this clip for the first time, that anyone could possibly be a main character that is about to come into scene.

Conversation of people in the background is visibly presence, two men who are on the bottom of the screen, is talking about politics. “Bloody Algerian Politics” says the man, “Where does it leave painting”, Florence is seen putting on her own song on the jukebox, and the camera pans away from the conversation, and tracks Florence as she walks away from the Juke box. Through this clip only diegetic sound is being played, from people in the background, objects moving around, there is no mood music, just the diegetic sound that is played from the jukebox.

The comments from the two male has some issues due to the time of filming. During the making of this film, the Algerian war was still going on. It had started on 1st November 1954 and would end with the Evian agreement of 18th March 1962, which led Algeria to become independent on 3rd July 1962. The French cinema could not talk explicitly to the conflict, until 1963. From 1954 to 1962, many French intellectuals including the New Wave filmmakers were strongly opposed to the war. In 1961 many of them signed the “Manifesto of the 121” Even though it started with 121 signees it soon continued to 400. This made French soldiers to desert rather than fight. This was intended to damage some filmmaker’s careers because the government forbade anyone to publicise the names who had signed the manifesto, but the state owned media also stopped any radio or television appearance by those who signed the manifesto. This therefore stopped them attempting promotion of newly released films. Some films were banned, like Godard’s Le Petit Soldat (1963) “The Little Soldier”. This was completed in the 1960 but was released after the end of the conflict in 1963.

The mise-en-scene in this clip shows the location that is set, which is France. Originally the director Anges Varda wanted to shoot this film in colour. But her producer, Georges De Beauregard who has produced other New Wave films like Jean-Luc Godard’s, A Bout De Soufflé (1959) as well as others such Jacques Demy’s Lola (1961). He wanted her to think of the financial way, “Make a little black and white film that won’t cost more than 32 million F”, he advised her. This is why Varda decided to shoot in Paris for being more practical and financially suited. Paris being a city of fear also being a personal resonance for Varda, as a provincial girl arriving in the French metropolis, Varda has been afraid of the city and its dangers of getting lost, feeling lonely and also alienated. Other film maker’s points of referencing when filming in Paris, were usually other films shot in Paris, but Vardas point was more to do with literacy and being artistic.

The styling of French New Wave has bought a new look to cinema with improvised dialogue, rapid changed of scenes and shots that go past the common 180 degree axis. The cameras were used not to mesmerize the audience with narrative and illusory images, but to play with the expectations of cinema. The style that was used to shock the audience out of submission and awe was bold and more direct that director Jean-Luc Godard has been of doing this by having contempt for his audience. His approaches can be seen as stylistic approach and can be seen as a desperate struggle, against the mainstream films at the time. Either way the challenging awareness represented by this movement remains in the cinema today. Effects that are now seem to either commonplace or trite, such a character stepping out of their role in order to address the audience directly, were increasingly innovative at the time.

New Wave filmmakers makes no attempts to suspend the viewers disbelief, in the fact, they took steps to constantly remind the viewers that a film is just a sequence of a moving image. No matter how stylized use of shadow and light, the result is set of odd mixed up scenes without the attempt to unity it together, or an actor’s character changes from one scene to the next or even sets in which accidently come into the camera with the extras, who are hired to do the same. Just like the scene where Florence is leaving the Café, walking down the street. You cannot decide by some looks on people, if they are even paid extras or onlookers looking at her. A little bit of unique style is used here.

One thing that makes Florence different from the other people in the scene is her appearance. She is obviously wearing a wig, which you do understand later in the clip, where the wig is hanging from a dressing table mirror. But her black dress, her blonde hair and sunglasses, not to forget the dress itself reveals her shoulders; this gives her a glamorous Hollywood film actress look.

As the camera follows Florence in the scene behind her, the camera turns softly to the left and captures the art work of painting on the wall. Many paintings are on the wall, side by side, like an art gallery. Then you hear a discussion from the public people in the background talking about Art. This helps the audience distinguish the presence of Paris. Paris being of the capital that is famous for artists such as Van Gough, paintings that French owns like The Mona Lisa. Paris is known capital of the artistic pictures and painting. There is a humour when the lady compares with a painting done by Picasso, “Picasso owl’s looks like a woman” another artist who made his fame in France.

Also I have noticed a lot of people are wearing sunglasses inside the café. It’s amusing to wear this, inside where the sun in not in the way, but this I believe is worn as more of a fashion statement. Paris is also known to be one the capital of the world of the fashion industry. Paris is known to have the fashion labels and fashion designers like Chanel, Dior and Louis Vuitton.

Towards the end of the clip, as mentioned earlier of stylised French New Wave films, there is a set of jump cuts of random people. With cuts to Florence walking away from the Café and people looking at her through POV shots. This clearly shows the style of French New Waves films, especially the editing of these jump cuts. These shots are very unsystematic, and almost seem like the director tried to group in scenes that was too long. Or maybe these jump cuts was used to cover some mistakes that might of happened during the filming, as the shoot location was done in an open public space.

To conclude this essay it has come to my attention that Paris as a city plays a crucial role in the production of French New Wave. This is mainly due to Paris been seen a central hub for fashion, literature, arts and food as well as not to mention films. This shows that they have come a long way since the French Algerian war as the films were censored from any mention of the war. Additionally the films been produced then did have a low budget, but somehow in Paris, quality and stylistic films was being produced.

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