The French New Wave
"The French New Wave is one of the most significant film movements in the history of the cinema. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the New Wave rejuvenated France's already prestigious cinema and energized the international art cinema as well as film criticism and theory, reminding many contemporary observers of Italian neorealism's impact right after World War II. The New Wave dramatically changed filmmaking inside and outside France by encouraging new styles, themes, and modes of production throughout the world. Suddenly, there were scores of new, young twenty- and thirty-something directors, such as Louis Malle, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and Claude Chabrol, delivering film after film while launching a new generation of stars, including Jeanne Moreau, Jean-Claude Brialy, and Jean-Paul Belmondo.
As a result of new production norms and a cluster of young producers anxious to participate in this burst of filmmaking, roughly 120 first-time French directors were able to shoot feature-length motion pictures between the years 1958 and 1964. Moreover, many of those young directors made several films during those years—Jean-Luc Godard alone released eight features in four years-so the total number of New Wave films is truly staggering. The New Wave taught an entire generation to experiment with the rules of storytelling, but also to rethink conventional film budgets and production norms. A whole new array of options for film aesthetics was born, often combined with tactics from the past that were dusted off and reinvigorated alongside them.