Offering profiles of principal stars such as Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna
Karina, and Brigitte Bardot as well as reviews and analysis of all the
major films in the movement, this is the perfect primer to the group of
French filmmakers who have become synonymous with effortless style and
urban cool The directors of the French New Wave were the original film
geeks--a collection of celluloid-crazed cinéphiles with a background in
film criticism and a love for American auteurs. Having spent countless
hours slumped in Parisian cinémathèques, they armed themselves with
handheld cameras, rejected conventions, and successfully moved movies
out of the studios and on to the streets at the end of the 1950s. By the
mid-1960s, the likes of Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and Claude
Chabrol had changed the rules of filmmaking forever, but the movement as
such was over. During these key years, the New Wave directors employed
experimental techniques to achieve a fresh and invigorating new style of
cinema. Borrowing liberally from the varied traditions of film noir,
musicals, and science fiction, they released a string of innovative and
influential pictures, including the classics Le Beau Serge, Jules et
Jim, and A Bout de Souffle. An introductory essay examines the social
context of the movement in France as well as the directors' considerable
influence on later generations of filmmakers across the globe. A handy
multimedia reference guide at the end of the book points the way towards
further New Wave resources.
