|
|
Between Mainstream and Avant-Garde Filmmaking: The French New Wave and the Illusion of Realism
Ilić, Dunja ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (advisor) ; Vichnar, David (referee)
The thesis explores the French New Wave as a film school which made a break with classical filmmaking and became influential worldwide, but was then discarded as ideologically naïve in the politicized atmosphere before and after the year 1968. It aims to demonstrate that what allowed the New Wave to make groundbreaking changes in filmmaking, that is, what makes it avant-garde, is also what ultimately denies it this attribute: its concern for realism, an issue at the center of inquiries into the nature of film. The first chapter analyses the Wave's stylistic and ideological opposition to the Tradition of Quality in relation to the theory of André Bazin, the Wave's ideologue. The example of Chabrol's The Cousins shows the influence of Orson Welles's long takes and deep focuses which urge the spectator to judge him/herself, as in real life, the relations among characters, as opposed to the paternalizing editing devices of classical Hollywood and the Tradition of Quality. The second chapter analyses the Wave's most famous films, Truffaut's 400 Blows and Godard's Breathless, with the emphasis on the shift from Chabrol's formal realism to a psychological realism based in ambiguity, Bazin's key term. Breathless is understood as the Wave's avant-garde and a realist film which goes beyond realism. The third...
|
guest ::
