I am still an amateur when it comes to French New Wave cinema and as a budding movie enthusiast that started purely with Hollywood films, the Nouvelle Vague, as the French calls it, offers a whole new experience, so much different from what I became used to.
My first taste of French New Wave was Vivre Sa Vie (My Life to Live) by Jean-Luc Godard starring Anna Karina. Again it was my first time to watch a Godard film and I was surprised by the camera movements, editing, and all other technical stuff about filmmaking. Everything was new.
It was not my first time to watch old movies, in fact, I saw older ones albeit Hollywood films such as Casablanca, Citizen Kane, and a couple of Charlie Chaplin films. But Vivre Sa Vie was so different in so many ways.
It took me two days to watch the film and absorb its content but it’s all worth it. Once I became used to the unconventional—or should I say un-Hollywood—style of camera angles, I was able to focus more on the story. Vivre Sa Vie is a character study about Nana, a young Parisian woman who struggles to break into films and become an actress but ends up in the abyss of prostitution.
Vivre Sa Vie is the story of every woman. Nana is an everywoman trapped in the realities of life. It is a classic in the sense that the story will never get old or rather will never be irrelevant because the social ills that concern the story of Nana still exist five decades after the film was produced and that I think is the crux of every film produced in the Nouvelle Vague era. It doesn’t dazzle us with sound effects, CGI, grand and intricate plot but rather Vivre Sa Vie and all other films from the French New Wave cinema movement confronts us with the truth.
I pity the French Cinema because it has no money. I pity the American Cinema because it has no ideas.
Jean-Luc Godard
With the help of technology, producing films is becoming much cheaper now. Independent films are starting to be a staple in today’s movie industry. Money is much less of a problem now for filmmakers than in Godard’s time. When I was first introduced to the French New Wave and after I saw Vivre Sa Vie, my first reaction was Nouvelle Vague is the precursor to the modern independent cinema. Although independent cinema is defined simply as films produced outside of the major studio system, for me it is beyond that definition. To be independent is to be able to pursue ideas, tell stories, that will not normally be financed by major studio system mainly because of the consumerist constraints of the movie industry. To be independent is to be able to confront the audience with the realities of life.
What's In The Frame 