Dir. Mathieu Kassovitz
Cinematographer. Pierre Aim
1995
Dir. Spike Lee
Cinematographer. Ernest Dickerson
1989
The key narrative and technical conventions of French New Wave:
Film Theorists Andre Bazin who co founded the French magazine Cahiers du cinema in 1951 and Alexandre Astruc who wrote a film essay titled ‘Birth of a new avant-garde: la camera stylo’ both believed in the theory of the ‘camera-stylo’ or “camera pen”. This was the concept of how film directors should be held responsible for the audio and visual features of the film, rather than just the writer of the screenplay and is therefore deemed to be the “author” of the movie. This theory was known as the ‘Auteur Theory’ and would be commonly linked with French directors of the French New Wave like Francois Truffaut and Jean-luc Godard.
French New wave had many characteristics which were stark contrasts to previous movements like German Expression and Hollywood Films like the emphasis of realism in the mise-en-scene that gave the audience an unbiased view of the world. Also the repetitive use of jump cuts and long takes like in the film Breathless (1960) that rebelled against the traditional use of shot reverse shots in conventional cinema.