Talk:French New Wave

Left Bank vs. Right Bank
In 50 years of reading film criticism I have never heard this term or distinction. What does it come out of, a single film textbook from 2010? This smacks of something that is just made up out of whole cloth. Montju (talk) 21:59, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Inconsistency and misjudgement
There's an inconsistency and surely a misjudgement in the treatment of Louis Malle. There is a paragraph which says he was not a New wave director, which seems to be tendentious. Then he is listed as a Minor Director of the list of New wave filmekers. He shouldn't be listed if he is not a member of the group. And I doon't see how anyone can claim he is a minor director.


 * Agreed. This is complete conjecture on the part of the original writer and not a commonly held one.  As there are no cited sources to his/her opinion (and that includes the opinion on Franju), I am taking it out.  I did find a source supporting that these directors WERE considered a part of the new wave and included it.  If people disagree, this might be better under a "Divided Opinions" section as sources can probably be found to support both pro- and anti- stances.  Although in my experience there are far more sources on the "pro" side. I'll try to dig out some of my books to further back up the cited reference. Echoflame (talk) 00:35, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

His status as a major or minor filmmaker aside, it is a mistake to classify Louis Malle as a New Wave filmmaker, let alone (as he is in the links at the bottom of the page) a Left Bank one. I don't think there's anything tendentious about this judgment: Malle was not a modernist or avant-garde in any respect, he had no particular allegiances to Hollywood genre cinema, and he had no background in criticism or film theory. If you want to insist on a label, a more accurate one would be a "New Wave-era filmmaker."

Melville has no business being listed as a Left Bank filmmaker (as he is in the pulldown list at the bottom of the page); he made a distinct rightward turn politically later in his career, and while his films anticipated, influenced, and helped to catalyze the films of the New Wave, Melville himself is part of an older generation of filmmakers altogether. Eventually he rejected the New Wave's artistic rebellions as going too far and his later films were derided by Cahiers critics as easy entertainments (Le Samourai, Le Cercle Rouge) or politically suspect (Army of Shadows). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.193.52.125 (talk) 22:06, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Page Name Move
I've moved this page from "French new wave" to "French New Wave," as a proper name almost invariably capitalized in sources (e.g. the top four google hits for "French New Wave": 1, 2, 3, 4). I'll also be fixing it in corresponding articles. --Dvyost 04:16, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

list of filmmakers/artists
This article could obviously benefit from a list of major (and minor) directors of the nouvelle vague, including but hardly limited to: Godard, Truffaut, Rivette, Chabrol, Rohmer, Malle, Resnais, Varda, Demy, Marker, Aubier, etc., etc.

I also see benefit from another list of frequent collaborators and influences, especially actors, like Anna Karina, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Eddie Constantine, Jean-Pierre Leaud, etc.

And where is mention of Andre Bazin in this article?  Jean pierre jeunet came off the back of the 80's new wave crowd didn't he?132.185.144.123 (talk) 12:48, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd do it myself but I can't remember enough film history to get it right. --Andymussell 03:17, 27 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Marker, Resnais, and Varda were part of the Left Bank group, which consisted generally of older filmmakers and was not considered part of the nouvelle vague at the time. A list of actors would by a good idea, though, as many of them were as symbolic as any director. Deleuze 05:21, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Just made assorted additions to the entry including an exploration of the film techniques of nouvelle vague, and origins of the movement. I hope people will add more significant figures to the tiny list of filmmakers/artists; it's a start!Jmodel 05:28, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I tried to clean up the "controversial" section on the influence the new wave had on modern cinema. In so doing, I also added some actor names. Please feel free to flag it again if I didn't clean up the previous line properly. Also, I had to erase the entire paragraph on the avant-garde because it was just too much of a mess. LonesomeCowboyBill 22:00, 13 September 2006.

How are we deciding who is major and who is minor? If they must be divided, Left and Right Bank would make more sense. Pianoshootist 15:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I've moved Louis Malle to the minor figures section, as very few modern critics would refer to him as a member of the New Wave. He was also neither a member of the Cahiers group nor Left Bank group nor a figure the New Wave admired (Melville) who became successful during the movement. --Granddukesfinances (talk) 11:35, 6 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I've cleaned up, categorized, and alphabetized these sections, with references. ADDENDA: This Louis Malle opinion isn't supported, although it is true that he was neither a part of the Cahiers or Left Bank Group, the Cahiers du Cinema published a list of all New Wave Directors in 1962 that included over 160 different directors associated with the movement. Therefore, instead of grouping these directors as "major" and "minor", which is a value judgement, I have grouped them as "Cahiers", "Left Bank" and "Other" and have cited a source. Although it may be useful to include a section on "Divided Opinions" about which directors should and should not have the "new wave" label applied.  However, it is clear that since Louis Malle is often included that he should at least be mentioned. Echoflame (talk) 00:35, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

B-film directors
The article states that Charles Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, and Orson Welles were B directors that the Cahiers admired, but I highly doubt that Hitchcock and Chaplin would be considered B directors. Maybe Orson Welles during the latter part of his career could be considered one, but Hitchcock and Chaplin were considerably popular with a mainstream audience and Hitchcock would often use such stars as Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Jimmy Stewart, so I would hardly consider him a B director. And Charlie Chaplin is one of the most recognizable, if not the most recognizable, stars of all time, and was highly popular in his day...and still is, for that matter. So I would hardly consider him and Hitch B filmmakers. I think a revision's required here. 4.155.102.1 02:09, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Origins
Shouldn't the Origins section include some reference to where the term Nouvelle Vague actully came from? On the French page of this article it says it originated in L'Express in an article by Françoise Giroud on 3 October 1957. But can wikipedia in other languages be used as a source? Em Mitchell 08:00, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I think, after watching Stanley Kubrick's film "Killer's Kiss", which recieved international distribution, we need to consider it as the origin of the New Wave. Kubrick's external nighttime shots, his use of hand-held cameras, after-dubbing of sound, surrealist shadows and camera angles, street scenes, disregard for cinemtic conventions and low-budget feel, all predate the New Wave and, I'm sure, were a major influence on it. You can also see its influence on Fellini's films. Killer's Kiss is a hidden masterpiece. 71.2.169.101 (talk) 18:36, 15 December 2007 (UTC)Tim Lewis]


 * That's intriguing, but it's considered original research by Wikipedia. If you can find a source, you should add it to this article; if not, you should write such an article and publish it somewhere! Aryder779 (talk) 02:43, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Overuse of "citation needed" and "peacock term"
This article does not benefit from the heavy-handed overuse of the citation needed and peacock term tags. They break up the text of the article so badly that it's practically unreadable, without actually doing anything useful. For example, the "Film techniques" section already uses the unreferenced section template; the eight uses of "citation needed" in that section are superfluous. Some of the specific individual uses of those tags are also inappropriate. For example, the use of "citation needed" in the second paragraph is completely unnecessary, since the footnote at the end of that paragraph clearly says that Breathless used jump cuts because it was felt that the film was over-long. And could someone please explain to me how the word "tight" in the sentence "Many of the French New Wave films were produced on tight budgets" is a peacock term?

Obviously, some work needs to be done to cite or re-phrase some of the more grandiose claims in the article. But it's equally obvious that "citation needed" and "peacock term" are being overused here because someone has an axe to grind, not in a good-faith effort to improve the article. Jd4v15 (talk) 02:47, 6 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Amen! I'm no expert in wiki protocol (I'd never even encountered the phrase "peacock term" until I saw it plastered all over this article), but it seems clear that nobody but the self-important editor behind it benefits from this unreadable mess of an article. 71.70.187.94 (talk) 16:24, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

"traditional narrative flow"
"Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Howard Hawks, John Ford, and many other forward-thinking film directors were held up in admiration while standard Hollywood films bound by traditional narrative flow were strongly criticized."


 * It seems odd to say that Howard Hawks and John Ford, in particular, were not making standard Hollywood films bound by traditional narrative flow. Stagecoach, His Girl Friday, and what have you are excellent movies, but it's hard to say they are not "standard Hollywood films" without using some very idiosyncratic definitions. And Hitchcock was a director of thrillers, which are surely a genre deeply bound up with "traditional narrative flow."  Which is to say, I'm not sure what this sentence is supposed to mean. john k (talk) 20:31, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree, it is ridiculous and it was listed here for over 6 years since You pointed it out. And "forward-thinking" seems like a very PoV statement. Even one of the sources states that the so-called French New Wave directors were influenced by Ford and others, and it states nothing about "traditional narrative flow" or "forward-thinking directors". StjepanHR (talk) 09:16, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on French New Wave. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080511201931/http://www.brynmawrfilm.org/08_French_Cinema_NEW.html to http://www.brynmawrfilm.org/08_French_Cinema_NEW.html

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Archetypal works of the movement
I came here as a reader hoping for at least a short list of 'the archetypal Nouvel Vague films'. I see Directors, performers and contributors, but little on the films themselvces. Is this an omission? I wish I could contribute one, but I don't know jack about the subject. Which is why, etc... Blether (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:13, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

1958-1962
The New Wave peak period is from 1958 to 1962 (not 1964.) That's how it was defined in two major works on French cinema (Roy Armes, French Cinema, Oxford University Press, 1985; Jean-Pierre Jeancolas, Le Cinéma des Français, la Vème République. 1958-1978, Paris, Stock, 1979.) Also in Jean-Loup Passek, Dictionnaire du cinéma. Paris: Larousse, 1986. Philburmc (talk) 01:35, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Actors and actresses
Alain Delon was not associated with the New Wave in any way. Catherine Deneuve also doesn't belong to this list. Philburmc (talk) 01:41, 24 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Added Alain Delon to the list, because Alain Delon starred in Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï in the 60s. Melville, the spiritual father of the French New Wave. Alain Delon was perhaps not a leading figure of French New Wave cinema, but he was influential, and he was part of it. Pdb100 (talk) 13:33, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Claude Lelouch
I deleted his name from the list for several reasons (many of them listed here: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-may-11-ca-lelouch-story.html ):
 * he rejected FNW label: "Truffaut proclaimed “A Man and a Woman” an example of New Wave cinema because Lelouch was the “auteur” of the film. I said it is not a New Wave film"
 * he called the emperor naked and refered to the so-called FNW as: "The New Wave showed me what I was not supposed to do. The New Wave was not a very important film movement."
 * he was disliked by the critics because of what he had said

Some other sources:
 * 1: "Yet Lelouch has had to fight harder for recognition than his contemporaries whose names are synonymous with the French New Wave."
 * book "Claude Lelouch, Film Director" (page 134): "Lelouch himself has no desire to be grouped with the New Wave or any movement" StjepanHR (talk) 08:31, 14 February 2021 (UTC)