History of Motion Pictures - Research Paper Example

Introduction In the late 1950s, a wave of young filmmakers swept France. These young filmmakers represented the New Wave. The New Wave was basically a sweeping out of old cinematic conventions, and bringing a fresh, young perspective to the movies. These young filmmakers pioneered new techniques and philosophies, techniques and philosophies that are still used by filmmakers today. While there were many people who were involved in this movement, and a list of people and their accomplishments are briefly explained, this paper will focus on two of the most influential of this movement – Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. Their accomplishments, pioneering efforts and new techniques arguably led the way in the movement, thus making these two directors arguably the most influential filmmakers of this period. Who were the influential directors, cinematographers and others in this wave According Taylor (1964), the French New Wave movement started with Roger Vadim, a young man in his late 20s, was married to starlet Brigitte Bardot, and was allowed to direct a film starring Bardot, and this 1956 film, titled Et Dieu crea la femme became an enormous critical and commercial success (Taylor, 1964, p. 201). This made producers more willing to gamble on younger directors, and the New Wave movement was born in France. Taylor states that the influential figures in this movement include directors Jaques Rivette, best known for his “strange, elusive, haunting film Paris Nous Appartient (Taylor, 1964, p. 201); Jacques Demy, known for Lola a film which is known for its genuine feeling, wit and charm. Screenwriter Marcel Moussy is also mentioned by Taylor as being influential in the movement, as screenplays for Les Quatre Cents Coups, Tirez sur le pianist and St. Tropez Blues displayed “the sort of free-wheeling youthful grace and freshness so many more pretentious films have striven for and signally failed to achieve” (Taylor, 1964, p. 202). Documentarians Agnes Varda, who produced documentaries that were reflections on her own temperament and Jean Rouche, who displayed mise en scene and cinema verite techniques in his documentaries about African subjects, were also considered influential in the movement (Taylor, 1964, p. 202). Marcel Hanoun, who, as a television director and cinematographer, “carried Bresson asceticism to its logical conclusion with a subtlety and restrained power”, is yet another influential figure of this wave (Taylor, 1964, p. 202). Another cinematographer, Raoul Coutard, lent his expertise with colors and backgrounds to films by Trouffaut and others (Taylor, 1964, p. 209). One of the most influential figures in the movement was Francois Truffaut. Truffaut established the theory that was perhaps the most influential in the New Wave movement, a theory which is known as the “auteur theory” (Baeque & Toubiana, 1999, p. 98). This term, although somewhat ambiguous, refers to the filmmaker as author, and that one’s body of works are important, not individual films within that body of works, and also that the mise-en-scene is what is important (Baeque & Toubiana, 1999, p. 99). In other words, what the director puts in the scene – the lighting, the focus, patterns, colors, actors, etc., is the mark of a good director, and these mise-en-scenes are important, because it enables a director to put his “signature stamp” on a body of work. This theory has become influential, not only on the French New Wave artists, but on all film artists, as each director, cinematographer, music composer, etc., develops a signature style that allows the audience to get a sense of each director, composer cinematographer, etc., and what they are about by viewing their body of work. Jean-Luc Godard was another major director of this time. Like Trouffaut, Godard started out as a film critic with Les Cahiers du Cinema (Taylor, 1964, p. 211). His influence on the movement, according to Taylor, is that he was fearless and willing to try absolutely anything (Taylor, 1964, p. 211). Some his cinematic signatures include his use of jump cuts; abrupt changes in mood, lighting and locale; and lending an air to his films of improvisation and unpremeditation, so that his films felt like they were made up as he went along (Taylor, 1964, pp. 212-213). According to Taylor, Trouffaut, with his first film, A Bout de Souffle, marked a decisive break with filmmaking conventions, more so than any other director (Taylor, 1964, p. 214). Like Trouffaut, Godard relied upon small touches, and he also relied upon sudden moments (Taylor, 1964, p. 215). He also pioneered using the worst takes in a movie, that movie being Une Femme est une Femme, a film starring his wife, Anna Karina, because the worst takes, such as when she forgets her lines or trips unexpectedly, are the most revealing about the actress (Taylor, 1964, p. 216). Godard also led the way in using natural light (MacCabe, 2003, p. 119). What were the major ideas put forth by these directors, etc.? Truffaut, in keeping with his notion that a director should be an auteur of his work, focused initially on place and atmosphere in his 1957 directorial debut, Les Mistons. In this, Truffaut put forth his own signatures, which included putting in odd, quirky moments into the film (Taylor, 1964, p. 203). In Les Mistons and his follow up work Les Quatre Cents Coups, Truffaut focused on telling the stories of adolescent boys through an exploration of their inner lives, their psyches, and telling these stories by showing the outward manifestations of what is going on inside. Truffaut accomplishes this masterfully by “a succession of small touches” that show the viewer what is going on inside, as opposed to telling them (Taylor, 1964, pp. 204-205). While Truffaut concentrated on creating an interior world for his characters by a series of mise en scenes, he also pioneered such techniques as the “iris” in which the camera darkens the screen so that only a small portion of the picture is visible and freezing shots (Taylor, 1964, p. 208). Using background color to set the scene was another technique used by Trouffaut (Taylor, 1964, p. 209). Whatever Trouffaut did, he established himself as a visionary, and his body of work reflected his auteur aesthetics, with a streak of romanticism and tenderness underlying his every work. Godard also was interested in representing the psychology and interiors of his characters, and he accomplished this, like Trouffaut, by showing, not telling. In his two of his movies, Une Femme est une Femme and Vivre sa Vie, he intended the films to be an expose of his wife, Anna Karina, and give the viewers an intimate portrait of her. He accomplished this by using her worst takes, as noted before, and by filming her various candid reactions to what is going around her in Vivre sa Vie (Taylor, 1964, pp. 217-218). His use of her unconscious movements and reflexes is a way to get inside the actress’ soul, and she was thus captured “spiritually naked” (Taylor, 1964, p. 219). Thus, Godard’s way of showing the interior of his characters, as well as the actress that plays these characters, is by capturing their impromptu mannerisms and other aspects that sets each actress apart from another. In this way, he exposes the soul of the actor, and, in turn, the soul of the character. What was going on during these times France, like the rest of the world, was going through considerable changes during the late 1950s, early 1960s. While not impacted by the Vietnam War to the extent that the American auteurs were, there was still considerable unrest. There were two camps when regarding the people who were influential on culture , according to Baeque & Toubiana – the leftist intellectuals who embraced Communism and humanism, and the right wing (Baeque & Toubiana, 1999, p. 84). Truffaut, at least initially, belonged distinctly in the right wing camp while being a film critic, going so far as to embrace American censorship (Baeque & Toubiana, 1999, p. 85). He also denounced films with a message, particularly if this message furthered the left wing agenda (Baeque & Toubiana, 1999, p. 84). This led Trouffaut to make his films by using mis en scenes to tell their stories, as opposed to having any broad political agendas, thus making his movies lighter and more scene driven then these earlier works, and also led him to base his films on his own vision, as opposed to the politics of the day (Baeque & Toubiana, 1999, p. 110). And, in general, France was experiencing a generational schism during the late 1950s, a schism that was echoed in America with the arrival of Elvis Presley and James Dean, and one of the hallmarks of this schism was that the teenagers of France, as with the teenagers of America, had some real spending power (MacCabe, 2003, p. 107). This was probably the single most important event to influence the New Wave movement, as the young people turned out more to see films, and they were the ones who were eager to see the fresh innovations of the New Wave directors, and their purchasing power encouraged producers to give these Young Turks a chance (MacCabe, 2003, p. 107). Impact The impact of these filmmakers is immense and cannot be underestimated. One of the most significant areas of impact is the Truffaut notion of filmmaker as auteur. Because of this philosophy, filmmakers body of work becomes their signature, so much so that, if one watches a certain movie, one can already tell who the director is, because the director’s signature is inherent in the film. For instance, one can always tell a Tim Burton film because of all the signatures that he uses with his films – the sense of whimsy, the fantasy, the general outrageousness, and the use of Johnny Depp as his actor and Danny Elfman for his scores. There are any number of touches that tell the viewer that they are watching a Tim Burton film, with the glaring exception of Planet of the Apes, which was missing virtually of all of Burton’s style, thus did not feel like a “Tim Burton film”. David Fincher is another example – there are certain techniques, such as very sudden zoom shots, and cuts that illustrate a point graphically, such as a cut to a penguin sliding down a hill in Fight Club, that are his signature, and also borrow from the French New Wavers who used this technique as well. One can always tell his movies. These are just two examples, and it can be said that most, if not all, directors develop their own style so much so that one can always tell when they are watching a certain film by a certain director. As Truffaut’s work Les Quatre Cents Coups established his signature, in that it established the way that Truffaut made a work his own by using small vignettes to illustrate his larger point, this is probably the most influential film in this regard. Beyond this, Godard’s technique of laying his lead actress bare for the world, psychologically, is probably also an influence on directors who use one actor habitually for film after film. Sydney Pollack and Robert Redford; Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert Deniro; Tim Burton and Johnny Depp – these are just a few of the cinematic pairings that are prominent in today’s cinema, as well as the cinema of yesteryear. One can say that, because these directors and actors know one another so intimately, that these pairings serve to lay bare the soul of the actors involved, just like Godard layed bare the soul of Anna Karina, his leading lady. Therefore, it can be argued that Godard’s films Femme est une Femme and Vivre sa Vie, are his landmark films, as these films established this sensibility of laying out an actor’s soul, so the directors who do the same with current actors are following in the footsteps of these two films. Recent Film that demonstrates the techniques The film I chose was Vanilla Sky by Cameron Crowe (Vanilla Sky). The reason why this film was chosen was because of the way that the film was made was reminiscent of the techniques learned about in studying the auteurs for this project. A brief synopsis of the film is as follows. David is a wealthy magazine publisher who inherited his wealth from his father, David Sr. David is a playboy who is careless with women, one woman in particular named Julie Gianni. Gianni is in love with David, while David is merely sleeping with Julie. At a party, David meets and falls in love with Sophia. They spend one magical night together that is not sexual at all, just sensual and intimate, as they talk all night and do not even kiss until the next morning. Julie follows David to Sophia’s apartment, and is waiting for David when he is leaving the apartment. David gets in a car with her, she confesses her truly feelings to David, then drives the car off a bridge, killing her and seriously disfiguring David. David, still in love with Sophia, pursues her, but she does not seem interested in him. Then, suddenly, he wakes up on a street and everything changes – Sophia is once again in love with him. Things start going wrong, however, as Sophia changes into Julie, and back again, which leaves David feeling like he is going crazy. When David is making love to Sophia, she changes into Julie once again which leads David to smother her with a pillow and kill her. He later finds out that he was no longer alive – that he killed himself, and gave his body over to a company known as Life Extension (LE) so that his body could be cryogenically preserved, and that, from the time he woke up on the street, he had been living in a lucid dream that was made possible by LE. Everything from that point on was a product of his imagination, as he conjured up characters, events and scenes. His world was literally of his own making. However, because of a technical glitch, his dream literally turns into a nightmare, as his guilty subconscious is what turns Sophia into Julie and vice versa. He ends up having his body reanimated and leaving the dream. Throughout the film, scenes of David’s life story are cut with scenes of him in a dark prison telling story to his prison psychiatrist. There are many parts of this movie which are reminiscent of new wave techniques. For instance, there is the use of color and lighting in this film – right from the scene where David, the protagonist, wakes up on a street to find Sophia hovering over him and ready to take him home with her, the use of color tells the viewer that there is something amiss about this scene – the sky is just too vivid, and reminiscent of a painting that David owned, and the world is just too light. The use of drab greys and dark lighting convey the sense of desperation David feels when he is the jail talking to his psychiatrist. The movie also featured many scenes that were juxtapositioned to one another that had radically different tones and feelings to them. A romantic scene where David spends the night with Sophia is cut to a scene of David in the dark prison, with a mask on, talking to the psychiatrist. The scene where David, desperately sad and lonely after Sophia rejects him at a nightclub, then lays down on the street, is immediately followed by a scene of him waking up to preternatural light and a vivid sky, and Sophia standing over him and taking him home with her. Scenes of horror for David, as Julie and Sophia change into one another, immediately turns into a scene of passionate lovemaking between David and Sophia, which just as quickly turns into violence as Sophia turns back into Julie in the middle of the lovemaking and David kills her. These are just a few examples of scenes that are roughly cut between one another that gives the viewer radically different tones and feels from one scene to the next. These radical changes in tempo were among the many techniques pioneered by Godard. Another way that this film is reminiscent of the French new wave filmmakers is by its use of music to tell the story. Truffaut demonstrated his own use of music to tell a story in his movie Fahrenheit 451, in which the music of Bernard Herrmann is used to set the mood for every scene. Vanilla Sky uses music to explain the action, as the words are clues to what is going on and what might go on. For instance, after David kills Sophia, snippets of Todd Rundgren’s song Can We Still Be Friends comes on, but cleverly, the music stops right before the line “we awoke from our dream/things are not always what they seem”. If one knows the song, one knows that this line is where the song cuts out. Thus, this song gives a clue to the entire meaning of the film, yet does it in a subtle way as the song cuts off right before the explanatory lyric. And, throughout the film, music and lyrics provide a key to our character’s feelings and motivations. There are other touches that are directly reminiscent of techniques Truffaut used. For instance, Truffaut used freeze frames. So did Crowe, in scenes where David and Sophia are making love. Truffaut and Godard used quick cuts – so did Crowe in the scene in the nightclub, where the camera cuts constantly between David watching Sophia dance, and Sophia dancing. There is a scene where everything stops completely around David, so that David is the only person moving and talking. There is a montage of quick cuts where David kills Sophia – snippets of him killing himself, snippets of Julie taking the place of Sophia in Sophia’s pictures, etc. are interspersed with the increasingly desperate lovemaking the ends in David killing Sophia. Truffaut used a technique called the “thinks” shot in which a character says “may my mother drop dead if I’m lying” which quickly cuts to a shot of a woman collapsing (Taylor, 1964, p, 208). Crowe uses a similar shot where David asks the technical support person who explains everything “and if I want my psychiatrist to come back…” which immediately results in the psychiatrist coming back, running towards David. That Crowe was influenced by the New Wave movement is made obvious by one fact. David has a poster of Jules and Jim hanging up in his bedroom, and this poster is constantly shown. Later, it is revealed that David conjured up Sophia’s persona of a kind woman by using the template of Jules in this movie, as Sophia is given Jules’ personality, kindness and warmth. Thus, the connection to a New Wave film is made explicit, as it is revealed that the character of Sophia is directly based upon the character of Jules in Jules and Jim. Conclusion The French New Wave is arguably one of the most influential of all film movements. These films brought a young, fresh perspective that cleared out cinematic conventions and pioneered such techniques as jump cuts, quick cuts, and using actors as souls laid bare. Truffaut’s philosophy of filmmaker as auteur is very influential today, as filmmakers put their signature on their works. The sensibility of the directors and filmmakers of this time have been transposed to influential filmmakers of today, and influential films, as shown by Vanilla Sky. Sources Used De Baecque, Antoine and Serge Toubiana. Truffaut: A Biography. New York, NY:Alfred A. Knopf. MacCabe, Colin. Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at Seventy. New York, NY: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. Taylor, John Russell. Cinema Eye, Cinema Ear. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1964. Vanilla Sky. Dir. Cameron Crow. Perf. Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Kurt Russell. 2001. DVD. Paramount Pictures, 2001. Read More