Tirez sur le pianiste (1960)

1. Tirez sur le pianiste (1960)

2. The French New Wave (1958-1963) • A coherent, unified film movement limited to a specific time and place • Marks a significant transition within French culture and society • Movement identified and theorised by the filmmakers themselves • First books on the New Wave published in 1960 and 1961

3. Was the New Wave an artistic school? Criteria of an artistic school: • a critical doctrine shared by a group of journalists or filmmakers • an aesthetic programme implying a strategy • the publication of a manifesto making this doctrine explicit • a collection of works fitting these criteria • a group of artists and collaborators (e.g. film crew and technicians) • a publication allowing for the dissemination of the group’s position • a promotional strategy • a leader and/or a theoretician of the movement • adversaries (Marie 1997: 27)

4. La Nouvelle Vague • Term initially referred to post-war ‘baby boom’ generation (brought about by post-war repopulation drives, immigration, lack of birth control) • ‘La Nouvelle Vague arrive!’, survey published by L’Express 1957 • 25% of people interviewed wished France had a socialist society; 69% thought women should concentrate on home and family (quoted in Neupert 2002: 14)

5. Generational conflict in French cinema • New Wave critics and filmmakers opposed to traditional French ‘cinéma de qualité’, often in polemical articles • They preferred new European cinema and American cinema • Culture of cinephilia develops in France in 1950s around film-clubs, small arthouse cinemas and the Cinémathèque Française • New Wave critics developed the ‘politique des auteurs’ as a call for creative freedom and originality in the cinema

6. Economy and Aesthetics of the New Wave • Films made outside normal circuits of production: Chabrol and Truffaut’s first films self-financed through inheritance • Films made quickly and cheaply with help from friends • Mostly shot on location • Unpopular with unemployed film technicians

7. Principles of the New Wave aesthetic • The director is also the screenwriter • Use of improvisation • Location shooting • Small, reduced film crew • Direct sound recording rather than post-synchronisation • Minimal lighting effects (preference for natural light) • Non-professional actors • Or new, young actors (Marie 1997: 63)

8. The New Wave: an artistic school • critical doctrine = la politique des auteurs • aesthetic programme = writing and directing your own films • strategy = small budget, self-produced films • manifesto = Truffaut’s ‘A Certain Tendency of French Cinema’ (1954) • collection of works = the films! • Group of artists = Truffaut, Chabrol, Rohmer, Godard, Rivette, Varda (etc.) • Publication = Cahiers du cinéma • Promotional strategy = polemical journalism • Leader = Truffaut • Theoretician = André Bazin • Adversaries = le cinéma de qualité; Positif (Marie 1997: 42-3)

9. François Truffaut • Truffaut kept diaries and records and used autobiographical material in his films • An illegitimate child rejected by his parents, he represented his unhappy home life in Les 400coups (1959) • Juvenile delinquency: truancy, theft, deserted the army • Truffaut escaped into the cinema: discovered around place de Clichy during the Occupation

10. Seminar questions • How does the character of Charlie compare to the characters of other crime thrillers you may have seen? • Examine the depiction and treatment of women in the film. Again, how does it compare to the role of women in the crime genre more generally? • Look closely at the film’s narrative structure. How does it work with changes in mood and tone? • Give examples of unusual or innovative uses of film language that might be considered typical of the New Wave.

11. Bibliography • Gillain, Anne (ed.) (1988), Le Cinéma selon François Truffaut, Paris: Flammarion. • Gillain, Anne (1992), François Truffaut, le secret perdu, Paris: Hatier. • Holmes, Diana and Ingram, Robert (1998), François Truffaut, Manchester: Manchester University Press. • Marie, Michel (1997), La Nouvelle Vague: Une école artistique, Paris: Nathan. • Neupert, Richard (2002), A History of the French New Wave Cinema, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.