The French New Wave was a turning point for cinema because it led to an increase in the exploration of complex...

The French New Wave was a turning point for cinema because it led to an increase in the exploration of complex, existential themes, especially regarding the subjectivity of morality. Writer/directors such as Truffaut, Godard and Rivette enabled filmmakers who were fed up with the shallow, simplistic films that were commonplace at the time. Their writing explored the very nature of morality, and the role it plays in people’s everyday lives. The influence of the French New Wave was truly profound, and directly responsible for numerous films.

Attached: french new wave.jpg (300x168, 7K)

Both of the films discussed below are excellent examples of cinema that explore the nature of morality through an existential lens. Although they are not necessarily the first films to do so, they did manage to explore these themes in a subjective, ambiguous manner that only made sense in a post-war society. The atrocities committed during World War 2 had a strong impact on the world of cinema, as they represented moral subjectivity taken to an unimaginable extreme(Moral Relativism). Atrocities such as Hiroshima and the Holocaust were committed by people who, through their incredibly distorted worldviews, believed they were doing the right thing for their country. Events such as these had a profound effect on philosophy, which was naturally paralleled in the cinematic world.

Attached: breathless.jpg (613x463, 116K)

Journey to Italy is from 1954. The French New Wave didn't invent anything. Their influence has more to do with Cahiers du Cinéma than the films itself. Not that they were bad though.

This new-found cinematic depth was apparent from the release of what is arguably the first French New Wave film, Le Beau Serge, released in 1958. In the film, the main character, François, returns to the town he was raised in, Sardent. He reunites with his old friend, Serge, a bitter alcoholic. Serge and his wife, Yvonne have both been strongly affected by their stillborn child’s death. François is torn between staying in Sardent to help his friend, and going back to his new home. François is forced to undergo an internal conflict, and reconsider his values. The film ends on an ambiguous note, with Yvonne giving birth to a healthy baby, giving some hope to her and Serge.

Attached: le beau.jpg (182x268, 15K)

In the script, the writer/director Claude Chabrol, explored the existential question of whether a person should look out for themselves, or seek to help others. François is very troubled by the unhappiness of Serge, but he is also unhappy with the provincial lifestyle. He must choose between helping his own friend and serving his personal needs. The conflict is never resolved, much like many real-life moral conflicts.

Attached: fucker frenchie.jpg (300x168, 7K)

p r e t e n t i o u s

Attached: babo-trash.jpg (500x313, 22K)

The 400 Blows, released in 1959, also explored existential themes. In the film, Antoine Doinel, copes with the trials and tribulations of early adolescence, struggling to find meaning in his life. He feels at odds with his family and teacher, who harshly discipline him. However, in spite of his isolation, he manages to find meaning in cinema and literature. This detail is taken directly from the writer/director’s life, Truffaut, who, as an adolescent, would watch 2 films a day and read 3 books a week.

Attached: frog nigga.jpg (274x184, 7K)

One major theme in the film is freedom. Antoine feels confined to a disappointing existence, unhappy at both school and home. Due to the restrictions and abuse he endures, he is prevented from exploring his true passions. This is evident in the scene during which his teacher accuses him of plagiarism, when in reality he was making a quotation of Balzac,a writer he deeply admired. He is forced to ditch school and eventually run away in order to avoid his unpleasant existence.

Attached: put frog nigga music.jpg (309x163, 5K)

Another early French New Wave film that explored existentialist themes is Godard’s Breathless, released in 1960. In the film, the main character, Michel, is an amoral criminal who is alienated by society. Early in the film, he kills a policeman on an impulse, and is subsequently pursued by authorities. He arrives in Paris, and meets up with an American woman, Patricia, who claims that she is pregnant, possibly with Michel’s child. After she learns that he is on the run,she is conflicted about whether she should turn him in or not. This is a question everyone with a loved one who has committed a serious crime has to deal with. The decision to betray them is a difficult one to make, but so is allowing them get away with their crime. Eventually, Patricia give in, and reports him to the police. This results in his dramatic death directly in front of Patricia, with his dying words being insults directed at her.

Attached: da big frog nigga.jpg (258x195, 11K)

The ambiguousness of morality in French film has had a profound effect on the world of cinema. It has paved the way for films to explore the nature of morally complex situations in a more sympathetic way. This shift in the way that morality is viewed in film has allowed writers to create masterful screenplays such as the ones for The Godfather and Taxi Driver. The impact that French New Wave films have had is truly amazing, and has cemented them as undeniable classics.

Attached: de final frog nigga.jpg (285x177, 11K)

New wave stole existentialism from american noir cinema.

This is actually not that wrong. French movies and Hollywood productions influenced each other a lot in the 60s and even more in the 70s. There is this nice segment in Holy Motors that, at least that is my interpretation, deals about that. When Denis Lavant (maybe representing the french movie culture) sings along with Kylie Minogue (representing Hollywood cinema) in an old rund down building, celebrating what once was.

Sneed

While I appreciate the love and admiration for the French New Wave, posting your essay for you intro course to cinema isn't really quality posting.

Also your analysis of Breathless pertaining to the "betrayal" of loved ones is not a good writing move. The themes of existentialism, if true, are supposed to pertain to all of us not just those who have relations with criminals or those thought to have done criminal activity. You should rephrase your analysis/argument to not refer to a niche group of people, but rather the inherent struggle for any human being dealing with relations of trust and the conflicts of societal morality.

Yeah i was not shit posting. Noir was a clear influence on Breathless and Shoot the Piano Player. The right bank new wave were not trying to be avant garde or ground breaking (well eventually Godard went that route and it did not produce good results imo)

And classic film Noir was influenced by german cinema of the 30s. Lang's "M" among others was kind of a proto type.

I think somwhere in the late 2000s or so Hollywood stopped about looking left and right what is really possible in getting inspired by new ways to tell stories and focused just on flashy and superficial entertainment. We live in dark times, when it comes to mainstream cinema.

>Breathless
>loved one

Come the fuck on, none of the main characters in Breathless behave like they actually love or have even a bit of affection for each other. It's all about sex for Michel and adventure for Patricia. They're both shallow, vapid cunts and that's what leads to destruction of one of them.

Anyway the cross polination of american crime culture with french existentialist culture took place on a literary level with gallimard's serie noire inspiring a french film critic to create the term "film noire" and major existentialist writers like Camus writing examples of crime fiction like the Stranger until eventually in the 60s and 70s existentialist crime fiction became a genre with writers like JP Manchette being outstanding. In short the tackling of these themes by French film makers was not a tumult in culture but reflected trends which had been going on for at least 15 years.

Yeah i agree. I think film is a largely dead medium.

Attached: david lynchh.webm (640x480, 696K)

What a dumb ignorant statement. Do you think Hollywood is all there is to film?

I wouldn't call it dead it is just stuck regaeding the mainstream productions since a few years. I really have to look hard for interesting movies with unusual narrtive ideas or at least well written plots and characters. It feels like pre-internet era where you had to read magazines, articles or you had to rely on mouth to mouth recommendations to find the real good stuff.

It's unusual to see someone make a thread and make multiple consecutive posts entirely about Television & Film without resorting to buzzwords and shitposts.

Good on you OP, even though you're a filthy tripfag.

I think there will always be great films but i dont think film will ever be as relevant as it was in the mid 20th century where it was a space for cultures and ideas to mingle; it does not and will never have that kind of impact again. Film appreciation is pretty niche.

True, but it kinda sucks now out of context. I get it was cool at the time, but exploring morality and existentialism is boring if your film is boring people being boring.

>it does not and will never have that kind of impact again
Film is a very young art form, especially when compared to others. And while it is young, it has the biggest potential out of all of them. There will be a film renaissance in a couple of decades once Hollywood collapses into itself a few times and this cynic passive generation dies off I'm sure of it, and no it will not be any VR or other interactive entertainment gimmick, it will be a major shift in the consciousness of people

Boring" is not a valid argument, it only says what your mood was while watching the film.
Same as saying "it was fun", that does not indicate anything about the actual quality of the film whatsoever.

What you find boring others can find riveting and vice versa. Some people are immensely bored by Marvel flicks, some of them think they are just pure fun.
Get better arguments

I dont see it happening unless like in the other renaissance hyperwealthy individuals start patronizing savant auteurs. E.g. capitalism and the profit motive will have to become irrelevant.

>tripfag

I'm sick of moral ambiguity. The entirety of modern "art" cinema is a bunch of ambivalent navel gazing. How often is a moral choice actually hard to make, if you have a sufficiently developed personal philosophy? Is deciding by what code to live one's life no longer part of normal human development? What happened to movies that portray the great nobility of character humans are capable of, the way truly strong and fully-formed personalities can clash and/or cooperate? Why aren't those interesting? They even had to shit up the heroic characters of LotR with a bunch of angst when adapting it for modern audiences--not that Jackson and co. had the talent to really do the job in the first place. It's like art's been taken over by a bunch of adult children. They feel something missing, a mountain to climb or a war to fight but they're stunted and spoiled so they turn inward and dissolve into a neurotic soup and have nothing to say with any real meaning. The French New Wave did some interesting things I guess (only seen a couple of Truffaut's movies and they were kinda shit) but all in all I think they were the first few rocks in the landslide down into shit valley. hopefully we're all at the bottom now and can start climbing out

>What happened to movies that portray the great nobility of character humans are capable of

Attached: Blade.Runner.2049.02_31_50.jpg (3840x1600, 2.12M)

Well first of all moral ambiguity is at least as old as ancient greek drama and it definitely existed in neolithic mythology especially the icelandic sagas. Hell even Christ said "father why has thou forsaken me?" or some shit. Secondly, the french new wave and much of post world war art was affected by the ambiguity of on the one hand the "just war" of liberating the death camps versus the mass slaughter of civilians with nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons were an existential threat e.g. existentialism. Moral ambiguity is integral in western culture you only find truly unambiguous heroes and such in the fucking bronze and iron age. It is completely useless to the average person trying to navigate through the vicissitudes of life. By a well developed personal philosophy you seem to mean a dogmatic approach. You seem like the character Javert in Les Miz, only how funny because you come to a site like Sup Forums...

i should've put moral ambiguity in quotes. I'm talking about the limp wristed superficial stuff we get masquerading as depth in the last several decades of cinema (and art as a whole,) I thought I'd made that clear with the line about fully formed personalities clashing because they are philosophically at odds in some critical way--basically what all good stories are about, whether things go in a tragic or more optimistic direction. I think that narrative art plays a crucial role in the self regulation of the collective unconscious or whatever you want to call it--basically it's your human responsibility as a participant in this discourse to make the best case you can for your own set of values and the ones people like the best will win out. If you're dogmatic people aren't very receptive so no, that's not what I'm advocating. The best way I can explain what I'm getting at with regards to cinema is by pointing to the best of the Old Hollywood stuff in comparison to the dreck we get today--a lot has been sacrificed on the altar of so called "moral ambiguity." I, a fairly average person, find more value in that stuff than in anything more recent. But the drive to seek it out is decidedly unaverage

Also the neurosis over nukes is way played out. It's obvious at this point we have too strong a collective self preservation instinct to wipe ourselves out. And using them on Japan has been proven a military, political and humanitarian masterstroke, at least if you consider a compelled uneasy global peace preferable to the alternatives. Civilization is still vulnerable to ecological and cosmic threats and to any number of other things (who knows wtf transhumanism and gene editing will do to us) but we're not about to put a big yellow gun to our own head and pull the trigger. But modern art seems to hew to the same sort of cynical perspective when it endeavors to mean anything at all. Like a habit that needs breaking

I don't know. I am not great at words

bump for good thread

Actually that was a very nicely worded reply. I agree there is a difference between Camus' moral ambiguity and that of Judd Apatow. In my opinion humanity will not survive on this planet forever. The nuclear thing was more or less foreshadowing to the much larger decentering that we face in the inevitable future. I kind of agree with you. I am sick of movies like blade runner that ask a lot of questions about what does it mean to be human. It might be time to start risking assertions.

>It might be time to start risking assertions
But 2049 unironically tries to answer it.

Please explain

Quality thread on Sup Forums? What a rarity.

Yeah quality film is almost non existent. It's now formulaic. You have to create this blockbuster that will gross the highest amount. However, hollywood will not collapse until the masses decide to boycott the simple movies they put out.

The masses will never do it; in my opinion unironically it is up to a vanguard of anarchic seekers to overthrow society with violence if necessary for the sake of pure cinema.

Nice try FBI man

These questions about moral ambiguity in cinema have kind of cemented my feelings on Ruben Östlund's The Square (which won the Palme d'Or). The film just felt entirely empty in a non-artistic way. It was full of this pessimism and contemplation of the difference between man and animal but it didn't feel like it really had anything to say at all. It was just pointing out that moral ambiguity and saying "There it is.", and what can something like that really mean to us?

I want to watch it so i know what you mean but you also made it sound like it is not much worth watching. Maybe moral ambiguity cannot stand alone and it has to be in conflict with some kind of certainty in order to actually matter.

I've not seen it but was really interested. Moral ambiguity should not be used lightly. The film that comes to mind that successfully utilizes it efficiently is The Killing of a Sacred Deer.

The most recent film I've seen is Before We Vanish. The story of three aliens surveilling the earth before they take over. Very interesting ideas of what makes a moral human. I would recommend it.

I thought the french new wave was important because it changed the way the directors used their camera/How to shoot.

I thought the French New Wave was important because it enhanced peoples ability to be pretentious.

Nah that was hitchcock/welles New Wave incorporated pastiche

Boring, pretentious crap... so it must be good.

Bonus points for black and white!

Terrible B8 or you're retarded.