Consider this closing shot from the film, notice how the length of the tracking shot draws attention to the filmmaking process in a similar way to Godard’s camera, but in a tonally divergent manner. Truffaut's camera lingers on Antoine’s ceaseless running as a reflection of his existential journey - where is he running to? What is he running from? When Antoine reaches the seafront he has nowhere left to go, and turns towards the camera. It zooms in on his face and the film closes with a still-frame on this fleeting moment - Antoine looking directly into the camera, as if pleading with the audience for help. Where Godard’s breaking of the fourth wall is often playful and almost mischievous, Truffaut’s here in this moment feels sombre and introspective.
Despite being two of the most prominent members of the French New Wave, Godard and Truffaut ultimately disagreed on what cinema should be. Truffault felt there was still cinematic magic to be explored and Godard found it immoral to seduce cinemagoers, instead committing his work to revealing and experimenting with the realities of the filmmaking process. These divergent viewpoints seem reflected in the style and tone of their cinematic oeuvre, as detailed above.
Examples of French New Wave films
Although, like in any young vanguard of innovating artists, there were tensions and disparities of vision, the French New Wave directors comprised a healthy and highly influential catalog of films. Here is a list of some of the most impactful pieces of French New Wave cinema:
- The 400 Blows (Truffaut, 1959)
- Breathless (Godard, 1960)
- La Pointe Courte (Agnès Vada, 1955)
- Les Bonnes Femmes (Chabrol, 1960)
- Shoot the Piano Player (Truffaut, 1960)
- Pierrot le Fou (Godard, 1965)
- My Night at Maud’s (Rohmer, 1969)
- Céline and Julie Go Boating (Rivette, 1974)
The Legacy of French New Wave
The characteristics of New Wave cinema – jarring jump cuts and meandering existential plot lines – may no longer seem as cutting edge or novel as they once were; they seem to us now more trendy in a vintage sense. That is because the fast-paced nature of contemporary audio video culture continues to challenge our concept of the medium of film and the conventions we’ve come to recognize. Hence, French New Wave cinema tends to be confined to a particular historical moment; in fact, it is widely thought to have lasted a mere decade, with most of the influential French New Wave films made between 1959 and 1965.
What remains of the innovations of French New Wave cinema is the way in which cinema reflects the hand of the auteur. Michel Marie asserts as much in The French New Wave: An Artistic School, writing,