Breathless - French New Wave

According to Susan Hayward, French New Wave left an important footstep in film history in the late 1950s.The rise of a new generation of filmmakers all around the world who disobey with their elders in the industry has created a new wave in the industry and the most influential of these groups were from French.

The most important movement done in French New Wave was these young filmmakers fight against the prevailing trends such as literary adaption which means the movie made by the story from a book, costume drama and massive co-production. The young generation of filmmakers in the late 1950s wanted to do more whether on screen or behind the screen. The appearance of the new wave of filmmakers caused the older filmmakers dying off in a short period. In the mid-1950s, these young men wrote for the Paris film journal Cahiers du Cinema which the content about the critics on the most respected French filmmakers of the day.  The authors write about the Film Noir and watched a lot of unreleased films. 

Became a writing criticism do not satisfied the young filmmakers and they decided to start to make a movie with borrowing money from their friends. These young filmmakers always rejecting the French filmmaker's establishment with the Hollywood's commercials. The principles of these filmmakers usually did not have literally write a script and must reject the montage aesthetics and insert directors' personalities into his/her studio products. Before the French New Wave occur, Hollywood control the film industry. Back in those days, Hollywood famous in their continuously editing to create the similar edit. They love to create a film world to pull the audience into a part of the movie. However, the French New Wave filmmakers always wanted to transcend the constraints of Hollywood's standardize system. They will reject all the strong editing and prefer use mise-en-scene to create a movie. For them, visual is very important as well as the film must include emotion and psychological elements.

Due to they do not associate with any group, they started to create low-budget and non-studio films. They have their own thought in making films and do not stuck in the studio based system. The director in French New Wave able to become an artist who making a real film art by no third party's controlling. The filmmakers show proficient and mature with each successive film to become an author. The economic situation for these filmmakers was independent with no studio interaction but with a low budget which means they do not have own studio and money.

The characteristics of French New Wave film somehow has some similarities with Italian Neorealism as these young directors had admired the Neorealists. They did not progress the studio filmmaking but shooting on actual location. They took the views of Paris as their mise-en-scene. They prefer to use natural light source rather than glossy studio lighting. The filmmakers loved to use shooting techniques such as panning, tracking to follow characters and long takes. Hence, Eclair had developed a lightweight camera that could be handheld and these filmmakers were crazy in love with this camera. On top of that, the filmmakers created unique editing skill as well to reject the film traditions such as jump cut and elliptical which means mouth do not sync with the voice we heard. The characters in the film will not follow the script and sometimes they will look into the camera and enter monolog mode. New Wave film has a casual humor as their special characteristic and the narratives often introduce startling shifts in tone and jolting our expectation.

Breathless is a 1960 French film which written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The film is about a youthful criminal, Michel who steal a car in Marseille and shot a policeman. He tries to escape from the police forces and falls in love with an American named Patricia at the same time.Patricia hides him in her apartment as he simultaneously tries to seduce her and call in a loan to fund their escape to Italy. Patricia says she is pregnant and most probably is Michel’s, however, she notices that Michel is on the run when questioned by the police. In the end, she chooses to betray him, but before the police arrive she tells Michel about this. The police shoot him in the street end, after a long run, he dies out of breath.

The most obvious New Wave characteristic can be found in this film is the editing technique, jump cut which brings a discontinuously editing in the scene where Michel shots down the police. On top of that, the whole film was shoot on in actual location but not a studio filmmaking. In the beginning of the film, Michel is driving on a road and talking in front of the camera as he is talking with us, the audiences. This can often remind us that we are watching a film by not enter the film world. Plus, the characters dialogues were not script based hence they were natural in talking with each other some more they will use hmph a song to complete the particular of a shot. The real life conversation makes they talk a lot in the movie for example Michel and Patricia's interaction in her apartment. It is not hard to find several shots are very shaky and unstable as they prefer the handheld camera to shoot the film.

Bicycle Thieves (Italian Neo-Realism)

Italian Neo-Realism is a film movement happened in post-WW2. Its appearance caused by the new generation of young filmmakers want to create a new style of Italian films.

During the pre-war, films have to help the government in propaganda purpose. Because during that time, the technology unable to let the government pass their message to the mass audiences hence they use films as the tools.

In Mussolini ruling era, films are not allowed to show the reality of the current society's situation to promote the beauty of Italy. At the same time, Italian Film School and Hollywood have established, the young filmmakers want to break against the fascism and produce a moral and an aesthetic cinema.

By 1943, without the controlling by fascism, the filmmakers think that they should eliminate the old cinema and start to focus the reality of the society to confront the audiences who also involve in the same situation.

Italian Neo-Realism has some similarity with Hollywood production such as they follow the three-act structure, hero journey format and features famous stars.

The young filmmakers have set up some principle to conduct the style and content of this film movement.

The films must tally with the ordinary people's life and focus on contemporary social realism which means the particular issue that not happened over one to two day(s). The films should concern about the social's problems such as unemployment and poverty that so common in the post-war period in Italy. Use non-professional actors to bring the realism on dialogue, body language to make them become more natural. The production stage should proceed out of the studio which means preferred location shooting. Shooting in outdoor able to shoot under the natural light and using observation to produce documentary's style of shooting.

Neo-Realism became a unique film movement as the sound equipment was rare at that time so they need to arrange the mise-en-scene by shooting on actual locales. Plus, they required for realism hence they often need to shoot on streets or in buildings and this caused the Italian camera operators expert at cinematography to avoid three-point lighting. The filmmakers start to work in a smaller team to move the camera freely.
The narrative form of the Neo-Realism film has a huge differ from the earliest films. In the old films, the endings usually are not a happy ending but in Neo-Realism, the endings often are unknown although the contents of the films are related to poverty and unemployed issues. The narrative style is matched with our reality life as our future is an unknown.

'Bicycle Thieves' is about Antonio Ricci gets a job offering which is posting advertisement poster in the city area but it requires a bicycle. His wife, Maria sells all of the bed sheets to the pawn shop to redeem Antonio's bicycle. Unfortunately, Antonio's bicycle steal by a young man. Antonio unable to chase the young man and go to report to the police. On the next day, Antonio brings his son, Bruno, along and find the bicycle with his friends. They meet a lot of trouble in their journey but still unable to find the bicycle. In the last part of the film, Antonio asks Bruno meet him at Monte Sacro by taking the public transport. Antonio steals other's bicycle but knocked down by the crowd. Bruno missed the public transport and he runs towards to his father. The owner of the bicycle let Antonio go because of Bruno. Antonio and Bruno walk towards the crowd as the ending of the film.

'Bicycle Thieves' has all of the features which matched with Italian Neo-Realism film movement. Firstly, the mise-en-scene of the film was adapted from the actual post-war location which in the beginning of the film where Maria carrying the water from a well.

It has shown the poverty in the post-war period, men are desperate to find a job while the women carry the water from a well which located far away from their home to take care of their family. Everyone are urgent need the money as there are always having a long line at the pawn shop to use their stuff to exchange money. Next, we can see that some of the innocent people will believe in seer to determine their future. I think that the filmmakers are trying to mock the people who willing to spend their money on the seer but not to use the money wisely.

On top of that, the using of the non-professional actor makes the film more realistic as Antonio perfectly brings out the feel of a working man struggles in the hardships in his life and try to make his family have a better life. Because of the nonactors do not how to act, hence the dialogue, accent, body language are familiar with the audiences.

Last but not least, the ending of the film is unknown as Antonio and his son walk towards the crowd does not reflect anything in their future. It may causes the audiences to think about it. Will they manage find the bicycle? Or Antonio's friends found the bicycle? Or Antonio wll lose his job?

The Maltese Falcon (Film Noir)

Film Noir is a film movement born in the 1940s and it is similar to American thriller film. At first, people do not call as 'film noir' but crime film. Because of the lifting ban on France movie, the new-looking films start coming in. People treat these new phenomena as a film movement but not as a genre because it can be referred as thriller or gangster movie but also can look as Western movie and melodrama at the same time.

Film Noir starts to notice the visual and the character's design is very different from the past. Noir means black or dark so all of the movies are in black and white. Film Noir has the cinematography similar with German Expressionism (1920s) such as low key lighting, high contrasts, deep shadow and diagonal camera angles. There are certain characteristics can be found in Film Noir, for example, chiaroscuro which means light-dark as a principle of contrasting lighting. The special location and setting of the Film Noir have made it very special as well as low-key lighting, high-contrast visual and the psychology issue happen in the protagonist. The setting in Film Noir often is city-bound with rain-washed street and interiors and always shots by the diagonal camera angles which referred to German Expressionism. The setting of the Film Noir always wants to give the audiences have a sense of danger and mystery. The reason is to create unbalance and not normal atmosphere as the there has a crime happened.

Shadow become a feature which makes Film Noir become famous.

Shadow reflects blurred moral values to create good and bad figure at the same time.

The film's characters are different in the past character's design. In previous, the characters in films are purely good or purely bad. But in Film Noir, the protagonist is not a hero but not completed badly. Just like the reality world, there are not a good guy in this world.

The femme fatale appears in Film Noir as it is about the power relation and sexual identity. The female status in society become more important because the women start to join the work field and start to make money during the war period as the men need to join the army force to defence their country. When the men return from the war, they started being suspicious and questioning about their masculine identity.

Film Noir portraits femme fatale as the central role with active, intelligent powerful to achieve their goal with courage and wisdom. These women able to do something which men usually do such as holding a gun or cigarette. What a man can do, a woman also has the capable to do it. In Film Noir, the murder case is not so important but she will become the male's investigation target. However, in the end of the film, women usually get her punish as the film is struggling of the voices controlling the narrative diegesis.

Because of the war, the status of male and female has a huge evolution. Film Noir can be viewed as the male start to concern about the women power and their economy growing in 1940. The 1950s Film Noir start to concern about the value of family life to make the men gain back their status as well as the national identity. 

Maltese Falcon is about two private detectives, Sam Spade and Miles Archer take over a case reported by Miss Wonderly who claims she wants to find his sister who involves with a man called Floyd Thursby. At the night, Spade receives a call informed that Archer has been killed. In the next morning, Spade goes to find Ms. Wonderly, now calling as Brigid O'Shaughnessy and tells Spade Thursby killed Archer but do not know who killed Thursby. During Spade investigating the murder case, he meets Cairo and talking about 'a black figure of bird'. A big boss, Gutman offers Spade $10,000 for the falcon. In the end, Spade calls the police force to arrest Gutman, Cairo, and Wilmer. Although Spade has fallen in love with O'Shaughnessy but he still let the police takes her away since Spade knew that she is the one who killed Archer.

Maltese Falcon is a classic Film Noir as it is black and white, and the story plot begins with the investigation and murder cases. Most of the scenes are in high-contrast lighting and occur a lot of shadows.

The camera angle that shoots on characters' faces usually through the low angle to create their faces become bigger and make the audiences have a sense of threat.

My favourite part in the film is on the characters especially Spade. He is smart to solve any cases but in the same time, he loves money and woman. He has the capability to become the hero but he does not want to be the hero. Spade is the main character with flaws as in the reality world do not have a good people. O'Shaughnessy is a smart girl who knows how to use her beauty and sexuality to complete her goal, makes Spade falls in love with her and make him confuse in the investigation. But in the end, Film Noir's setting has punished her. In the last scene, the steel bars of the lift portrait she is going to jail.

Filmmakers love Film Noir because of the cool visual and the psychology of the character is more realistic. Although Maltese Falcon is a classic Film Noir, but I not in love with the film because the dialog is very hard for me to understand and the speed of their talking is fast. Since it is black and white film, I confused with the time frame in the film because I can't identify the daylight or night time.