Paper Summary:

This paper examines the French New Wave, one of the most significant movements in cinema's history, which occurred during the period of around 1958 to 1964 and contained a whole new interpretation of cinema and narrative techniques. In particular, it analyzes Jean-Luc Godard's films "A Bout de Souffle" and "Le Mepris" and comments on the way these films show Godard's relationship with the classical Hollywood period through the visual style and techniques he uses.

From the Paper:

"European cinema is felt to have gained its greatest strength in producing smaller-budget films as a reaction to the big budget genre films produced by the Hollywood studios. These are called "art-house" films, or "art cinema". Instead of the escapism and spectacle that Hollywood narratives offered, art cinema focused on realism (nouvelle vague), ambiguity and innovative styles. A Bout de Souffle (Breathless), Godard's first feature length film, set the tone for the French New Wave as it was one of the first successes to come out of the period. It is still very much discussed today as it offers a good example of the period's conventions. The film also uses many conventions of Hollywood genre narratives, but whilst it can be seen as pastiche, it could also be said that placing conventions from different cinemas also creates distance between them to allow for intellectual criticism. The film is based on a Hollywood type script by Truffaut, with a 1930's film noir style narrative."

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