WORDS Eoin Livingston

Taking major influences from Italian Neo Realism, French New Wave began as a subversion of what film had become in the 50s and 60s, pioneering the now widely accepted auteur theory, which is the idea that the director of the film is the primary author of the work. Featuring stories with episodic, meandering structures that were popular because of their focus on current issues of the time and their open rejection of the style of literary works. Their experimental styles paved the way for Jean Luc Goddard’s À bout de souffle, a film which was the first to use the jump cut for stylistic purposes in its breathless experimental editing.

Many of the influential New Wave directors wrote for the magazine Du Cinema, which they used as a forum to discuss views on film and cinematic theory. The French New Wave was primarily influenced by directors Victorio Desica and Robert Rossilini as well as a number of classical Hollywood mavericks. Directors like Quentin Tarantino and Michel Gondry have repeatedly expressed their admiration for Godard, Truffaut and Rohmer, showing how French New Wave has clearly left its mark on modern cinema.