French New Wave Cinema

French "New Wave cinema" is directly linked to the overarching concept of a "national cinema." At issue herein is the question of how successful French filmmakers have been in creating a "national" cinema that addresses or depicts relevant social and political themes or issues that define a film as being from a particular country subsumed within the ideology of the "New Wave." Such a film, as referenced by Aaron Sultanik (1986), is readily identifiable as positioned ideologically as well as physically within the context of events or ideas shaping the socio-political landscape of a country.

By examining a selection of films by two French filmmakers - Claude Berri and Bertrand Blier - it will be argued in this report that France is home to an established "national cinema" that does represent the country's guiding ethos and which is firmly positioned with the larger context of the "New Wave." Additionally, as a product of French cultural rhetoric meant for French and international audiences, this "national cinema" is a multifaceted set of artifacts that have the twofold creative purposes of entertaining and promoting French art; invariably, of course, films are business "products" as well that re designed to make money for producers and film companies.

Stephen Nottingham (2008, p. 1) described New Wave French film as follows:

During the late 1950s and early 1960s young film-makers in many countries were creating their own "new waves", for example the

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ly original." The three key aspects of his filmmaking are the fact that he works within a French tradition of contestation, he subverts form as well as content, and he employs a carnivalesque approach in all of his films. These characteristics owe much to the work of New Wave directors such as Godard, and Truffaut. Like his predecessors, Blier often draws upon French culturally marginalized traditions based on the concept of la fete or carnival. One of the Blier's films that reflects the influence of New Wave is Preparez Vos Mouchoirs or Get Our Your Handkerchiefs. According to McCusker (2007), the film examines the complications of sexuality in a love affair and the ways in which men and women make compromises with one another and with their own desires. The film is a descendant of the work of New Wave filmmakers who also investigated the relationships that men and women construct as they attempt to make sense of their lives (McCusker, 2007). This particular film appears to owe something as well to the work of Bakhtin in that it represents an absurdist and carnival-like environment found within the summer camp where the central female character spends time (Harris, 2001). The theme of this film is the sexual frustratio

Category: Film - F