Product Description

"Here is a lavish history of the film movement that spawned the careers of Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and a number of other important contemporary filmmakers. Douchet... considers his subject from almost every possible angle."--Library Journal. "A landmark in film scholarship."--Cineaste

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #548605 in Books
• Published on: 1999-07-02
• Released on: 1999-07-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

Amazon.com Review
A coffee-table book on the Nouvelle Vague (or New Wave) filmmakers might be considered a contradiction in terms. Yet as big and well-designed as it is, with all those creamy photographs, it still manages to look like the smart, perverse product of that band of outsiders who in 1950s Paris decided to overturn the last generation. In Jean Doucet's story, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, and Eric Rohmer all shucked their day jobs in film criticism to begin making films with borrowed cameras and their raw nerve, hunting their cinematic forefathers--Jean Renoir, Marcel Carne, and Marcel Pagnol. Doucet's lively book is true to their vision too. With its jazz album fonts and tinted photographs of young men smoking, it gives no corner to dumbness, and much space to the coolness of being alive during that time. Through 350-plus pages, Doucet, a philosopher who knew the filmmakers, covers the early days of the Cinematheque Français, where all the filmmakers met and watched Chaplin, Griffith, and Murnau; the emergence of Cahiers du Cinéma, where they published witty, polemical essays, as the center of their revolution; and the films themselves, beginning with Truffaut's 400 Blows in 1959 and Godard's Breathless in 1960. Doucet reproduces film reviews of the period and includes copies of old cine-club programs, newspaper stories, and a final chapter on "new waves" in Iran, Czechoslovakia, Brazil, and even the U.S. (see Jim Jarmusch). A probing, affectionate look at the birth of a handful of movie-mad film students who changed the face of cinema. --Lyall Bush

From Library Journal
Here is a lavish history of the film movement that spawned the careers of Fran?ois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and a number of other important contemporary filmmakers. Douchet, who teaches film history at the French Cin?math?que and was a staff writer for Cahiers du Cin?ma, considers his subject from almost every possible angle, with essays on historical context, the use of light and sound, the differences between shooting in the studio and in the street, and the effects of the New Wave on other countries' cinemas. Biographical sketches of key figuresAfrom directors to actors to techniciansAplus a chronology of the movement round out the book. Would that Douchet's energy and ambition were matched by a more accessible approach. He's more critic than historian, and students looking for an introduction to this fascinating subject will be puzzled by all-too-frequently oblique allusions. Recommended for large collections and those with strong media components.AThomas J. Wiener, "Satellite DIRECT," Vienna, VA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Forty years later, the films of the nouvelle vague, the French new wave movement--playful, innovative movies by young directors rebelling against the studio-bound films of the time--remain some of the most esteemed and influential cinematic works. Influenced by American genre movies, Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and other critics associated with the magazine Cahiers du Cinema made such classics as Jules and Jim and Breathless quickly, on low budgets, and on location instead of sets. They enlivened their films with unconventional editing and narrative structures. Alternate chapters of this retrospective either detail directors' backgrounds and chronicle the movement's brief heyday (by the mid-'60s, the new-wave turks began going their own ways) or perceptively cover movement aesthetics and theory. The attractive oversize book features magazine-style design to evoke the energy of the films, reprints contemporary reviews, provides brief biographical entries on dozens of new wave participants, and includes a rundown of other cinematic "new waves" of the era. A welcome reminder that movies don't have to be about horny teenagers and noisy pyrotechnics. Gordon Flagg

Customer Reviews

Essential for serious film lovers!
Jean Douchet's book is a splendid chronicle of the French New Wave phenomenon. Generously illustrated and incisively written. Well-balanced. Illuminating profiles on New Wave icons like Godard, Anna Karina, Truffaut, Jacques Rivette.