Unique Characteristic Narrative and Stylistic

The French New Wave was an innovative and intellectual film movement. It was instantly recognizable in the late 1950s due to its distinctive form, narrative and style of film making among the youthful directors. The major factors contributing to the characteristics of this film movement are the French New Wave director’s background in film theory, critics and their willingness in experimenting and breaking established film rules to keep with contemporary French culture of the USA invading the French market post-war. Nevertheless, the uniqueness of French New Wave film movement is also inspired by the Italian Neo-Realism film movement, and driven by the concept of “auteur” as well as budget restrictions. Hence, these factors highlight the characteristics of this film movement in aspects of narrative, mise-en-scène and mise-shot.

In terms of narrative, French New Wave’s movies were using non-linear narrative to present the story whereby the beginnings of films were not started as the classic narrative that tells the story with linear plot structure. The structure arrangement of the films will make the audience think about the story base on the cues and accumulated information as the films will begins in the middle of the films. The arrangement of the plot was not in order and sometimes flashback scene appeared. This can be seen in the beginning of Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) that started with opening shot of two naked body with just close up to the arms and shoulders. Then the continuity shot of this scene finally disclose in the middle of the film that the lovers Elle (Emmanuele Riva) and Lui (Eiji Okuda) are having sex. Open narrative is also one of the characteristic of French New Wave film. The film usually ends ambiguously with no resolution at the end and story is left open for the plot to continue. The question marks were left over to depend on the audience themselves to resolve it. In the last shot of The 400 Blows, the character, Antoine reaches the sea and with the camera transition, the ending of the film did not tell where Antoine went to at the end.

The director (auteur) is the one who decide the sequence and the structure of the plot and the direct of character is applied as it is base on what the narrator tells the audience. Omniscient character in the story will be also the narrator who tells the story. Shoot the piano player directed by Francois Truffault begin the film by showing the insert of the piano hammers beating in rhythm continue with a linear story until the flashback at middle of the film when Charlie Kohler (Charles Aznavour) recalled his past as Edouard Saroyan. Then the story proceeds linearly until Charlie continues as the pianist the death of Lena (Marie Dubois) in the end. On the other hand, Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) directed by Alain Resnais started with naked, interlocked shoulders of a couple, Elle and Lui and intercut with the people in the hospital, people in the town and people in the museum exhibition the heritage of the city of Hiroshima after the bombing of atomic bomb during World War II. Then the story continues with the montage scene among the victims and the refugee. After that, the film shows Elle and Lui are on the bed making love and proceeds to their love story around two days with a short flashback of Elle past life and the memory of her first love with a Germany soldier. The film ends with Elle and Lui having a conversation in Elle’s hotel room. Therefore, the film ends ambiguously without telling the ending of the couple.

Besides than narrative, the characteristics of French New Wave can be identified through setting, lighting, staging and sound in terms of mise-en-scène. The setting of this film movement usually shoot on real or natural locations, therefore the films usually had a casual and natural look due to the choice of location filming in and around Paris. Eventually, the mise-en-scène of Parisian streets and coffee bars became favorite shooting spots of the films. For example, the majority of “A Bout de Souffle” film is shot on location in the urban setting of Paris. Shots of famous historic monuments, such as the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, were placed in the film. Moreover, the action of this film centered on locations such as the cafe scene where Patricia meets journalist Van Doude, the scene of Michel and Patricia take off for St-Germain in a stolen car at the street of Place de la Concorde, Boulevard Montparnasse, Paris and so on. The use of on location shooting eventually became a trademark of French New Wave films that refused the constraints of the studio.

Meanwhile, natural lighting is used because lights were another big cost to produce film. Thus, new wave filmmakers shot outside in natural light to reduce the cost of renting lights by using lightweight hand-held cameras that required less light and portable lighting equipment. The film, “A Bout de Souffle” is shot in black and white but uses naturalistic lighting that created a sense of immediacy. The lighting occurs naturally suggesting a representation of reality indirectly. For example, the use of naturalistic lighting on Patricia, the lead actress in A Bout de Souffle (1959) was successful to portray her innocence in order to gain male attention rather than sexuality. 

Next, the staging in French New Wave film movement has its own style especially in actor’s performance including speech or dialogue patterns. The actors were encouraged to improvise their lines, or talk over each other’s lines as would happens in real-life. This leads to lengthy|nscenes of inconsequential dialogue in A Bout de Souffle film included the use of vernacular speech and colloquial expressions of main male character, Michel. His casual and informal language with a wealth of popular and slang terms and expressions result in using dialogue that is often mumbled which reflected on his original background from a poor immigrant family and hoping for a greater status and wealth. Additionally, monologues were also used in French New Wave movement, for example in Godard's Charlotte and her Bloke (1959) as there were voice-overs expressing a character's inner feelings, as in Rohmer's La Boulangère Du Monceau. Besides that, the actors in this movement were not big stars prior to the French New Wave. As an example, the characters of Michel and Patricia in A Bout de Souffle (1959) are played by unknown actors, Belmondo and Seberg which used to portray real life through its use of ordinary actors besides than emphasized the low budget nature of the new wave films. In addition, the characters in French New Wave films are often marginalized, young anti-heroes and loners, with no family ties, who behave spontaneously, often act immorally and are frequently seen as anti-authoritarian. . In Godard's A Bout de Souffle (1959) the male protagonist, Michel Poiccard is an anti-hero and a socially alienated character that kills and shows no remorse. Hence, he is seen masking his face with a newspaper, which is a typical crime behavior that suggesting he is a morally ambiguous character who is distancing himself from society at the beginning of the film. Central female characters were often given strong parts too, for example, Patricia in A Bout de Souffle (1959) was portrayed as desexualized woman that reshaping and resisting the stereotypical film femme fatale. She represented the modern women who are independent and active within the narrative, opposing the traditional representation of women as passive in tradition classic Hollywood cinema by being journalist in earning own money to gain independence.

As for the sound aspect, French New Wave movement often used natural sound in staying real and true to the very nature of film. Direct sound from the filming locations was usually captured by using light-weight sound equipments that speed up the duration of production works. Naturalistic soundtrack recorded during the shoot was emphasized to create the films a sense of freshness and energy that earlier movies lacked due the used of remixing sound in studio. 

The characteristic of cinematography changed in French New Wave film was using a lot of mise-en-shot like panning, tracking follow the character movement, handheld, and point of view of the character and so on. Panning shot allowed long period shot in one shot to follow the character movement and to control the things that the director want the audience to see. In Shoot the piano player, when Charlie is having a conversation with his two brothers in his brothers’ house, he walks around the house and at last sit on a lazy chair, the camera pan right to left follow his movement and tilt down when he sit on the lazy chair. In A bout de soufflé, one of the pan shot that use to control the visual is when Michel was chasing a car. The shot start by seeing Michel running and follow his movement pan to right and showed that he was chasing a car.

Next is track shot. The purpose of track shot is similar to pan shot but track shot can show on people around doing different things at the same place at the same time too. Track shot had applied in Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) when shooting the establish shot in the museum. The happening and people around in the museum is slowly came into audience visual when the track shot also control what to seen and what should not.

Besides that, point of view of character is also often applied in French New Wave film. In A bout de soufflé, when Patricia looking at Michel through her rolled poster in the hotel room, point of view of Patricia was used to show Michel reaction that also looking at Patricia. The same technique as well used to show Michel’s point of view when he was driving on the road. In shoot the piano player, point of view of Charlie used to show the audience that the antagonists, Momo (Claude Mansard) and Ernest (Daniel Boulanger) was waiting outside his house when he looks throughout his brother’s room window.

Camera handheld technique is also preferred by the French New Wave filmmakers. In A bout de soufflé, the camera was held by a cinematographer while sitting on a wheelchair to follow the character’s movement in a travel agency’s office. In Shoot the piano player, handheld technique can be seen in the gunshot scene at the end of the film when Lena was afraid and ran to seek for Charlie.

Another characteristic of French New Wave movement is the Elliptical editing technique that practically used for producing film. The technique removes the continuity in time and space between shots. The most extreme form is jump cut. Jump cut is used almost throughout the film A bout de soufflé. Along the way Michel drove Patricia to a café to meet up the American journalist, there are about eleven jump cuts in 1 minutes and 14 seconds scene. In the meanwhile, the brightness of lighting for the jump shot scenes shows discontinuity of the brightness.