Romance films have enthralled audiences since the inception of cinema. In France during the French New Wave, a film called Un Homme et Une Femme debuted in 1966. This film tells the story of a widow and widower that meet and fall in love though a series of chance events. An American film released in 1995 called Before Sunrise explores similar themes of romance and chance. The French new wave was a movement in French that emphasized simple dialogue, new filming techniques, and realism. All these themes are present in Un Homme et Une Femme. Likewise, Before Sunrise explores these same ideas with similar mechanics to tell a more modern love story. The similarities between these two films can be observed immediately if the viewer has seen both.
Aside from sharing the love story theme, Un Homme and Before share the element of chance. In Un Homme, the two main characters are unlikely to meet, due to different schedules although their children attend the same school. It is doubtful that the two will ever meet. In Before, the main characters are from different parts of the world on vacation, taking the same train, and met by accident. These chance encounters add an element of fancifulness to the romances the movies portray. The main lovers in both films have wistful romances that capture the heart of the audience.
A characteristic of the French new wave was the use of minimal and improvisational dialogue. In Un Homme, large amounts of the dialogue of the script were made up on the spot with the story being mostly an outline. The pinnacle of this improvisation was during the climax of Un Homme. The lead actress, Anook Aimee, was largely unaware that the director chooses to have the main character end up together. The loo...
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.... When looking at Un Homme and Before, the similarities are striking. It is straightforward to see the influence that the french new wave had on american filmmakers thirty years later, when looking at these two films. The unlikely circumstances of the characters’ meetings, the artistic elements, the reluctance of the characters to be together, and the existence of an extremely alike sequel all show how these two films are noticeably likable and similar to viewers of both.
Works Cited
"Before Sunrise." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2014.
Hitchman, Simon. "FRENCH NEW WAVE: WHERE TO START." French New Wave Film (Nouvelle Vague): Where to Start. NewWaveFilm.com, 2008. Web. 01 Mar. 2014.
Lanzoni, Rémi Fournier. French Cinema: From Its Beginnings to the Present. 1st ed. London: Bloomsbury, 2013. Print.
"A Man and a Woman." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2014.
1959 was an exciting year in the history of filmmaking. An extraordinary conjunction of talent throughout the globe existed. In France, Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette, and Resnais all directed their first films, thus establishing the French New Wave. In Italy, Fellini created the elegant La Dolce Vita, and Antonioni gave us L’avventura. Most importantly, though, in America, famed British director Alfred Hitchcock gave us the classic thriller North by Northwest, the father of the modern action film.
Greene, Naomi(1999) Landscapes of loss: The national Past of Postwar French cinema (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press)
Jean Luc Godard’s Breathless is often regarded one of the earliest films exhibiting the French New Wave style of cinema due to its influence on the movement and innovation by the producers. One of the most noticeable edits that Godard does in Breathless is the jump-cuts made frequently during conversations, and other times when one would expect continuity, in order to break up the flow of story to the audience and force them to actively participate on understanding the progression of events. This is quite contrary to the typical Hollywood style of film editing as transitions between shots are usually smoothed over as much as possible so that the audience focuses solely on the plot events transpiring on the screen rather than the editing
Nobody Waved Goodbye (Owen, 1964) and Le chat dans le sac (Groulx, 1964) are both canonized as “the beginning of a beginning” by Peter Harcourt. These two films were originally documentaries commissioned by the National Film Board (NFB) but made to be into feature films. In fact, they are considered to be the first real narrative films in Canada (Lecture 1). The reason they are “the beginning of the beginning” is because they reflect the different relationship of the French and English films to the documentary traditions of the NFB (Lecture 1) – essentially, the French versus the English tendencies of documentary film, and they are “distinguished representations of their respective cultures” (Harcourt 76). Nobody Waved Goodbye features the
There is no doubt that Louis Malle while making the movie Lacombe Lucien wanted the eyewitness to feel uncomfortable when watching it. In the film we have to judge for ourselves but at the same time try to understand what leads people to do things that they choose to do. Louis Malle attempted to tell a 'real' story of 'real' people, rather than the good vs evil caricature. Possibly Malle wanted us to feel discomfort while watching the movie so that we identify with the individuals more and in some way, very minor, experience the feelings they experienced which due to the times they lived were very complex and uneasy. He wanted to manipulate the medium of film in order to make the audience reconsider their preconceptions and because the film acts upon the conscious mind far more than any other form of art he managed to achieve his goal effectively. In the movie there are many scenes in which the audience can feel uncomfortable. Whilst it begins we see Lucien cleaning the floors in a hospital. As he walks towards the window, he sees a singing bird. Making sure that nobody is looking he takes out his slingshot and shoots the bird dead. When we see a close up shot of his face, Lucien seems rather proud of himself. << We don’t know whether to laugh at boy’s mischief or to be horrified by a cold blooded killing. >> Despite the fact that the bird is dead, Django Reinhardt’s joyful music is starting to play in the background. This is one of the first times when the audience gets a feeling of discomfort as we wonder why this music was chosen for the particular scene. At the same time we are aware it definitely was not a coincidence. Despite Lucien’s previous reaction, few scenes later he is shown as moved by stroking a dead horse whic...
...and the prince behind. This movie from afar seems like a different type of romance movie, but more analysis into it and there are noticeable similarities many with other movies.
While all this was taking place on the other hand in France a new movement was surging of blanket term devised by critics for some of the French filmmakers of the late fifties and sixties who were impacted by the Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood films. It initially was never a movement which was officially planned, but the up surging filmmakers were being connected to it because of their self-conscious dismissal of classical filmmaking methods and their spirit of young iconoclasm which was a sample of the European art movies. Many filmmakers were involved with their work as they tried to involve the social and political turmoil’s of the era.
Since the creation of films, their main goal was to appeal to mass audiences. However, once, the viewer looks past the appearance of films, the viewer realizes that the all-important purpose of films is to serve as a bridge connecting countries, cultures, and languages. This is because if you compare any two films that are from a foreign country or spoken in another language, there is the possibility of a connection between the two because of the fact that they have a universally understanding or interpretation. This is true for the French New Wave films; Contempt and Breathless directed by Jean-Luc Godard, and contemporary Indian films; Earth and Water directed by Deepa Mehta. All four films portray an individual’s role in society using sound and editing.
Lacey, N. (2005). Film Language. Introduction to film (pp. 16-22). Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
The purpose with this paper is to study and compare two different directors, and to compare and contrast the two different works. How are they working with their movies and how do they use mise-en-scene? By studying two different directors that uses different techniques when making movies, we are going to find out how important mise en scene really is, and how it affects the movie.
...rough what he or she revealed of universal human nature, rather than individual differences, forever changing French theatrical comedies.
According to historians like Neil Burch, the primitive period of the film industry, at the turn of the 20th century was making films that appealed to their audiences due to the simple story. A non-fiction narrative, single shots a burgeoning sense
The ‘New Hollywood Cinema’ era came about from around the 1960’s when cinema and film making began to change. Big film studios were going out of their comfort zone to produce different, creative and artistic movies. At the time, it was all the public wanted to see. People were astonished at the way these films were put together, the narration, the editing, the shots, and everything in between. No more were the films in similar arrangement and structure. The ‘New Hollywood era’ took the classic Hollywood period and turned it around so that rules were broken and people left stunned.
Love is a word that’s been both miss-used and over-used all at once. Romantic movies change our definition of and have a big impact on this definition greatly. There have been many movies and novels made over love, but never like this. “The Notebook” is a love story about unconditional love that two people have for each other. This emotionally, heart touching story will have your eyes blood-shot and burning from you not wanting to blink your eyes. This tremendously wonderful love story will have you not wanting to even miss a millisecond of this heart throbbing film. With many plot twists and many scenes that will have you falling off of your seat and you not having any nails by the end of the movie, this is the movie for you. This emotionally rich film is full of action, laughter, and romance, which is the perfect trio combination. This movie shows us how love can bind us together forever. This film went above and
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