FLM 325 - French New Wave Cinema

1 course unit

This course explores the very rich period in French Cinema during the 1950s and 1960s that is known as the French New Wave (La Nouvelle Vague). Spearheaded by a group of young directors who also wrote their own screenplays (Truffaut, Godard, Malle, Chabrol, Resnais, among others), this movement gave rise to “Le cinema d’auteur” as an innovative and influential way to produce films. To understand this very important film movement, we will study the uses of script, image, and sound in the films themselves with special emphasis on storyline, subplot, and character. We will also pay considerable attention to the cultural and economic contexts in which the films were produced and the biographies of the directors themselves. Attendance at weekly screenings is required.